New York, May 24, 1916. No. 31 



OPEI$ 



Published to advance the Science of cold-blooded vertebrates 



LUCANIA PARVA IN THE AQUARIUM 



A case of spawning in the aquarium of Lucania 

 parva has just come to the writer's attention and 

 seems worthy of record. 



This fish at times becomes very abundant among 

 water weed in a fresh or very slightly brackish tribu- 

 tary of Moriches Bay at Mastic, Long Island. A 

 number were captured here in September, 1914, since 

 which date the writer has kept the species in balanced 

 fresh-water aquaria continuously. From time to 

 time the original stock has been added to by later col- 

 lections or depleted by turning over fishes to other 

 persons interested in keeping aquaria, so he can not 

 say how long any one individual has lived in his tanks. 

 There has been in general little mortality among 

 them except wild fish immediately after having been 

 placed in the tanks. They have been fed on dried 

 food suitable for Poeciliid fishes. In the aquarium 

 they usually do not show the dark cross marking char- 

 acteristic of the fish when taken from its native haunt, 

 but this marking has been assumed by fishes kept for 

 several days in a tank where they swam among a 

 thick growth of linear waterplant. One or two speci- 

 mens have appeared in the writer's aquaria apparent- 

 ly smaller than any placed therein, from which he 

 surmises that they must have done some spawning. 

 Certainly no considerable number of young have 

 been raised. 



