Parasites, Diseases and Enemies. 267 



lined with thousands of fish, mostly dead catfish. Men 

 have been engaged for three days in removing them, 

 but are making no headway. As they clear a patch, it 

 is covered again with dead fish washed to shore. Hun- 

 dreds of wagon loads have been removed in this man- 

 ner. The bass with which the lakes were stocked a 

 few years ago do not appear to be affected. A similar 

 phenomenon was experienced in Green's Basin, north 

 of here, a few weeks ago. No explanation of the oc- 

 currence can, be had." 



Summing all this up, there seems to be no way of 

 preventing disease, whether sporadic or epidemic, 

 among fish, except to keep the ponds clean if they 

 are densely populated and to treat cases of fungus with 

 salt water, where possible, and to remove every in- 

 fected fish at once. 



Most other diseases of trout in ponds, such as blind- 

 ness, the turning in of the flap of the gill cover, where it 

 grows fast, exposing the gill, are not comtpon enough 

 to warrant seeking a remedy. In blindness there is no 

 hope for improvement, and as a gill cover once turned 

 in and grown fast refuses to be straightened out, it 

 may be well to let it be as it is.* 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



ENEMIES. 



As it would require a volume to tell of the enemies of 

 salt-water fishes — which, by the way, are mostly other 

 species of fish, and the marine mammals — this cfiapter 



* See chapter xliii on the working, or blooming, of ponds. 



