ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
11 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
Scpartmcnts: 
Mammals Aquarium 
W. T. Hornaday. C. H. Townsend. 
Birds Reptiles 
Lee S. Crandall. Raymond L. Ditmars 
William Beebe. Honorary Curator, Birds 
Published bi-monthly at the Office of the Society. 
Ill Broadway, New York City. 
Copy, 25 Cents Yearly! $1.50 
mailed free to members 
Copyright , 1922, by the New York Zoological Society. 
Subscription and Editorial Offices 
zoological park, n. y. c. 
Each author is responsible for the scientific accuracy 
and the proof reading of his contribution. 
Elwin R. Sanborn, Editor 
Because of the high cost of printing and engraving, the 
price of the Bulletin will be advanced to 25c for single 
copies and $1.50 yearly for subscriptions. 
Vol. XXV January, 1922 No. 1 
THE BRAND OF A LAMPREY 
By C. M. Breder, Jr. 
S OME time ago a correspondent of the Di¬ 
vision of Fish Culture, United States 
Bureau of Fisheries, submitted two tails 
of the King salmon, presumably Oncorhynchus 
Tschawytscha (Walb), with peculiar disciform 
marks on them, writing that he had seen over 
fifty fish marked in a similar manner. Appar¬ 
ently he was fully convinced that these marks 
were made by employees of the Bureau by means 
of a brand or stamp of some nature. The cor¬ 
respondent admitted his inability to decipher the 
characters constituting the marks but stated 
that he thought the return of the tails would be 
an aid of some value to the experimenters who 
had been engaged in marking these fish, which 
were taken in the Yukon River, Alaska, during 
the summer of 1919. 
The marks were however readily identified by 
members of the scientific staff as being made by 
a Lamprey, possibly Entosphenus tridentatus 
(Girard). The probable reason for these marks 
being found only on the caudal fin is that in 
other cases where the lamprey had attached it¬ 
self to the body, it was able to secure a better 
hold on its victim and either kill the fish or make 
the deep characteristic wound universally recog¬ 
nized by fishermen as the work of this creature, 
whereas in the case of the present examples 
owing to their attachment to the extreme pos¬ 
terior and the leverage that the fish could exert 
enabled them to more readily throw off the 
parasite, thereby allowing it only to leave the 
imprint of its mouth and suctorial disc. Alter¬ 
SUCTION SCAR MADE BY THE MOUTH OF A LAMPREY J 
ON THE TAIL OF A PACIFIC SALMON 
natively it might be supposed that the fact that 
the Lamprey having found itself attached to 
such an unsucculent part of a fish as the tail, 
caused it to relinquish its hold voluntarily in 
favor of searching for other more profitable 
hosts. 
There is on record mention of similar cases 
where the party finding such marks even went 
so far as to hazard a guess as to the legend and 
date printed thereon. In this connection it 
might be mentioned that the United States Bu¬ 
reau of Fisheries has never attempted to mark 
fish by means of brands that could possibly 
make such a mark, having always confined their 
efforts to attaching various metal tags and but¬ 
tons or to the clipping of fins in diverse man¬ 
ners. It is likewise understood that any brands 
or stamps that may have been tried by other in¬ 
stitutions were no doubt especially designed to 
be of a different shape than that of the nearly 
circular Lamprey wound in order to avoid just 
this confusion. —C. M. B. Jr. 
A BUSINESS VENTURE IN LIVE EELS 
By C. H. Townsend 
T HE annual catch of eels along the Atlantic 
Coast from Maine to Florida exceeds three 
million pounds and is worth a quarter of 
a million dollars. New York’s share of the eel 
supply is a large one, sometimes exceeding 
half a million pounds a year, but perhaps New 
York can use more. 
