SUNIER: Marine fish-ponds of Batavia. 215 
In the first place then it has become clear that the bandeng living in 
the sea, i.e. in its natural environment partakes (among other things) of 
large quantities of benthos-Diatoms. For I frequently found in the intestinal 
tract of bandeng caught in the sea, large quantities of Pleurosigma-like 
and also Navicula-like Naviculinae, that is to say Diatoms living at the 
sea-bottom or on another firm substratum (benthos), mixed with mineral 
particles. Many of the other organisms also found in the intestinal tract of 
sea-bandeng in these cases, such as Chaetoceras, Bacteriastrum, Rhizosolenia, 
Thalassiothrix nitzschioides, Coscinodiscus, Globigerina, Codonella etc. belong 
indeed to the plankton, but it is well-known that (as is indeed self evident) they 
or at least their dead bodies regularly get to the bottom of the (shallow) sea, 
Secondly, in the alimentary canal of four sea-bandeng | found remains 
of multicellular plants, probably of higher Algae, such as Phaeophyceae, 
I think I may infer from the above that the sea-bandeng so to say 
takes the cream off the upper layer of the sea-bottom, which contains a good 
many living or dead microscopic organisms, in doing which they absorb 
chiefly great quantities of microscopic vegetable organisms and (at the same 
time together with these) also some Foraminifera, some minute Lamelli- 
branchiates, some small Gastropods, and likewise some (dead bodies 
of) Copepods. If in doing so the bandeng comes across multicellular 
vegetable organisms living on the sea-bottom, they feed also on those. 
How far the above constitutes a picture of the normal way sea-bandeng 
feeds, I cannot say. For the small number of nine bandeng of which I was 
able to examine the food-remains in their intestinal tract, had all been 
caught with the payang-teri') or in the sero’s') close to the coast of Batavia, 
in very shallow water, on a mud-bottom. It is not impossible that the 
alimentary canal of sea-bandeng caught in an other biological environment 
might contain quite a different kind of food-remains. As to the black 
dwelling-tubes containing Gammaridea, these I found comprised in a white 
mass which to me was irrecognizable, so that I do not venture to guess 
how and with what other food these Gammaridea were swallowed. Neither 
can | say much about the small karyo-enteric Salpae found once in the 
oesophagus of a sea-bandeng. From the nature of the case there is a possibility 
of these pelagic animals, feeding exclusively on minute phyto-plankton 
organisms, having been absorbed by the bandeng at the bottom of the sea, 
where they had got to under certain circumstances (perhaps dying or dead). 
As regards the food of the pond-reared bandeng, the data collected 
and discussed above mainly show: 
lo. that the young empang-bandeng feeds on the Schizophyceae and 
Diatoms developing on the pond-bottom. 
_ 20. that at Batavia the older empang-bandeng frequently also feeds on 
Schizophyceae and Diatoms just mentioned as developing on the pond-bottom, 
but that the food of the bigger bandeng there consists in the first place of the 
1) cf. VAN KAMPEN (”). 
