ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



Another use of spider web is that of a lure for 

 fishing with a rod or by trolling with a hand 

 line, a pole, or a kite. The lure is in the form 

 of a miniature tennis racquet with the threads 

 strung or wound over it, or in the form of a 

 loop or mass of cobweb in which the teeth and 

 snout of the fish become entangled. This is 

 especially used in connection with kite-fishing, 

 but as Kipling says, "that is another story," and 

 the data therefor will be given later in another 

 paper. 



THE MANY AND CURIOUS ENEMIES 



OF FISHES. 



By Ida M. Mellen. 



IT is a singular fact — and singular in spite of 

 our knowledge that life everywhere preys 

 upon life — that nearly all of the great divi- 

 sions of the animal kingdom contain species that 

 are enemies of fishes. Two-thirds of the living 

 world, one might say, is inimical in one way or 

 another to fish life. 



Like most other animals, they have microscop- 

 ic enemies and parasites of various sorts, both 

 plant and animal. 



Among the vertebrates, beginning with the 

 fishes themselves, whose almost universal canni- 

 balism perhaps entitles them to be regarded as 

 their own worst enemies, the majority of ani- 

 mals have a taste for fish. Salamanders and 

 other amphibians, crocodiles, alligators and 

 other reptiles, many birds that live exclusively 

 on fish ; and. among the mammals, the seals and 

 porpoises, most, if not all, of the cat family, and 

 the human species, are prominent in their appe- 

 tite for the finny tribe. 



After this brief enumeration of the general 

 enemies of fishes, we should perhaps experience 

 no surprise on learning of certain curious and 

 special ones; yet the subject is one that does 

 elicit our interested surprise. 



That a large fish will almost invariably eat a 

 smaller one is a familiar enough fact; that eels 

 have a special taste for trout is not startling; 

 but what shall we say to the discovery that one 

 species of fish will hunt another species in 

 schools ; that dogfishes in overpowering numbers 

 will surround a school of mackerel, hedging 

 them in on all sides and from beneath, effectual- 

 ly preventing their escape, and hacking and de- 

 vouring them piecemeal ? 



We have heard of Bostonians who pronounced 

 themselves dear lovers of beans, and it may not 

 be amiss in this sense to say that bullfrogs and 

 fishes are dear lovers, one of the other. A bull- 

 frog loves a small fish — for breakfpst — and a 

 big fish loves a bullfrog. The same state of 



keen mutual interest exists between crayfishes 

 and fishes. 



Water snakes have often been seen issuing 

 from ponds with a horn-pout, carp or perch in 

 their mouths. One close observer estimated that 

 a medium-sized snake would devour forty young 

 carp in a day and concluded that water snakes 

 consume more fishes than fish-eating birds, 

 though they are outdone in fresh waters by the 

 mink, which is accredited with possessing an 

 appetite for fish quickly running — from the hu- 

 man estimate — into a hundred dollars' worth. 



Musk rats, once believed to be almost strictly 

 vegetable feeders, are now known to prey upon 

 fish, especially carp and trout. Some turtles, 

 such as the musk, snapping, Blanding's and 

 others, also catch fish. 



Shrew mice are great enemies of young fishes, 

 eating even the eggs, and specimens have been 

 caught with ten young trout in their stomachs. 



The otter is a huntsman rather unfair in his 

 extravagant habit of consuming only a small 

 portion of each fish he captures and then hunt- 

 ing another. The wild cat and raccoon, as well 

 as the weasel and skunk, go a-fishing. and ducks 

 and geese, world over, prey upon fish. The 

 crow is said to be a skillful fisher. 



The beautiful kingfisher, with which man bit- 

 terly contests the privilege to fish (though 

 doubtless the kingfisher's claims should be pre- 

 ferred upon rights of priority), is said to swal- 

 low a dozen fingerling fishes a day. The rule 

 against wantonly killing birds "Because nobody 

 has a right to take the life of any animal except 

 for food or self-protection." appears to have 

 been sadly broken by that German who, in four- 

 teen years, killed seven hundred kingfishers, 

 purely in a spirit of competition. 



On this subject the State Zoologist of Penn- 

 sylvania in 1896 pointedly remarked that the 

 number of fish taken every year by lawless per- 

 sons in defiance of the statutes of his state, was 

 a hundred times over more than the number cap- 

 tured by the fish-eating birds and mammals com- 

 bined. And he named over twenty-five species 

 of birds and several mammals whose prey is 

 largely or wholly fish. What a lessened chance 

 of sustenance the birds and mammals must have 

 when man fishes witli legal license ! 



The jealousy of the German who killed the 

 kingfishers was quite outdone in British Co- 

 lumbia during the summer of 1917 if reports 

 are true. It is said that two hundred hair seals 

 basking in the sun at the mouth of the Fraser 

 River were destroyed with dynamite for the sole 

 reason that the seals happen to enjoy a certain 

 fish that the human palate also craves. 



