BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES I IS1I COMMISSION. .'541 

 SPAWNING OF AMERICAN BLACK BASS IN GERMANY.— Max von 



dem Borne, writing from Berneuchen, June 22, L885, says: "M3 L3 

 black bass have spawned. I have caughl 1 1.800 of the fry and placed 

 them in ponds that have no other fish. 1 am now almost certain thai 

 this fish will be plentiful in a lew years in my neighborhood." 



Food of carp.—" It is almost incredible," says t lie Deutsche Fiacfo n I 

 Zeitung, " that for hundreds of years man should have been engaged in 

 the culture of an animal without knowing on what it feeds; ami yet such 

 is the case with respect to the carp. The fish is treated in the methods 

 bequeathed by tradition, and nature is left to do the rest. One after 

 another has said that carp feed on vegetable matter.** It appears from 

 a long and carefully carried out series of experiments made by Mr. .1. 

 Susta, director of the Wittingau carp fishery, that carp feed chiefly — 

 indeed, he asserts exclusively — on animal food, and that what little veg- 

 etable matter it takes into its stomach is taken in by accident when the 

 fish is grubbing after larva? and insects. "The greenish color of the 

 food found in the carp's stomach has given rise to the idea that it was 

 vegetable matter; but as soon as Mr. Susta made a closer examination 

 he got rid of the green color arising from the gall, by washing, and 

 found the contents of the stomach to consist almost exclusively of ani- 

 mal remains. Carp full of food were taken from a whole series of ponds 

 and examined, and it was proved that the larvae of flies, small crusta- 

 ceans of the Daphnia and Cyclops genera, as well as the larva? of Phry- 

 ganida', form the principal food of carp." 



" It has been calculated that in one year a female Cyclops would be- 

 come the progenitor of more than four billions of young.'* The various 

 species of the genus Cyclops abound in inland waters all over the world. 

 [Fishing Gazette, April 4, 1885.] 



WHITE HERONS EAT THEIR WEIGHT. — Among the entertaining tea 

 tures of the State carp ponds are two white herons under domestication. 

 Mr. Logan Terrell winged two of these snow-white creatures, and has for 

 some days kept them tied to a pole with a small cord. At times In- 

 takes the birds upon his arm and conveys them to the edge of the large 

 pond. Then, throwing in bits of cracker, he attracts myriads of shiners 

 aud roaches near the feet of the birds, who immediately begin to \WA. 

 One fish after another is caught between the beak and swallowed head 

 foremost. It is strange that as slick as a fish is they never drop one. 

 Each bird takes forty-five fish per day, the minnows being 4 inches Ion-. 

 Mr. Terrell wonders why any fish exist when such greedy foes beset 

 them .every day. [Raleigh Register, July 22, L885.] 



GRASS FOR CARP PONDS. — Dr. Bud. Bessel says that he lias found 

 carp eggs adhering in greater numbers to Festuca fluitam than to any 

 other plant. " Its narrow, long, strap-shaped, thin leaves spread softly 

 over the water's surface, as also its numerous branches in the water, 

 affording to the fish the sought-ibr opportunity to deposit its eggs upon 

 the tender leaves." 



