226 Modern Pishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



canals or by the hand, of man, it has adapted itself to 

 the change, and in two or three years stocked to over- 

 flowing these new localities. As a pan fish, for the 

 table, it is surpassed by few other fresh-water species. 

 For endurance and rapidity of increase it is unequaled. 

 . . . The grass bass is perfectly adapted to stock- 

 ing ponds. It will thrive without care in very small 

 ponds of sufficient depth. ... It will in nowise 

 interfere with the cultivation of any number of 

 species, large or -small, in the same waters. It will 

 live harmoniously with all others, and while its struc- 

 ture and disposition restrain it from attacking any 

 other but very small fry, its formidable armature of 

 spinous rays in the dorsal and abdominal fins will 

 guard it against attacks of even the voracious pike." 



As the food of the crappies is the same as that of 

 the sunfishes and all other fresh-water fishes with 

 compressed sides, i. e. small fish, crustaceans, insects 

 and their larvae, we must consider that their destruc- 

 tiveness is that of their class. I do not know of a 

 fish, in America or on any other continent, which 

 takes no animal food. When the carp was introduced 

 into America it was heralded as "a sheep among 

 fishes/' which grew to great weight on vegetation 

 alone. It is true that the carp eats much vegetation 

 and is fond of that green conferva which ignorant 

 people call "frog spittle," or "frog spawn," with which 

 the frog has as much to do as the editor of "Forest 

 and Stream has/' but the carp also loves worms, insect 

 larvae, and will take a small fish if the fish can't 

 escape. 



There may be fishes which are strict vegetarians, if 

 so I don't know them. The brook suckers love trout 

 eggs and work the mud for insect larvae; the stur- 



