258 Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting. 
The work of Mr. A. G. Buller nevertheless was exceedingly 
interesting. ‘The spawn was in various stages of development, 
from green to nearly hatching. Indeed much of the spawn was 
so far advanced that hatching took place on the way from the 
marsh to the hatchery ponds at Erie. 
The eggs were placed in a small pond, the water of which 
was from 57 to 60 degrees and the period of complete incubation 
was in about twelve days. 
Almost immediately on hatching the little creatures clung 
closely to the gelatenous mass from which they emerged and 
began to eat it and they never left until it was entirely gone. 
Then they spread over the pond hunting for food. There were 
rather more than 30,000. They soon cleaned up every particle 
of food which was in the pond and Mr. A. G. Buller then sup- 
plied them with dead fish, and so great was their voracity that 
they easily devoured from 16 to 25 pounds of fish a week. On 
one occasion they completely stripped a 16-pound carp in four 
days. 
The temperature of the water rose a little above 60 degrees 
and in this the tadpoles grew very fast and in about two and one- 
half months from the date of their hatching began to develop 
their hind legs. Three weeks later they broke forth their fore 
legs and the outline of the body and head began changing to 
that of a frog. The tail also began to be “absorbed.” The mo- 
ment the hind legs appeared and before the tail was absorbed 
and before the body completely changed to frog outlines the 
creature ceased to feed on dead food. For a few days they 
seemed to refuse any kind of food, but before the tail was half 
absorbed they began to take live creatures only. They confined 
themselves almost exclusively to insects and spiders. As illus- 
trating the extreme voracity of tadpoles and the eagerness with 
which they would take dead food was markedly shown on one 
occasion at the Wayne County Hatchery this spring. A black- 
bass weighing about four pounds and extremely maloderous, 
having been dead several days, was thrown into a portion of the 
pond in which for the moment there were no tadpoles. Within 
two minutes at least 200 tadpoles nearest to the fish, began a 
number of curious evolutions. They rolled and tumbled over 
each other in thick masses until they formed almost a ball and 
