Ac^aatic Insects of tf)e ^aranac K,egion. 



By E. P. FELT, D. Sc, State Entomologist. 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM. 

 UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 



THE State of New York annually expends large sums of money in rearing 

 young fish and planting them in various bodies of water, and yet we have 

 no very definite knowledge of the food requirements of the different species. 

 They are put in lake, pond or stream, and if in later years the fish planted is 

 found abundantly we consider that body of water well adapted to that particular 

 form, and if not, after repeated trials, we are obliged to admit that, for some 

 reason or other, frequently unknown, certain varieties of fish will not thrive under 

 those conditions. 



An attempt was made in 1900 to study this problem from a scientific standpoint, 

 and in the beginning the effort was very naturally confined to one group of animals, 

 viz., insects. Two investigators. Dr. J. G. Needham and Cornelius Betten, were 

 located, through the courtesy of the Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission, at 

 the Adirondack Hatchery, Saranac Inn, Franklin county, with instructions " to 

 collect and study the habits of aquatic insects, paying special attention to the 

 conditions necessary to the existence of the various species, their relative value as 

 food for fishes, the relations of the forms to each other and their life histories." 



Such instructions were necessarily very broad, and the carrying of them out in 

 detail must, in the nature of things, be a labor of years. The results obtained at 

 Saranac Inn give us a much better idea of the aquatic insect fauna of that section, 

 and form, together with work done in 1901, an excellent basis for learning the 

 conditions which govern the existence of the various species in different bodies of 

 water. The first thing to be ascertained in any such investigation is to find out 

 what forms inhabit the water or waters where the studies are being made, and in 

 this respect the work done by Dr. Needham and his assistant has proved most 

 admirable, since they have succeeded in adding materially to our knowledge of the 

 aquatic forms in the Saranac region. 



Complexity of Animal Life. An investigation such as is described above cannot 

 be limited to any one family, order, or even class of animals, but it must eventually 



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