NATURE'S REALM. 
Could I winter my pets? Still undecided what 
to do, I noticed that as the water became 
colder the appetite of my fish diminished, and 
then it dawned on me that they might live 
through the winter without food. 
On the day before Thanksgiving I moved my 
aquarium into the cellar, changed the water 
pipe to supply the same kind of a stream down 
there, and put the fish into winter quarters. 
On January 1, 1889, during a period of mild 
weather, I induced some boys to go to a shel- 
tered bluff facing south and dig some worms. 
They brought me a can full of choice earth- 
worms, and I went down with them to inter- 
view my pets. The fish seemed to be comfort- 
able in the cellar twilight ; the slow, regular 
motions of their fins necessary to maintain 
their position, and the slight and almost 
imperceptible movements of their jaws and gill 
covers in the act of breathing, were the only 
signs of life about them. I held in front of 
them some of those long, fat earthworms, 
curling and twisting, but they would not touch 
them, though they had the previous summer 
taken many such out of my hand with evident 
relish as a change of diet. I even hung a large 
worm over the snout of one of the fish, but he 
leisurely shook it off and permitted it to fall to 
the bottom. Being convinced that the fish 
would not eat, I ceased to worry about their 
winter food supply, emptied the worms into the 
water and left them. The following March I 
moved the fish upstairs again, finding them all 
plump and healthy, and the worms still crawl- 
ing about in the bottom of the tank. As the 
water became warmer the fish regained their 
appetite and began to feed, rather slowly at 
first, bli: with increasing vigor as spring 
ripened into summer. The summer of 1889 
was a repetition of the preceding one, in so far 
that the bass had lost their fear of the hand of 
man, and remained tame and healthy. During 
that summer I put in with them for a few 
weeks a channel catfish weighing five pounds. 
He was a handsome fish, with a small head, 
and slender, gracetul body, beautifully marked 
with black dots on the pale blue skin, and 
made a grand fight when [ captured him, but 
the brute had no sense whatever. Any motion 
throwing a shadow over the water frightened 
193 
him, and I found that in his fright, rushing 
about with horns sticking out stiff, he had in- 
jured some of my bass. I was compelled to 
take him out and kill him. 
During the winter of 1889 to 1896, I kept 
twenty bass in the cellar, putting them down 
earlier than the preceding fall, and before they 
had entirely stopped feeding; I put with them 
a batch of minnows, which they ate in the cel- 
lar. When I again moved them upstairs in 
March I found that my tank was very foul, the 
fish were very slimy, and those that had been 
horned the preceding summer by the large 
catfish were very sore in the injured spots. I 
took the injured ones (four in number) back to 
the river, where I hope they have found a doc- 
tor to heal their wounds. The uninjured ones 
I washed carefully; with the warm weather 
they regained their full appetite, and the six 
largest are in my tank to-day. Last fall I 
waited until the fish had quit feeding before I 
put them into the cellar again, and did not at- 
tempt to winter so many, and the result is that 
there is not a mar or blemish on one of them. 
They are upstairs in my window again, and 
enumerate as follows: 
Three rock bass or goggle-eyes, weighing 
between, four and six ounces each, which I 
have had about two years. One channel cat- 
fish, which I caught in June, 1889, when he 
weighed one and three-fourths pounds ; he now 
weighs over three pounds, and has lost much 
of his unreasoning natural fear. Two scale 
carp, one weighing three-quarters of a pound, 
which I caught last August, and the other one 
caught in April, 1889, when it weighed one and 
a half pounds, but which now weighs three 
pounds. Last, but not least, ten small-mouthed 
black bass, six of which are of the lot caught in 
April, 1888; one has been in my possession 
since September, 1889, and the other three 
since October, 1890. The largest one is the 
two and a half pound fish of the spring of 1888 ; 
he has grown very little in length, but consid- 
erable in thickness and depth, and now weighs 
three and a half pounds. The other nine bass 
weigh from three pounds six ounces down to 
two and a half pounds, and the aggregate 
weight of the ten is thirty-one pounds. 
You see by above enumeration that I have 
