Oshurn. — Conditions Detrimental to Bass. 49 



what Dr. Osburn's opinion is on that point. I am refeiTing now to the 

 large-mouth male bass. 



Mr. Titcomb: They will bite at a troll right over their nests in 

 the weeds. 



Mr. Doze: Do they strike at it simply in anger, or for the purpose 

 of gettinor food? 



Mr. Titccmb: I do not know as to that. 



Mr. Doze: J have found that they will not take minnows in the 

 spring. 



Mr. Buller: There were sent to my office for indentification about 

 the fifteenth of June seven small-mouth bass, ranging in size from 

 seventeen to twenty-two inches, which had been illegally caught with 

 live bait. Upon opening them we found that three were males and four 

 females. That is evidence that they will take food while they are on 

 the nest spawning. 



Dr. Osburn: I would like to ask some of the old hatchery men 

 whether they find that the breeding fish in the ponds take the artificial 

 food the same as the others? That is my conclusion, from what I have 

 seen. 



Mr. Hayford: We find that they seldom eat very much during 

 those periods; if they do catch up food now and then they blow it right 

 out of their mouths. An occasional one may take the food, but as a 

 z'ule they eat only about ten per cent during that period of what they 

 eat rieht after they have finished spawning. 



Mr. Buller : These fish that were brought into my office were 

 taken directly off the nest. The man who took them was caught in the 

 act and was arrested by one of our officers. 



Mr. Hayford: Two years ago this spring I caught with a plug one 

 hundred large bass right off the nest, to get them for the following 

 spring as breeders. It seemed to me that they bit more in anger than 

 from any desire to get food. 



Mr. Doze: We conducted an experiment in one of our hatchery 

 ponds where the water was very clear; we used all kinds of minnows on 

 the male bass, but we did not catch any; we did catch a couple of females. 

 We do not meet very much with the problem of egg-bound fish in 

 Kansas, but we do have cases where the female bass is killed by the 

 male bass. Possibly a good deal of the egg-bound trouble is due to the 

 fact that the numbers of males an d females are not properly balanced ; 

 there are probably more males than females. ^ 



Mr. Titcomb: The condition of the so-called grubby bass you 

 attribute to the birds, do you not? 



Dr. Osburn: It is true that some of them do come from birds; 

 whether or not all do, I could not say. Most of these parasites which 

 we have studied in Ohio are intestinal parasites and those which pass 

 the larval stage in the organs of the body cavity. I am really unpre- 

 pared to discuss the bird question. 



