BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES PISH COMMISSION. 277 



SO.— LIVE FOO0FOR YOUNG FISH * 

 By Dr. SCIIWAAB. 



So many reliable reports have been made in detail on the. production, 

 shipping, and hatching of the eggs of food-fish, that a report of this or 

 that one's personal experience can scarcely add much to onr knowledge 

 of the subject. Some data may, however, be useful regarding the feed- 

 ing of young fish at the time when the umbilical sac disappears, and 

 wheu the lack of suitable food frequently causes deplorable losses of 

 promising fry. During last summer I made some observations regard- 

 ing live food in the hatchery of Karthaus-Prull. Quite young fish in 

 the beginning generally refused dead food, such as pounded brains, 

 veal chopped fine, fish entrails cut up small, which is eagerly taken by 

 larger fish; and every fish-culturist knows what trouble and perse- 

 verance is required to induce young fish to take this food. While young 

 trout, and especially the young of Salmo hucho, will take dead food, sink 

 ing to the bottom, only with great hesitation or not at all, it is surpris- 

 ing to see with what eagerness the young fish snatch at suitable live 

 food. Scarcely has the live food been placed in the tank when the at- 

 tention of the young fish is attracted to it, and immediately they be- 

 gin to chase it. In the beginning the young fish frequently dash past 

 the prey, as young chickens will often in their inexperience pick the 

 ground by the side of the grain; often they drop the food, to seize it 

 again immediately. Sometimes two or more make a dash at the same 

 object, or they endeavor to pull the half-swallowed prey out of the 

 mouth of some other fish. By the most ludicrous leaps and turns they 

 endeavor to hold fast to the live morsels and to swallow them. If we 

 compare the way in which young fish treat live food with the manner 

 in which they treat dead or unnatural food, we will at once become con- 

 vinced that live food is better adapted to their needs. As the experi 

 ments in feeding young fish with live food, begun last summer and con- 

 tinued till autumn, were successful, it is deemed proper to publish a re- 

 port ou them, -in the interest of other fish-cultural establishments, 

 although they cannot claim to be complete, because the time of observa- 

 tion and the space in which these experiments were made were limited. 



Besides some specimens of aquatic animalcules whose names we did 

 not know, the food consisted of — 



1. The Cyclops quadricornis ; and 



2. The larva and chrysalis of the Culex. 



The Cyclops quadrieornis belongs to a very numerous family of crus- 

 taceans which are found in puddles and ponds, are exceedingly pro- 



•" Lebendes Fut/er fiir junge Fische." From Circular No. 2, 1885, of the German 

 Fishery Association, Berlin, April 4, 1885. Translated from the German hy HERMAN 

 JACOBSON. 



