Part III.] Pond Fish Culture. 129 



of cheese, graham bread, boiled potatoes cut up, and in fact 

 almost any kind of table scraps. 



When feeding in the creeks and ponds we have seen them 

 sucking up the soft material on the bottom that contains low 

 forms of animal and plant life. After holding this material 

 for some little time in the mouth, the fish would blow it out 

 with sufficient force to throw the muddy stream a distance of 

 from twelve to eighteen inches beyond the fish's mouth. The 

 fish seemed to be able to extract certain food material out of 

 the stuff taken in the mouth, and then cast or blow the useless 

 or surplus parts away. The action reminded us of our small 

 boy, George, who, after filling his mouth with wild grapes and 

 chewing them for a while, extracting the juice, would blow out 

 the seeds and skins. 



It was noticed that the carp left a mark or track on the bot- 

 tom of the pond about an inch in width, where the ooze had 

 been sucked up. This track was about a quarter of an inch in 

 depth, and was almost continuous in places for a distance of 

 several feet. Before we saw the carp make these tracks we 

 thought they marked the course of some animal that had 

 crawled on the bottom of the pond. They much resembled the 

 "tracks" that a snake leaves in the soft mud or dust, but they 

 were not continuous. 



At other times carp were seen to suck the soft material from 

 posts, sticks, and from the stems of plants that stood in the 

 water. The contents of the stomach of a fish that has been 

 feeding upon such material, when emptied into a white plate 

 and examined with a microscope, reveals a multitude of the 

 smaller forms of both plant and animal life too numerous to be 

 counted or classified without the use of much time and labor. 



GOLDFISH. 



Goldfish, as well as carp, are natives of the Old World. They 

 both belong to the same family, and the goldfish might be 

 classed as a first cousin of the carp. They came originally 

 from Asia, China and Japan, They belong to the carp or 

 minnow family, and their habits are very much like those of 

 the carp. They are frequently kept in jars, tanks and foun- 

 tains for ornamental purposes, and have never been considered 

 of much value from an economic point of view. Like the carp, 

 they are very hardy and very prolific; like the carp, they are 

 free, at least while living in earth ponds where acquatic plants 

 grow, from nearly all kinds of diseases that usually attack fish. 

 Other fish in the same ponds may die by the hundreds, but one 

 seldom finds goldfish dying, except one or two at a time, and 

 with no greater mortality than is found in schools of other 

 fish when in good condition. 

 —9 



