ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 73 
males in the spring are handsomely marked 
with a lateral band of crimson which some- 
times suffuses the entire body. 
Chub suckers, on the other hand become too 
large for the home aquarium, sometimes attain- 
ing ten inches in length. The chub sucker loses 
its lateral band before reaching full growth, 
while the black-nosed dace retains the band 
through life. Chub suckers also be dis- 
tinguished from dace by the polly-wog-like 
mouth, pointing downward and as_ typically 
fitted for bottom feeding as is the upturned 
mouth of the killifish for surface feeding. 
Both dace and chub suckers will eat the 
same food as goldfishes and are therefore easily 
maintained in the home. 
can 
The Silver Dace or Shiner (Notropis cor- 
nutus) is reputed to be most abundant of all 
pond fishes throughout the eastern states, and 
can easily be differentiated from the common 
roach (also called shiner) by the narrowness 
of its body. 
The Red-bellied Dace (Chrosomus erythro- 
gaster), found in various parts of the country 
from Maine to Alabama, is as attractive as 
any native fish, and a happier addition to a 
fifteen-gallon tank with other native specimens 
could not be made. It is hardly, but no record 
exists of its having bred in captivity. No fish 
takes its food so gracefully. Instead of rush- 
ing at the food as most fishes do, it takes 
it in passing, as a bat takes a mosquito on the 
wing, merely opening the mouth and swimming 
on. 
Tue Bowrin 
From the Great Lakes south to Florida and 
Texas ranges the Bowfin (Amiatus calva) a 
fish of ancient origin—one of the famous gan- 
oids whose skeletons are found in Palaeozoic 
and Mesozoic remains. It has a variety of 
common names—dogfish, mudfish, lawyer, John 
A. Grindle, and others varying with the locality 
in which it is found. 
At the end of its first year, the bowfin mea- 
sures ten inches and is therefore suitable for the 
home aquarium only in its babyhood. It is a 
hardy little fish, however, and the colors of 
the young are not surpassed in beauty by any 
other native fish. Specimens of from three to 
five inches in length charm the eye, their ex- 
quisite fins tinted with bright green, yellow and 
red, and bordered with black; orange bars run- 
ing along their mottled sides, their gills suffused 
with scarlet, and the gracefully waving dorsal 
fin extending from just behind the pectorals 
to the root of the tail, where the characteristic 
round black spot is one of the most. striking 
captivity the bowfin 
naturally grows more slowly than in the open 
lakes, and if captured when quite young, furn- 
ishes an attractive feature in a small aquarium 
for an indefinite length of time. 
of their markings. In 
The thin lips of the fish, the knowing cast 
of the eye, and the two tiny barbules rearing 
themselves like mustaches from the ends of the 
nostrils, give the Bowfin a peculiarly human ex- 
pression. 
Its natural food consists of small fishes, 
aquatic insects and crustaceans, and it has 
thrived for twenty years at the New York 
Aquarium on small live fishes and chopped 
beef, with an occasional change to minced clam. 
The air-bladder acts as a lung, and the fish can 
live a longer time out of water than any other 
native fish. 
For those who capture their own specimens, 
it may be interesting to know that male adult 
bowfins are easily distinguished by their green 
fins and the yellow or orange circle around 
the tail spot. The male cares for the young, 
which envelop him in a swarm or swim beside 
him till able to look after themselves. Females 
reach a length of twenty-four inches, but males 
rarely exceed eighteen inches. 
Er.s 
No fish presents a more interesting life his- 
tory than the Eel (Anguilla chrysypa) which is 
found in all waters that lead to the sea. The 
only known fresh-water fish that spawns in the 
ocean, it will live many years in fresh waters 
without breeding, but soon attains a size too 
large for accommodation in the home. When 
very young it is a graceful, fascinating animal, 
soon becoming tame enough to eat from one’s 
fingers, and is likewise a wonderful scavenger, 
overlooking nothing that has escaped the other 
fishes and working assiduously with its pointed 
snout among the pebbles for anything it can 
find to eat. It does well with killifishes and 
minnows, but is inimical to goldfishes and will 
destroy snails indiscriminately. 
Worms and snails constitute its chief diet 
in a state of nature, but in captivity it readily 
takes almost any food that is offered. 
The same family is known throughout the 
world, though some of its members are strictly 
marine. 
CaTFISHES 
These nocturnal fishes are desirable for the 
home aquarium only in their early stages, and 
