Part III.] 



Pond Fish Culture. 



99 



The smaller sunfishes, especially the yearlings, seem to be fond 

 of young bass, and make an especial effort to catch them. 



After the old male bass deserts the young brood, if food is 

 not plentiful and easy to secure, he too may begin to feed upon 

 the young fish which only a day or two previously he was 

 guarding with such jealous care. If there are any yearling 

 bass in the pond, left over from the previous year, they may 

 prove especially destructive to the younger and smaller bass. 

 If it is necessary that yearling bass be kept in a breeding pond, 

 there should be a good supply of minnows and other small and 

 young fish for them to feed upon. 



Certain insects, as the larvse of the dragon fly, also feed 

 upon the young bass. It makes the fish culturist who gets 

 such information by observing what takes place in his own 



ponds wonder that any young fish at 

 all survive. However, when we con- 

 sider that the parent fish deposits from 

 two to twenty thousand eggs, we can 

 understand how it is that it is possible 

 for from 1 to 10 per cent to survive 

 under not too unusual natural condi- 

 tions. When the fish are cared for in 

 ponds where the fish culturist has con- 

 trol of the water, a greater per cent 

 can be raised. If all the eggs hatched 

 and all the young fish lived, in a very 

 short period of time any ordinary body 

 of water would be almost a solid mass 

 of fish. 



If a hundred good breeding fish 

 were placed in an acre of water it 

 would be possible for the fifty females 

 to produce 500,000 eggs. If one-half 

 of these eggs hatched, there would be 

 250,000 young fish. It is conceivable 

 how a good body of water well stocked 

 with vegetation might produce small 

 animal life enough to support this 

 great number of fish while they are 

 small. However, as these fish grow and 

 become larger they eat more and more 

 in proportion to their size, and when they get to be from an 

 inch and a half to two inches long, small fingerlings* in size, 

 the amount of food of suitable kind and size required for such 

 an army of youngsters would be very great. Twenty-five 

 thousand, or 10 per cent of the hatch, raised to fingerling size 

 in the pond would be considered a fine crop, and can only be 

 produced where conditions are favorable. 



Nymph or immature stage of 

 dragon fly. Enlarged to twice 

 its natural size. It lives on 

 many different kinds of small 

 animals, including small fish. 

 It is very fond of mosquito 

 wigglers when it can get them. 

 It serves itself as food for 

 game fishes. 



* For explanation of the term "fingerling" see page 133. 



