125 ZOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY BULLETIN 
ALBINO LAKE TROUI 
(CRISTIVOMER NAMAYCUSH) 
Photographed by Elwin R. Sanborn 
ing with an albino an animal in no wise related 
to it by blood and among whose relatives there 
are no albinos. From two albino parents there 
can be nothing but albino offspring, and this in- 
exorable law of heredity binds all animals 
mice, rabbits, fishes, birds, men, and every other 
species. 
Someone, experimenting some time ago with 
albino trout, made the statement that they grow 
slower and catch their prey faster than other 
At the Aquarium our observations have 
Our albino lake 
fishes. 
been quite contrary to these. 
trout have grown much faster than our pig- 
mented lake trout, and the man who feeds them 
could feed a dozen other tanks of fishes while 
feeding the single tank of albinos, even on dark 
days when they see best and even in summer 
when the warmth of the water accelerates their 
appetites. ‘The albinos, as though realizing that 
dignity is an admirable co-relative of beauty, 
make no rude rushes for their food. No other 
fishes eat so leisurely. Furthermore, it is neces- 
sary to take time to throw the food to them 
deliberately, in order to catch their imperfect 
vision and enable them to take it before it sinks 
to the bottom. While most fishes with normal 
sight will pick up food that falls. only three of 
our eleven albinos appear to be able to see it on 
the bottom of the tank, and these often make 
several lunges before succeeding in securing it. 
When fed raw beef cut in small cubes, they 
mistake one another's eyes for bits of the meat, 
and their vision is so poor that in taking a piece 
of meat, if it happens to be close to a com- 
panion’s fin, they often take the fin too. As a 
rule they do not appear to injure one another 
by these false moves for eyes and fins, probably 
because of their extreme deliberation in seizing 
their food, although in one instance noted the 
side of one was bitten by an erring companion 
sufficiently hard to leave a slightly ragged im- 
print of the teeth that was visible for several 
days. 
Two of our specimens are developing blind- 
ness, and it seemed at first that this might be due 
to injury from lunges made at the eyes in mis- 
take for food. But the white spots, on as close 
examination as is possible with live fishes, ap- 
pear to be directly upon the pupil, and not on 
the corne The parent stock has been blind 
for years, supposedly from lack of protection 
against sunlight, which would have blinded nor- 
mal fishes as readily. Our specimens are the 
first of their descendants to develop this char- 
