37 



On motion, the meeting adjourned until the next day, and 

 the members inspected the whitefish hatchery of the Michigan 

 Fishery Commission, in the city, and although the whitefish 

 hatching was over for the season, found interest in the eggs of 

 wall-eyed pike and yellow perch, then in the hatching jars, 

 and in the trout and grayling in the aquaria. 



SECOND DAY'S PROCEEDINGS. 



The meeting was called to order at lO A. M., and the follow- 

 ing was read : 



NOTES ON THE FOOD OF THE FISHES OF THE 

 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



BY PROF. S. A. FORBES. 



There is a kind of insect in the South, called the agricultural 

 ant, which is extremely fond of the seeds of certain grasses 

 growing there spontaneously among the many species which 

 make the prairie sod. Naturally, the agricultural methods of 

 this ant are of a very primitive sort, and even fall below those 

 of the native Indian. Besides collecting, wherever it can find 

 them, the fallen seeds of many grasses and other plants, and 

 storing these in its burrows, it also clears completely an area 

 from six to twelve feet wide around its nest, and here either 

 sows or permits to grow only one or two of the common grasses 

 of whose seeds it is especially fond, harvesting the product and 

 storing it for future use. It has not learned to cultivate the soil, 

 or to introduce exotic plants of larger yield and better quality 

 than those native to the sod, but it has advanced so far as to 

 destroy on a little tract the competitors of the plants which 

 bear its favorite food, and thus secures a larger and more con- 

 venient supply than would grow spontaneously. I mention 

 this little ant because its agriculture seems to me to illustrate 

 very well the aquaculture practiced by mankind at the present 

 time. As this little insect collects the seeds of weeds wherever 



