56 



Aquatic JLitt 



to roll his eyes are among his proudest 

 accomplishments. Suddenly he will 

 dance sideways across the tank, much 

 like a kitten after a paper ball, the un- 

 suspecting target being a peaceful snail. 

 One snap of his jaws and the victim is 

 headless, for his teeth are very sharp 

 and his appetite most carnivorous. At 

 other times he appears bashful, and with 

 a few vigorous twists of his tail buries 

 all but his eyes in the sand. But, no 

 matter in what he is engaged his charm 

 is largely his ever evident spirit of mis- 

 chief. 



His seeming preference for the bot- 

 tom may be explained by the very poor, 

 if any development of his air bladder, 

 which being usually well developed en- 

 ables other fishes to rise in the water. 

 In his native habitat his food consists 

 of Chironomus larva? and those of 

 gnats and small may-flies, which he 

 hunts assiduously under the stones. In 

 captivity he will thrive nicely on the 

 food used for our small aquaria fish, 

 seemingly quite content with an easy life. 

 The spawning season is from the last of 

 April to the first of June. While 

 spawning the male rides on the back of 

 the female, keeping the pectorals and 

 ventrals in rapid vibration. The eggs 

 are emitted at intervals, the female 

 occasionally raising a cloud of sand, 

 probably to protect them. 



The darters stand very high in the 

 flesh scale, belonging to the perch fam- 

 ily, and are therefore close relatives of 

 the much larger and better known yel- 

 low perch and wall-eyed pike. The lit- 

 tle fellows have been aptly described as 

 not dwarfs but concentrated fish. Among 

 the darters we have some really beauti- 

 ful species, such as the rainbow and 

 Iowa darters. But if Johnny does re- 

 semble only a piece of used sand paper, 

 he is always up to scratch. 



(The accompanying portrait of 



Johnny is reproduced from "The Fishes 

 of Illinois," Forbes and Richardson, by 

 permission of the Illinois State Labora- 

 tory of Natural History . — Ed.) 



Canned Shrimp a Fish Food 



Among aquarists I suppose I am not 

 alone in a fondness for shrimp salad. 

 It is not an infrequent dish upon our 

 table and more often than not the 

 canned article is used. I usually manage 

 to purloin one from the kitchen, wash 

 it carefully, then tie it to a piece of white 

 twine and suspend in the squarium a 

 few inches below the water surface. 

 The tank contains a happy family of 

 many species of exotic fishes that soon 

 prove to love shrimp far better than 

 their custodian, at least if one can judge 

 from their persistency in picking tiny 

 shred after shred from the morsel. This 

 is no small task, and in several hours 

 not more than half a shrimp will be con- 

 sumed by the hundred or more fishes. 

 When the carcass has been so "trimmed" 

 that there is danger of it breaking into 

 pieces and becoming detached from the 

 twine, I remove it. I commend the prac- 

 tice to my fellow aquarian naturalists. — 

 John Lee Bennington. 



Nature-Study 



Nature study is a pursuit which calls 

 all our faculties into action ; it makes us 

 observe, remember, reason and think ; 

 it takes us out of stuffy rooms into the 

 open air ; it makes us walk, wade, row 

 and even swim ; it develops inventive 

 genius, gives us eyes to see interesting 

 things everywhere; it appeals to the 

 sense of beauty, form and color, and. 

 above all, makes us reverent by leading 

 us to look up from Nature to Nature's 

 God.— Rev. C. A. Hall. 



