FRESH-WATER SHRIMP, A NATURAL FISH FOOD. 



By S. G. WORTH, 

 Superintendent U. S. Fisheries Station, Edenton, N. C. 



It has been my belief for years that the greatest benefit to accrue from 

 modern fish cuUure is to the individual grower, the utilizer of inland waters 

 under control and observation. But the basic need to effect such a result is a 

 natural food of abundance and cheapness, a food that can be grown out of 

 the natural productiveness of the water, a food corresponding to the natural grass 

 on which wild animals feed, to the nectar of the wild flowers which honey bees 

 gather, conserve, and consume. If the agriculturalist reaped no return except 

 from the fertilizer he employed, if there was nothing afforded by the natural 

 elements of the soil, his work would be heavy, requiring pound for pound, so to 

 speak. There is, of course, a natural fertility in the waters which is available, 

 similarly to that of the soil, with the proper agent to take up and conserve it. In 

 the fresh-water shrimp we have an example of such a gatherer and conservator. 



Palcemonetes exilipes is indigenous to the coastal plain region of North Caro- 

 lina. The species is not the so-called fresh-water shrimp Gammarus, but a true 

 shrimp, a miniature of the salt-water shrimp and prawn. It is meaty, like those 

 species and the American lobster. In fact, in a time of stress it would sustain 

 man. Though small, it is incomparably larger than Gammarus, measuring by 

 actual count 136 to 140 to a fluid ounce or about 2,200 per pint, as taken in the 

 early fall, young and old, with no culling. It is a favorite bait for black bass 

 and crappie, two abundant game fishes of the region, the crappie taking this bait 

 when all others are refused. The angler impales several shrimps upon his hook 

 at a time, and I have observed that they sometimes remained alive for two 

 hours, thus displaying considerable vitality. 



The exceeding abundance of fresh-water shrimp ma}- be compared with 

 that of house flies in summer, flying ants on their emergence from the decaying 

 stump, or angleworms in favorable soil. They dwell in masses of water mosses 

 and grasses, and in the region referred to such growth is practically universal 

 on all bottom. Rarely, the shrimps swim in schools in open water, jumping 



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