192 
to huddle in the corners, The large female 
appeared to be at liberty to do as she pleased ; 
the two had evidently decided to mate and 
nest, and the male seemed to do the fighting 
for both of them. They were a handsome 
couple, and naturally I was much interested in 
the probable outcome of their courtship. 
On May 20 I was out of the city, remaining 
away over night, and returned the next morn- 
ing. As I stepped from the train on to the de- 
pot platform the first man I met accosted me 
with, ‘‘ George, your fish are all dead,” and I 
heard the same unwelcome news several times 
before I reached my store, where I found the 
case as bad as represented. All the bass, the 
goggle-eyes and the channel catfish, were laid 
out in a row; every vestige of the color of life 
had left them ; they were pale as ghosts—dead. 
Standing near them, viewing them with a sad 
face (he also had learned to love them), and 
somewhat in fear of my wrath, was my clerk, 
Willie. To my question, ‘‘ Willie, how did it 
happen?” he answered: ‘Mr. Kamper, I 
hardly know. When I opened the store this 
morning the water was only dripping a little 
and the fish were dead.” Further questioning 
brought the information that, before closing 
the store the preceding night, Willie had turned 
down the strong pressure to enable him to 
draw a cup of water to drink, and he had for- 
gotten to turn it on again. The absence of 
pressure had permitted a speck of dirt to lodge 
in the nozzle, and the flow of water stopped en- 
tirely. Soon after daybreak the policeman on 
this beat noticed my fish showing signs of dis- 
tress, gasping for breath and rolling and tum- 
bling as if in delirium, and also that the water 
had stopped. He hunted for me at my rooms 
and at the hotel, but I was not in the city. 
When Willie came at 7 o’clock life had left all 
of the fish except the eel and the two bullheads. 
These, I was told, kept their mouths near the 
surface, and they survived. 
About the middie of May the bass in our 
rivers begin to nest, and as for that reason I 
could not immediately stock my aquarium with 
bass, I filled it temporarily with channel cat- 
fish. The catfish were rather unsatisfactory, 
on account of their habit of huddling together 
in the darkest corner during the day, feeding 
NATURE'S REALM. 
only at night after all the lights were turned 
out and everything was dark and quiet. When 
bass fishing again began in August, I soon re- 
placed the catfish with a fresh lot of bass, but 
none were as interesting as the large pair that 
was killed in the disaster of May 20. 
With the approach of winter I decided that 
the water would be undesirable in my window 
during the cold weather, and I also needed the 
show window for holiday goods, etc., therefore 
about the middle of November I killed the fish, 
shut off the water and removed the tank. This. 
ended the first year. In March, 1888, I again 
put my aquarium in the window, turned on 
the water and filled up with suckers and bull- 
heads until the bass commenced to bite. 
By the latter part of April I again had a lot 
of bass ranging in weight from one and a half 
to two and a half pounds each, but although 
some cf these were heavy with eggs, I saw no. 
signs of mating or attempting to nest, and in 
July the fish dropped their spawn, which went 
to waste. 
I feed my fish principally with minnows, of 
which I bring two or three bucketfulls at a time 
from the river. At the store I assort them, 
throwing the largest and choicest into the back 
tank for future use as bait, and throwing the 
balance to my fish for feed. After a few 
months of this practice I noticed that the bass. 
appeared to understand the meaning of the rat- 
tling of the minnow buckets, and this set me to- 
experimenting. Though they were at first 
somewhat timid, the bass soon ceased to fear 
my hand in the water near them, and before 
long they boldly took hold of minnows held by 
me, and forcibly pulled them out of my hand. 
When they are not hungry, they are uf course 
beyond my control, but ifthey want something 
to eat it is different. They will then come to. 
my hand, permit me to chuck them under the 
chin, and appear to say by looks almost as elo- 
quent as words, ‘‘Give me something to eat,” 
and I seldom let them beg in vain. 
Of course I felt proud of them, and became 
so attached to them that I dreaded the ap- 
proach of winter, for I did not want to kill them, 
and could not keep them in my window during 
the winter months. I had plenty of room in 
my cellar, but how about the food supply ? 
