Ainerican Fislieries Society. 75 



Of the many other aquatic forms that would be acccplahl > 

 food for yoimg fish, I will take time to mention only the larvae 

 of mosquitoes and similar dijjterous insects. In the summer of 

 1886 and again in 1888 at Craig Brook we practiced for some 

 weeks the feeding of mosquito larvae and pupae to young salmon. 

 At first they were obtained from pools in the neighboring swamps 

 and later from barrels of water that had been set up in conveiii- 

 ent places for them, and in which the adult mosquitoes laid the 

 eggs. The fry- ate the larvae with great avidity and throve well 

 on them, but other methods of feeding came to engross our atten- 

 tion and the experiments were not carried far enough to develop 

 any practical mode of operation. I, however, think it not im- 

 probable that some useful system of managing such larvae might 

 be devised. 



Xow let us turn to the other division of the subject, the ust.^ 

 of liN'ing land animals for fish food. First of all stand the larvae 

 of flies. Those that have thus far been tried are almost wholly 

 confined to the species that breed in animal matter, and espe- 

 cially the flesh-flies. At Craig Brook between 188G and 1896 

 extensive trial was made of the production and use of thesi^ lar- 

 vae. In 1891, fry of trout and salmon to the number of l.'i.S.OOO 

 were fed with them exclusively through the most of the sununcr 

 In later years, when 200,000 fry of trout and salmon were fed 

 through the summer, maggots formed half their food. 1 have 

 heard of no other attempts at the production of these larvae in 

 America, that were developed beyond ihc tentative suspension 

 over a fishpond of a box of meat in which the maggots grew and 

 from w^hich they crawled into the water. In Euro))e there have 

 been numerous experiments leading in some instances to the in- 

 vention of special apparatus for the purpose, but none appear to 

 have reached the stage of practical work. One of the most promi- 

 nent of these experimentors was Andreas Eakus, a practical fisli- 

 culturist of Austrian Silesia, whose methods, including the cul- 

 ture of many other kinds of live food, were taken up by an engi- 

 neer. Yon Seheidlin, who offered the secrets of the system for sale 

 to American tish-culturists. That part of the system relating to 

 fiy-larvae became known as the "Von Scheidlin-Rakus method of 

 odorless production of mnggots." Von Scheidlin's deseriplion of 

 it is as follows : 



