iz 



THE 



AQUARIUM 



25 



ground and scraped raw beef. Feed any 

 of these "kitchen" foods sparingly and 

 alternate constantly with other foods. 

 Earth worms make a good food. Wash 

 in cold water, then cut or chop fine. 

 Use judgement in feeding any food as 

 to the size of the particles. All dried 

 foods can be ground in a meat chopper 

 or a coffee mill, and then sifted through 

 assorted sized strainers. A good strainer 

 may be made of a piece of wire screen- 

 ing (brass) six inches square, having 

 about thirty meshes to the inch. Tack 

 to a light wood frame and you have a 

 sieve that will give you food of a 

 uniform size for small and medium 

 sized fish. For fry use a screen having 

 one hundred meshes to an inch. In 

 general it is better to have the particles 

 too small rather than too large. 



About once a week drop table salt 

 into the water. Don't be afraid, because 

 salt is good for the fish in many ways. 

 A half teaspoonful to 15 gallons of water 

 is a good proportion, although more 

 may be used without harm. Salt aids 

 digestion and prevents disease. A piece 

 of ordinary chalk is beneficial. This 

 will gradually dissolve and aid in the 

 formation of bone structure in the fish 

 and shell for the snails. 



'Jhe 



(To be continued.) 

 next and concluding article 

 goldfish breeding. 



will discuss 



(Continued from page 23 ) 



an ideal body of water in which to use 

 a seine. The third person is running up 

 stream to scare the fish towards the net. 

 This plan is only successful with some 

 species of fishes. Silverfins will dash 

 past the "scare" man in directions away 

 from the net. Our friends in the picture 

 have both sinker and float lines attached 

 to the pole, but it is considered better 

 practice to draw the cork line by hand 

 over the surface of the water. 



Where Life on Our Earth is Most 



Abundant. 

 T IFE, speaking generally, is most 

 -■— ' abundant at zero — that is, at sea- 

 level. At first slowly and then rapidly 

 life becomes less abundant as one hunts 

 for it upwards from sea-level, or fishes 

 for it downwards into the depths of the 

 sea. The investigations of "Michael- 

 Sars" in the North Atlantic in 1910 

 completely confirmed the view that the 

 great depths, 4000 metres or more (over 

 13,000 ft.), are poor in living organism. 

 Fish are most numerous in the first 

 3000ft., much less numerous between 

 3000ft. and 6000ft., and the diminution 

 is much more rapid below 6000ft. It is 

 curious to find that some kinds of fish 

 have a range of over 2000ft. in depth. 

 In a general way the temperature of the 

 ocean decreases from the surface down- 

 wards, just as in the air it decreases 

 irom the surface of the sea upwards; but 

 in the case of the sea the decrease is 

 very irregular, on account of ocean 

 currents. 



One of the discoveries, due to Sir 

 John Murray and Dr. J. Hjort, on this 

 exploration of the sea cruise was that in 

 one place at 300 fathons, with a tem- 

 perature of— 20 C, they found Arctic 

 fauna and fish of the cold seas; whereas 

 raising the trawl to 200 fathoms, or only 

 600ft. higher, they met with fish and 

 fauna of the temperate zone. 



"By the way", said Ed St. Clair, who 

 happened by the office door at that 

 time, "did any of you ever catch an 

 insane fish?" 



"No. What do you mean by an in- 

 sane fish?^^ 



"Why, an insane fish is nothing more 

 or less a fish caught within a seine. 



Houston "Post". 



