66 ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
KILLIFISH, FUNDULUS CHRYSOTUS 
Photograph by Dr. E. Bade 
never attempted to place the little sticklebacks— 
so murderous in breeding season—with other 
fishes. All the others mentioned are maintained 
very well in a fifteen-gallon tank, to the number 
of thirty small specimens. Only very young 
catfishes, both bullheads and stone cats, are used, 
and like crappie, eels, bass, perch, roach and 
most sunfishes, they will outgrow the home 
aquarium and need transferring to larger quar- 
ters after a year or two. Very young pike and 
pickerel have been kept in “happy family” 
tanks, though not at the New York Aquarium. 
They are never too young to exercise the family 
characteristic of pugnaciousness and _ can- 
nibalism, and will ere long make the tank a 
happy one for themselves only. 
One may, of course, place together very 
young specimens of almost any of our native 
fishes such as yellow perch, rock bass, bowfin, 
etc., and to those who are equipped to do their 
own collecting there is a large variety possible. 
For best results one must endeavor to have 
the fishes inhabiting one tank of approximately 
the same size. 
All of our small native fishes in the north lay 
eggs, and in most species the male constructs 
a nest and guards it jealously from all intruders 
including his spouse. Some nests are scooped 
out of sand, others are fashioned more like 
birds’ nests, among the aquatic vegetation. 
All are partial to fish, shellfish, meat and live 
food, though all except the sunfishes and their 
allies will accept dried prepared foods. 
MiInNows AND KILLIFisHEs 
The northern fresh-water Killifish (Fundulus 
diaphanus), famous as a destroyer of mosquito 
larvae, is much sought after by owners of 
mosquito-breeding ponds. Its maximum length 
is four inches, though in the abbreviated 
swimming space of the home aquarium it rarely 
attains more than three inches. 
The male has a blue-gray body dotted with 
green and is marked with about twenty pale 
vertical bars, while the female, which is plain 
fish-gray, has fifteen or twenty transverse bars. 
On the whole the killifish is without color at- 
traction, its body being of that fish-grayness 
commonly called “olivaceous’; but its “pep” 
cannot help winning favor. It is abundant in 
lakes throughout New York State. 
The killi soon learns to leap more than an 
inch out of the water for food placed on the 
end of a stick, and as it is obsessed with per- 
petual hunger, is always ready to “do the trick.” 
Like the goldfish, it will eat almost anything— 
crustaceans, flies, boiled cereals, worms, chopped 
raw beef or lamb, fish, shellfish, prepared fish 
foods, ete. 
As soon as it learns that it must depend upon 
its owner for its food supply, it watches for his 
coming, dashing back and forth at the front of 
the tank every time he heaves in sight and 
begging as frantically as a fish knows how to do, 
for something to eat. 
