54 



Board of Fish Commissioners, 

 State of Nebraska. 

 So. Bend, June ist, 1895. 

 Mr. James B. Meikle, 



Sec'y Neb. Fish Commission, 

 Omaha, Nebraska. 

 Dear Sir : 



On May 3rd I notified your Honorable Board of 

 an epidemic that has broken out among our trout, that 

 was causing the loss of a great many fish. In my re- 

 port to you at that time I explained in detail the man- 

 ned in which we had treated the fish, and that all our 

 efforts to stop the ravages of the disease had proved 

 unsuccessful. 



I am pleased to say that we now have the disease 

 under control, and the loss of fish is stopped. From a 

 close observ^ation of the disease and from experiments 

 that I have made, I am convinced that the disease was 

 caused by feeding diseased or poisoned beef livers. 

 My reason for coming to this conclusion is, that from 

 the time the disease first appeared among the fish up 

 to the time we stopped feeding livers, I had tried every 

 known remedy without avail. During this time I had 

 watched very closely the actions of the fish and noticed 

 that a few hours after feeding the fish would die very 

 rapidly. When we stopped feeding beef li\ers, and 

 began feeding live minnows, it was some days before 

 the death loss among the fish was perceptibly lessened 

 and in about twelve days it ceased altogether. Then 

 I began to experiment by feeding the fish in a certain 

 pond on beef livers, and the fish in the other ponds on 

 live food. The result was that the fish fed on the 

 livers would begin dying within twenty-four hours, 

 while there was no loss among the fish fed on the live 

 food. 



