184 Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
tecting broods and, while it is probably true that there is a pre- 
ponderance of females among the very largest bass, this is not 
enough to break the force of our position as to assorting, for 
if perchance there should be some loss through the dispropor- 
tion mentioned, it would be many times made good by the bene- 
- ficial results obtained by a rigid segregation of the sizes. 
There is another reason, and a strong one, for thus sorting 
the fish. The young and growing fish should be fed more and 
oftener than the large ones. Feeding of the large fishes during 
breeding season to prevent cannibalism is entirely unnecessary 
while the smaller ones, both for their healthful growth and to 
mitigate cannibalism during breeding time, require more fre- 
quent feeding. This change will save feed and labor but the 
more important feature is that of saving the adult fishes for < 
very large percentage of loss among our larger fishes, those 
which should be in their very prime for reproduction, is caused 
by what in the case of the human being would be called fatty 
degeneration, if we may judge from general appearances, the 
organs being covered and obscured by fat, the liver being yellow, 
when cut in section, from an accumulation of this material. 
When by themselves the larger fishes could be fed more sparing- 
ly and this loss through excess of adipose could be at least meas- 
urably lessened. 
Tm concluding the writer would give it as his opinion that 
where the fishes are properly assorted as to size a larger number 
could be successfully carried in a given area, for one of the reas- 
ons that numbers should be restricted is that the fish interfere 
with each other while the parents are caring for their broods, 
this generally being done by the smaller adults rushing into the 
schools and devouring numbers of the fry, separating them and 
very often breaking up the schools before they would naturally 
segregate. Under normal conditions at this station the schools 
will hold together until the fry have attained a length of one 
inch or one and one-eighth inches but we often find broods brok- 
en up into several small schools when they are half that size and 
this is generally caused by the raids of the small adults. Of 
course, unprotected by the parent fish, these will perish unless 
taken out and shipped, which is our universal practice. 
