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



bunches of little youngsters usually vary from one to two feet 

 in diameter. 



The individual fish in these bunches are usually moving in 

 and out. At times the entire school would take on a rolling, re- 

 volving or milling motion. Meanwhile this little cloud of fish 

 is slowly advancing in some one direction. We have watched 

 many of these fish families here in the Hatchery ponds from 

 the time they first made their appearance until the fish were 

 an inch or more in length. These family schools of fish 

 usually stay together until early fall, when they begin to 

 break up into smaller bunches and finally become scattered. 



When the water is clear enough it is not uncommon to see an 

 old parent fish swimming around and under the bunch of 

 young fry. It seems to be the object of the old fish to keep 

 the young fish near the surface of the water and near the 

 shore. The old fish swims around and under them. At times 

 the parent fish will make a quick motion with its tail. The 

 water will boil up and the little fish will make a sudden dash in 

 various directions and frequently go down and out of sight fo-r 

 a few moments or minutes. We have seen this performance 

 several times during the last two days. 



On various occasions we threatened to catch the old fish and 

 find out whether it was the male or the female that was caring 

 for the young. Then the thought of leaving such a bunch of 

 orphans dissuaded us from the idea, so that we do not know, 

 from examination of specimens, whether it is the male or the 

 female that is caring for the young. Some day we hope to 

 overcome our sentiment on this question and actually catch 

 and if necessary kill the fish that is caring for the young, and 

 find out whether it is the male or the female. The general 

 appearance of the guardian fish that we watched was that 

 they were of more slender build than females of the same 

 length would be, and this would indicate that they might be 

 males.* However, one can not be sure unless the fish are 

 caught and examined. 



Last year we found old fish guarding these bunches of mill- 

 ing young as late as September. The young were an inch or 

 more in length, which would indicate that, in some instances 

 at any rate, catfish guard their young for several weeks. We 

 usually see the first bunches of baby catfish about the first or 

 second week in June, which would indicate that here at the 



* Since the above was written we have taken three of the parent fish 

 that were apparently guarding the young, and found that two were males 

 and one a female. They were caught with a hook and we are not abso- 

 lutely sure that we got the parent fishes. However, we dropped the hook 

 in the right place under the schools of small fish and caught the fish that 

 we supposed was guarding and caring for the young. Of course there 

 was a possibility of picking up a stray fish under such circumstances. 

 We noticed two large fish with one bunch of youngsters. This would 

 suggest the idea of both male and female parents, or two bunches of 

 young fish combined, with both of their guardian parents attending. 



