208 Flow to obtain tt. 
Thy riches.” That creatures hitherto looked upon as insignifi- 
cant, should be made to play so important a part in the economy 
of Nature, is at first somewhat startling. Nevertheless the fact 
remains, and the more we delve into Nature’s hidden mysteries, 
the more closely are we led up to Nature’s God. 
The provision that has been made for the artificial feeding of 
fishes, when man requires to use it, is truly wonderful, only 
waiting development. From the way in which trout devour these 
crustaceans, one would suppose that they like them better than 
we do oysters, or they would not eat them shells and all, as they 
do at every opportunity. 
That they (the crustaceans) are an important item to trout 
fry there can be no doubt, and they seem to thrive under more 
varied conditions than some other species. The finest are found 
in water of the highest natural temperature, other things being 
equal, and some of the largest specimens were observed in a pool 
the water of which registered 60°F. It was tolerably shallow at 
the margin but shelving to deep water, and containing abundance 
of water plants, and zzfwsorza of many varieties. 
We now come to a very large family, the Arachnida, or 
spiders, some of which live in the water. They are not so valuable 
from a fish culturist’s point of view, perhaps, as are some of the 
crustaceans, and some of the foreign species 
will even kill fish and suck their juices. The 
smaller kinds known as water mites (Fig. 26) 
are rather numerous. They are usually in 
full activity of life in April, and they are just 
the right size one would suppose for feeding 
trout fry, but as far as we have observed, the 
fry seem to reject them utterly. There are 
brown, red, grey, black, and spotted ones, 
but somehow fry, even when they get to 
minnow size, do not seem to care much about 
them. They vary in size, some of them 
being about as big as dust shot, whilst others 
Fig. 26. are the size of No. 1 shot. They swim with 
Water Mites, enlarged. 4 beautifully even movement, their legs whilst 
swimming somewhat resembling a wheel, or screw propeller. 
