DRAGONFLIES AND DAMSELFLIES IN RELATION TO PONDFISH 
CULTURE, WITH A LIST OF THOSE FOUND NEAR FAIRPORT, 
IOWA. 
-) 
By CHARLES BRANCH WILSON, Ph. D. 
State Normal School, Department of Science, Westfield, Mass. 
om 
Contribution from the U. S. Fisheries Biological Station, Fairport, Iowa. 
& 
INTRODUCTION. 
Among the various activities carried on by the Fairport Fisheries Biological 
Station is that of fish propagation, not the artificial rearing of fry and fingerlings for 
subsequent distribution, as usually carried on at a national or State fish hatchery, 
but rather the comprehensive and experimental breeding and rearing of adult food 
fishes in artificial ponds made for that purpose. Such intensive culture of food fishes 
bids fair to attract wide attention in the near future. 
The Bureau of Fisheries has repeatedly called attention to the opportunities and 
possibilities of such culture, and recently the State colleges of agriculture have taken up 
the subject, led by the New York State College, at Cornell University. This latter 
institution published, August 15, 1915, a paper on “The Farm Fishpond,” by George 
C. Embody (The Cornell Reading Courses, vol. 4, No. 94), in which are found the 
following statements: “‘Farm fish culture has been almost wholly neglected in America, 
even though a large part of the country possesses exceptional advantages forit. * * * 
During the past four years the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell Uni- 
versity has been giving instruction in the propagation of useful aquatic animals to a 
steadily increasing number of students. Letters are continually coming in from 
persons in different parts of this and other States seeking information concerning the 
propagation of frogs and fishes” (pp. 214 and 215). Much suitable instruction is then 
given, but very little is said with reference to environmental ecology. 
In an article published in the Popular Science Monthly for July, 1915, Dr. R. E. 
Coker said: “The artificial propagation of fish, even under present conditions, is pro- 
ducing results of significant value, but it is no disparagement of such operations to 
venture the prediction that the future will show that the effective conservation of 
fishery resources depends upon the coupling of intelligent fish culture with compre- 
hensive and well-advised conservation of the environment favorable both to the natural 
propagation of fish and to the multiplication of the essential elements of food supply” 
(p. 95). . 
The same author, in a later paper (1916, p. 402), while discussing the equipment, 
organization, and functions of the Fairport Fisheries Biological Station, said: ‘It is 
185 
