American Fisheries Society. 129 



sional ration of frog tadpoles which they devour greedily, bin 

 this section being very poor in fish life our range in this direc- 

 tion is exceedingly limited. Mr. Seymour Bower, superintend- 

 ent of the Michigan stations, than whom there is no better au- 

 thority, says that black bass fed persistently on liver will not pro- 

 duce fertile eggs. 



If I were to add another point necessary to success, I would 

 take up the question of cover. Several of our ponds are so poor 

 in bottom soil that the ordinary vegetation of ponds in the vi- 

 cinity will not live. We have tried fertilization with no success, 

 the fertilizers all washing out the fist year and the vegetation 

 dying. An experiment was last fall made with one of our hirg- 

 est ponds, E, in which we had utterly failed to make myrrio])hyl- 

 lum and other like plants grow. About one-third of its area was 

 planted to what is known south as parrot feather, which 1 lia\e 

 been informed belongs to the same family with myrr:])hylluni, 

 the writer not knowing its scientific name, it making a inueii 

 more vigorous growth than any other aquatic plant that I know 

 of and growing such a swamp as to be very undesirable in ponds 

 with fertile bottoms. In this sterile pond the parrot feather 

 proved to be just the thing, making just sutTicitnit cover to thor- 

 oughly protect both fry and fingerlings. This pond was a com- 

 parative failure last year, while this season it has " produced 

 abundantly and it is believed that there are 10,000 fingerlings 

 in it at this time. The dense portions of the parrot feather is 

 alive with fingerlings and has been all the season, the men get- 

 ting good hauls with the seine by skirting the borders of the 

 vegetation. Another pond of the same size and nearl}' as sterile, 

 B, has ])roduced as many broods of the baby fingerlings size as 

 the one just referred to, but being almost devoid of vegetation ic 

 produced but very few fingerlings, and, when drawn down the 

 other day, less than 200 fingerlings were secured, while a single 

 haul of the seine along the borders of the parrot feather in E on 

 the same day resulted in the capture of over 300 fine fingerlings. 

 It is needless to say that every pond with sterile bottom will be 

 thickly set to parrot feather this season, in fact, we are now at 

 it as fast as time from other work will permit. 



To recapitulate: Ship all the baby fingerlings. secured just 

 l)('fore the l)roods 1)reak u]), wiili us one to one and one-half 



