DESCRIPTIVE KEY TO PAGES 2U TO 2-32 255 



them constantly. When the young hatch, the parents carry them 

 in their" mouths and deposit them in a depression previously made 

 in the sand at the bottom, where they jealously guard them against 

 all comers — terrestrial or aquatic — frequently removing dirt from 

 the "nest" and transferring the baby fish to new nests three or four 

 times a day. For the first ten days after hatching, the young fish eat 

 nothing, but live in a swarm at the bottom, while they absorb the 

 contents of the egg sac or bag of yolk-of-egg-like fluid beneath the 

 abdomen. At the end of this period they begin to look like fish and 

 then they all get up off the bottom and swim around their parents 

 who continue to guard them closely. From this time on they require 

 "baby" fishfood — small daphnia, etc., though they \\'ill eat dried fish- 

 food if finely powdered. Ten days after they begin to feed, the 

 parents should be removed. They may not eat the young, but it is 

 safer. The Cichlids dislike and destroy plants, so none should be 

 provided, but they require clean, pure water, so some should be 

 changed occasionally (siphoning all dirt from the bottom), replac- 

 ing it with hydrant water, blended hot and cold to same temperature 

 as that in the aquarium, which should be of a uniform summer heat. 



B6 GROUP 



THE GOBY FAMILY (Gobiida;). These include 1)0ttom fish 

 from all over the world, occurring in shallow streams or shallow 

 shore-waters — marine, brackish and fresh. Little is known of their 

 spawning habits, beyond the fact that some spawn among — and on — 

 the stones on the bottom. Others — small species — will spawn on the 

 inside — i.e., concave side — of a piece of drain pipe laid on its side in 

 the aquarium and others spawn among the weeds (roots) on the 

 sand or mud. Some protect their spawn. Others do so but little it 

 at all. As to rearing the young, aquarists must experiment and 

 persevere, as very few have had much success with them and those 

 who have reared any have been Euroijean aquarists with alnmdant 

 time and patience. 



B7 GROUP 



LABYRINTH FLSH (possessed of an air-cavity or cell beneath 

 each gill-cover, in which a supply of air is stored for breathing). 

 These fish are all air-lireathers, coming frequently to the surface to 

 replenish the air in this storage chanfijer. Most of these Labyrinth 

 fishes build "Inibble nests." i. e,, form a secretion in their niduths, and 



