ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
apparent relish. As with other animals, inter- 
breeding is not desirable, and an exchange of 
males with someone else who is breeding gup- 
pies is always profitable for both breeders, in- 
fusing new blood into the strains and produc- 
ing finer colors in the males. 
Warm water stimulates their reproduction, 
and a dealer, finding that in his store there was 
a section of stove-pipe continually warm, set 
his guppy tank above it, and said his supply of 
guppies soon exceeded the demand. 
The number of young at a birth varies, but 
if nine are saved from their pursuing mother, 
the beginner is doing too well to complain. If 
he saves twenty, he is lucky indeed. One 
common practise is to place the gravid female 
in a small globe or jar thickly stocked with 
plants in which the young may hide, removy- 
ing her after they are all born and leaving 
MEXICAN SWORDTAILS 
Photograph by Dr. E. Bade 
them until large enough to be safely returned 
to the tank with the others. One young man 
prepares jars for the gravid 
females, arranging a strip of copper mosquito 
netting in each jar to divide it, much as a 
breeding cage is divided. The mother fish is 
placed in the side away from the light. He 
finds that the new born young will dart through 
the holes in the netting toward the light, and stay 
there in safety. They well know their own 
danger. After all are born, he removes the 
mother and the netting, keeping the fry apart 
from the adult fishes for several weeks. In this 
way he has frequently saved more than twenty 
young. 
small separate 
At the slowest rate of breeding, let us say 
once in six months, it will be seen that one 
should have at least fifty-six guppies at the 
end of the year, starting with a single pair. 
(This is figuring on the pair producing two 
lots from which eighteen are saved. If there 
were four females among the nine from the 
BULLETIN 83 
HYBRIDS 
From P. rubra (male) and X. helleri (female). 
first lot, these, reproducing at the end of six 
months, would add thirty-six to the number, 
making in all fifty-six. If the aquarium is kept 
in a warm place, this number may be doubled 
cr tripled.) 
Both young and old will browse on the minute 
algae of the aquarium, and the young should 
be fed as already prescribed for fishes born 
alive. The adults are voracious and will clean 
up all foods thrown into the tank provided 
the pieces are not too large for their throats. 
They will eat yolk of hard-boiled egg, baked 
or boiled white potato, prepared fish foods of 
all sorts, chopped fish, meat, shellfish, and will 
greatly appreciate live food when this is pro- 
curable—daphnia, mosquito larvae, white worms 
(Enchytraeids) ete. 
A common custom is to hang a piece of raw 
beef in the guppy tank for a few hours, and 
let them pick at it. 
Enchytraeids can be purchased from some 
dealers with full instructions 
them, and though there is some slight suspicion 
for Dreeding 
that they contain parasites which eventually 
PLATYPOECILUS MACULATUS 
Photograph by Dr. E. Bade. 
