COMMON FISHES OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER 
211 
migratory.” It thrives in the slack waters of Lake Pepin and of Lake Erie, and, ac- 
cording to Garman, “It seems quite at home in the swiftest current, and was caught 
with minnow bait from banks upon which the current strikes with a force which it 
would seem no animal could withstand.” 27 
References to the breeding habits of the drum are almost none. Furthermore, 
no fisherman was found who had any information to offer on the subject. It is hardly 
to be supposed that a fish of such broad distribution and adaptability as to environ- 
ment is geographically localized as to spawning grounds, unless it ascended small 
streams, such as are available from lakes or large rivers as well; but it is not found in 
small streams. Wagner found that in Lake Pepin “many females with ripe spawn 
occur by June 15.” Forbes and Richardson (1908) concluded, from the condition of 
specimens examined by them, that in Illinois the drum “probably spawns in the latter 
part of May or the first of June.” Circumstantial evidence indicates that it breeds 
in the south. Young fish 2.5 to 4.5 inches in length were frequently found in sloughs 
and lakes of Mississippi bottoms near Quincy, 111., in August, 1888. (Garman, 1890.) 
The drum was taken at Vicksburg, Miss., in July (Hay, 1882, pp. 58, 64), not long 
after the probable season of spawning, and at Arthur, Tex., and Fort Smith, Ark., in 
May (Meek, 1894, pp. 341, 344). These last records show that the drum were present 
in these southern localities some time near the season of spawning. Two small drum- 
fish, with respective lengths of 9.1 and 9.8 centimeters (3.6 and 3.9 inches), were col- 
lected by Henry McAdams in or near Lake Keokuk in September. About Keokuk in 
1916, as indicated by examination of approximately 150 fish in May, June, and July, 
the breeding season was chiefly in the second and third weeks of June. Most of these 
were taken in nets placed in the unfinished half of the power house. Evidently the 
fish breeds in the north and in the south, but the particular places and habit of spawn- 
ing of one of the commonest fishes of a large part of the country seems to be quite 
unknown. 
Because of the dark shade of the back and the distinctive form of the tail of 
the drum, one can soon learn to recognize it in the water. In 1915 the drum were 
frequently visible near the junction of power house and dam (below spillway No. 119) 
from June 7 to September 13. Some were seen in the inclosure of the unfinished part 
of the power house on May 27 and September 5 and 7. On July 3 the power company 
had a large number of drum removed from this inclosure, and of four examined 
three contained eggs, in one instance well-developed eggs. In 1916 four small fyke 
nets used in that inclosure during June took 135 drum, constituting 54 per cent of 
the total catch of fish in the nets. None was seen from the surface near the dam until 
July 10, but they were thereafter noted occasionally until September. Drum ranked 
about fifth in abundance among the fish stranded below the dam in July, 1913. 
(Coker, 1914, p. 10.) 
Our attention was more than once arrested by the presence of drumfish in the 
lock. Both in 1915 and in 1916 they ranked next to buffalo fishes and quillbacks 
in the numbers stranded on the lock gate. They were found there most abundantly 
in the former year from July 4 to 10 and September 5 to 11, and in the latter year 
from September 17 to 23. In the catches in the trammel net on the lock gate the 
drum was exceeded in 1915 by the river quillback, the spotted cat, and the Ohio 
shad, and in 1915 only by the two species first mentioned. 
27 It would appear that Garman either exaggerated the force of the current or underestimated the swimming abilities of many 
kinds of fish. 
