104 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
HOSTS THAT ARE SPECIHC DISTRIBUTORS. 
Skipjack (Pomolobus chrysochloris) . 
This beautiful fish, variously known as “skipjack,” “herring,” and, at New Boston, 
111., as “nail-rod,” is of rather erratic habits, being abundant at times at certain places 
along the Mississippi, and at others one of the rarest of fishes. The fishermen at New 
Boston tell me that at times it is very abundant there, usually in September, but at 
other times entirelj'^ absent. Mr. Will Morris, of Fairport, informs me that a number of 
years ago while in a flatboat lying off the point of an island in the Mississippi near 
Lansing, Iowa, he caught these fish nearly as fast as he could pull them aboard, using a 
common spoon hook. They take live minnows readily also, but the New Boston fisher- 
men tell me are very rarely caught in a trammel net, most of those taken being secured 
by means of seines, or hook-and-line fishing in the vicinity of the wing dams. F requenting 
the most rapid water in the river, particularly that having a rocky, gravelly bottom. 
Skipjack {Pomolobus chrysochloris). 
the skipjack is predaceous in habits, feeding mostly on minnows, and Forbes tells us 
the young feed on insects. I do not believe this fish is nearly so rare as we might infer 
from Dr. Forbes’s records as given in his “Fishes of Illinois,” but that the fishermen pay 
no attention to it at all, considering it a nuisance and immediately throwing overboard 
all that are caught. 
The geographical range of this fish, as given by Jordan and Evermann, is “Mississippi 
Valley, etc., abundant and resident in larger streams; introduced into Great Lakes. 
Also in Gulf of Mexico.” 
The range of 0. ebena as given by Simpson is “Mississippi drainage generally 
except its western portion; Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers; northeast Texas (?).” 
The importance of the skipjack to mussel culturists prompts the hope that it may 
be possible in the course of time to propagate this fish artificially, and in the meantime 
it is suggested to those who believe in the introduction of western forms into eastern 
waters to try one of its eastern congeners, P. psetidoharengus or P. (Bstivalis as an experi- 
mental host for this desirable mussel. The introduction of mussels into other waters by 
