American Fisheries Society 131 



abandoned that nest and worked their way into the nest 

 higher up and nearer shore where they were promptly 

 adopted by that fish. The parent bass owning the abandoned 

 nest took the desertion philosophically and departed without 

 interfering with the other fish. In the case of the third nest 

 the young fish scattered for some distance, many going into 

 deeper water, but, as far as I could ascertain, none joined the 

 united colonies close to shore. 



On the morning of June 12th I noticed breaks in the 

 water over a few of the nests and an investigation showed 

 that it was the parent fish rising to insects. Before the 

 day was over more than half the bass having nests on one 

 of the lakes were rising. This was interesting to me because 

 of an impression that during not only the incubation period 

 but while caring for the young the old bass did not feed. A 

 clear explanation of this curious incident was apparent the 

 next morning. In every instance where the bass had risen 

 to insects the day before it was merely preliminary to their 

 abandoning the young. Seemingly the bass finding that the 

 young still had their sac unabsorbed at the end of ten or 

 twelve days, became tired and left the young fish to their 

 fate. In the majority of these instances the little bass found 

 their way into the maw of the yellow perch, sunfish and 

 other species. It was not until June 14th that any fish rose 

 sufficiently to be taken in the nets. Those that were taken 

 were very small but were unusually strong. A peculiar 

 feature also was when they did begin to rise they did not 

 seem to be afifected by the setting sun but remained swim- 

 ming well above the nest at least until there was no light 

 and we scooped advanced fry until darkness drove us away. 

 When the water temperature reached 57°, which was I think 

 on the 14th, bass in all the lakes began rebuilding nests, and 

 by the 16th each lake had from 25 to 50 nests all of very 

 large size and filled with eggs. The eggs were unusually 

 large, nearly half larger than normal. They were also of a 

 pronounced orange tint. Had I not actually seen the bass 

 on the nests I would have declared the eggs were not bass 



