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SOME FRESHWATER AQUARIUM FISHES 
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young, which, in a locality in which the fishes are abundant, measure 4 to 
10 feet in diameter. Pebbles:and stones, often several pounds in weight, 
are heaped up to form conical mounds, and, as the fishes are gregarious 
during the breeding season, quite a number use the same spawning place, 
which is added to year by year. The purpose of these elaborate structures 
is to protect the young from their predatory enemies, the Rock and Black 
bass, perch, catfish, eel and water-snake. In the aquarium they are timid 
and entirely harmless and will thrive satisfactorily when not overstocked. 

FIG. 40-——Creek Chub, Semotilus atromaculatus 
The Horned-dace or Creek-chub, Semotilus atromaculatus, Fig. 40, 1s 
abundant chiefly in small brooks. It is more lively in the aquarium than 
the Corporal. 
The chub prefers a vegetable diet, and should be fed on boiled cereals, 
and occasionally a little of the boiled yolk of an egg. 
THE GOLDEN ORFE OR IDE 
This fish, Fig. 41, is one of the Carp family, the Cyprinide, developed 
in Germany from the albino Orfe, /dus idus, a handsome, hardy fish but 
not fully domesticated, its probable migratory habit and consequent rest- 
lessness causing it to leap from the water, on which account the tank 
should be screened or not filled to the top. This applies more to the 
American bred fish 
than to the import- 
ed German Orfe, 
Idus melanotis; the 
latter having lost its 
wild habits by many 
generations under 
domestication. Its 

FIG. 41—Golden Ide, Zaas tdus 
propagation hasbeen 
very successful in the fish ponds at Washington, where an abundant sup- 
ply is kept, and though a food fish of fair quality it has not been bred for 
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