The Relation of Mollusks to Fish in Oneida Lake 317 
as outlined in Chapter III. Experiments should be made to 
ascertain the rate of consumption of the food supply by mol- 
lusks and other animals. A large number of examinations 
of the stomach contents of fish should be made,* and if pos- 
sible, the amount of food taken per day should be ascer- 
tained. ‘To accurately determine the relation between the 
amount of food and its rate of consumption by fishes some 
exact data of this kind is necessary. 
The study of a body of water such as Oneida Lake brings 
out certain fundamental facts of great significance, which 
have nowhere been better stated than by Forbes in an address 
printed many years ago (1887, p. 1), and his terse descrip- 
tion may fittingly close this report. ‘‘ The animals of such 
a body of water are, as a whole, remarkably isolated,— 
closely related among themselves in all their interests, but 
so far independent of the land about them that if every 
terrestrial animal were suddenly annihilated, it would doubt- 
less be long before the general multitude of the inhabitants 
of the lake would feel the effects of this event in any import- 
ant way. ‘One finds in a single body of water a far more 
complete and independent equilibrium of organic life and 
activity than on any equal body of land. It is an islet of 
older, lower life in the midst of the higher, more recent life 
of the surrounding region. It forms a little world within 
itself,— a microcosm within which all the elemental forces 
are at work and the play of life goes on in full, but on so 
small a scale as to bring it easily within the mental grasp.” 
* In this connection it may be said that fish caught in fyke or trammel 
nets are usually worthless for study if allowed to remain in the net too 
long, digestion having proceeded to such an extent before they are 
released that the food contents are almost wholly unrecognizable. 
