NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 213 
Cayuga Lake with, six lampreys on it. A local fisherman claims to have captured a 
very large sturgeon which had 21 lampreys attached to it. 
In addition to the above list other valuable fish which have been attacked are 
the whiteflsh, pike, muskellunge, bass, perch, lake trout, wall eyed pike, redhorse or 
mullets ( Moxostoma macrolepidotum and M. aureolum), the eel ( Anguilla chrysypa), 
drum ( Aplodinotus grunniens ), white bass ( Roccus chrysops ), and others. In fact, of 
the 74 species of fish found in Cayuga Lake basin, none is known to be free from 
its attacks except those too small for its attachment and support. Several injured 
specimens of the bowfin, mudfish or dogfish (Amia calva) have been seen; even the 
heavy-scaled ganoid, the gar pike or billfish ( Lepisosteus osseus ), is sometimes attacked. 
Fine specimens of lake trout ( Cristivomer namaycush ) with as many as five wounds 
on one fish have been found. With smaller fishes one attack sometimes proves fatal; 
often, however, the fish may survive the first attack and fall a victim to the second 
or even third. Only a fish of considerable size and vitality can survive five or more 
wounds without intervals for recuperation. 
The records kept in field work here show that lampreys are much more injurious, 
or a much greater percentage of fishes are injured in the early spring (February and 
March) than at any other time. This season of feasting may be to strengthen them 
for the long period of fasting and spawning, for it is shown that they not only refuse 
to feed during the spawning season, but owing to the atrophy of the alimentary canal 
they are entirely incapacitated for taking food. 
Professor Gage has estimated that the lamprey annually does as much in reduc- 
ing the available food-fish in this lake as all the work of the fishermen combined. 
He has also shown that of the bullheads captured in the lake 12 out of every 15 have 
been attacked by the lamprey. From careful observations made within the past 
year, the writer is prepared to confirm and emphasize both of the above statements. 
The attacks on the bullhead or catfish alone are of great importance. It is safe 
to say that hundreds of barrels (probably about 500,000 pounds) of these are placed 
annually upon the markets in the State of New York. In most cases they are dressed. 
No wonder ! Who wants to buy or eat fish with great festering sores or ulcers visible? 
And yet the bullheads are excellent food-fish. That their value is recognized by 
experts is attested by the fact that last year the State Fish Commission of New York 
furnished the State Fish Commission of Ohio with 1,200 of them for stocking certain 
streams in the latter State. 
From every economical standpoint it would appear to be advantageous to rid the 
world entirely of the lampreys. It would certainly be greatly to the advantage of the 
fisheries of the State of New York if all were destroyed. Naturally, however, the 
student of biology must mourn the loss of a form so interesting and so instructive. 
The questions naturally arise: “How can the fish be protected from the lampreys; 
and is it possible to remove the lampreys from our lakes? Thanks to the service 
science has rendered by the twenty-five years’ study of this subject by Dr. Wilder 
and Professor Gage, the modus operandi becomes comparatively simple, as shown by 
the following quotations from the latter’s paper. 
It 'will be seen that it [the lamprey] has one very vulnerable point, viz, leaving the lake and 
running up the tributaries to spawn. This seems to be the only point at which the lamprey can 
be attacked, and the hope of exterminating it is rendered still stronger from the fact that in Cayuga 
and Seneca lakes, so far as explored (during several seasons), the lampreys run up the inlet at the head 
of the lake only, and do not spawn in the tributaries entering the lake at intervals on each side. 
