48 Fish and Game Warden. [Bull. No. 1. 



before completely divulged. For many years we do not re- 

 member of having dressed a fish of any size that we did not 

 cut its stomach open to see what it had been feeding upon, 

 and for many years past notes have been written upon the 

 subject of "The food habits of fishes." Hundred and hundreds 

 of Black bass's stomachs have been opened and written notes 

 of over three hundred specimens kept, and as a result of 

 this investigation we believe that it can be said with a reason- 

 able amount of certainty that the major part of the food of 

 the Black bass, at least in Kansas, is made up of fish — both 

 minnows and young fish of nearly every variety entering 

 into the food mass. 



Crayfish and frogs are eaten quite extensively under cer- 

 tain conditions and in certain localities. But few insects have 

 been found except in the stomachs of the smaller specimens of 

 basses, those ranging in size from one to nine or ten inches 

 in length. In the larger specimems, minnows and young fish 

 constitute at least seventy-five per cent of the food mass, while 

 crayfish, frogs and all other material constitute about twenty- 

 five per cent. Specimens taken from small lakes and ponds 

 show a much larger percentage of fish food than those taken 

 from creeks and small rivers.* Twenty-seven specimens 

 taken just as they came, in the month of May, 1904, at Lake 

 View, showed absolutely nothing but fish food, while an equal 

 number of specimens taken in the spring months from the 

 Wakarusa river years before showed only about sixty-five per 

 cent fish food — crayfish in that particular instance making up 

 about twenty-five per cent of the total mass, frogs and other 

 material the other ten per cent; yet there were an abundance 

 of minnows and young fish in the Wakarusa. This would 

 indicate that the Black bass likes crayfish food and takes it 

 quite freely even when fish food is quite common and ac- 

 cessible. 



Frogs are eaten to a very considerable extent, but the 

 supply is never great at any one time, at least in bodies of 

 water where Black bass live, and they enter into the bass's 

 regular bill of fare only as a morsel that is sometimes taken 

 as a delicious dessert. 



KIND AND QUANTITY OF FOOD EATEN. 



The Black basses are voracious eaters from the time they 

 first begin to feed, and the older and larger the specimens 

 the more they consume. While fish and crayfish, when they 

 are present, constitute the great bulk of their food, many other 

 living and moving things are sometimes taken, and we are 

 not sure — looked at from the standpoint of the bass — whether 

 these things are taken on account of hunger or just to vary 

 the regular routine of diet. 



* The author is speaking of the Large-mouth Black basses that he 

 has studied in the state of Kansas. 



