June 20, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 0 
497 
were not aching and therefore his anatomical barometer 
was giving out no indications. 
Ned wisely suggested going to bed and sleeping over it 
and taking it in the morning, as one takes a wife, for 
better or for worse, and no kicking about it either. It 
was wholesome advice, and we therefore cheerfully 
abided by it. 
The angler's misery, the festive mosquitoes, we discov- 
ered after retiring, were out in great clouds and we could 
distinctly hear their direful war songs as brigade after 
brigade of them charged into our tent with their little 
daggers drawn. In addition to this annoyance some rov- 
ing cattle, rendered furious by the attacks of these winged 
warriors, were wildly tramping around our tent all night, 
and in such close proximity that I had to get up and 
fasten the folds in front to prevent their entering as a 
refuge from their tormentors, As if our troublesome 
company was not fully sufficient, several ground squir- 
rels put in an appearance and selected the roof of our 
tent for their mischievous frolios, while a number of 
field mice seeking for snug quarters crawled under our 
blankets for a Berene siesta. It was everything but a 
quiet night, but amidst all the disturbance we finally fell 
asleep. Alex. Starbuck. 
|TO BE CONTINUED.] 
NATURAL FOOD FOR TROUT FRY. 
BY FRED. MATHER. 
[Read before the American Fisheries Society.] 
Half a dozen years ago, more or less, a fishculturist in 
Europe published an account of his experiments in rear- 
ing trout fry on natural food, which he had learned to 
produce in great quantities by a process which he would 
not divulge. His system included a supply pond where 
the living food was bred and a series of small pools which 
served as temporary pastures for the fry until the food in 
one was exhausted, when they were to be driven into 
another pond, as cattle are changed from one pasture to 
another. This man's article was translated into many 
languages and was published either in the annual Report 
of the U. S. Fish Commission or in its Bulletin. At 
present, while writing this article, my library is packed 
away and it is not possible for me to quote the volume 
nor to give the name of the gentleman who originated 
the idea, but I have stated his main plan and remember 
tbat the secret process of growing live food was offered 
for sale to me, as no doubt it was to other fishculturists, 
but for two reasons I paid no attention to the matter; one 
was that I never cared to buy any secret, and the other 
that the plan seemed to be impractical on any scale such 
as we URe in America. The plan of driving small trout 
from a grassy or weedy pond condemned the whole 
thing because they do not drive well, and in such a pond 
many would remain and keep down the expected increase 
of food; and so the wonderful scheme was dismissed from 
serious consideration. 
A while after the first announcement of this discovery 
of how to rear trout without expense, it leaked out that 
the process was to use the dung of animals in water to 
grow diatoms by the million, and the diatoms in turn 
would furnish food in plenty for the smaller crustaceans, 
as daphne, cyclops, gammarus and perhaps other forms 
of life on which young trout thrive in a state of nature. 
This was perfect in theory, but I still was skeptical as to 
its value in practice, and the scheme passed from memo- 
ry until it was brought before this society two or three 
years ago and lightly discussed. You may remember 
that Mr. Frank N. Clark said that he had experimented a 
little in this direction with several forms of ordure, but 
had produced no results that were satisfactory to him. 
Last summer I had leisure to try this scheme, and will 
give the result of the experiments. 
There was a dripping fountain in my yard supplied 
from springs in the hill above, which also supplied a por- 
tion of the water used in the State hatchery, on lower 
ground. This fountain was supplied by a fin. lead pipe, 
and the water trickled and dropped over rockwork into a 
basin, and from there the overflow went through a series 
of small pools in my garden, where the year before seve- 
ral species of wild ducks had been confined. An exami- 
nation of the water in the first pool, and also in the small 
open pond above which caught the flow of the several 
springs, revealed the fact that it contained the forms of 
minute life named above as well as rotifers, hydra, snails 
and several kinds of water insects as well as their larvse. 
Therefore all the conditions seemed favorable. 
For the benefit of those who have paid no attention to 
the minute forms of life which it was proposed to breed it 
may be well to say that diatoms are invisible to the un- 
assisted eye except when in mass, as we often see in 
swamps, where they appear as an iridescent scum on the 
surface of the water in still places or in the spoor of some 
heavy animal. They were formerly supposed to belong 
in the animal kingdom, but are now classed among the 
lower forms of algae and have a shell or case of silica, 
which passes undigested through fi3h and turtles. These 
diatoms form the principal food of the oyster, and natu- 
ralists have recorded and named something like 4,000 
species of them, but we will not go into the subject so 
deeply. Suffice it to say that the microscropic vegetables 
can swim in most cases and supply food for animals also 
microscopic in their young stages, such as the daphnia, 
cyclops and other forms of entomostraca, which in turn 
feed young fishes. 
To be complete such experiments should begin in Feb- 
ruary, when the earliest trout of the year may begin 
feeding; but these experiments began in April, in time, 
however, for the production of food for the later hatch 
to get their first meal. The water now on Long Island 
was a trifle warmer and presumably more favorable to 
the production of such life as was desired. The tem- 
perature of the water during the season was as follows, 
mean temperatures only for each month being given in 
scale of Fahrenheit: 
Rockery. 1st Pool. 2d Pool. 3d Pool. 4th Pool 
April 56.5 5S.10 59 59.75 60 
May 58.5 60 61.i!5 62 62 10 
June 62.75 64.10 65 65.75 66 - 25 
July 69,25 78.25 75.10 76 78' 
August 72.75 74.5 76.25 76.75 77.50 
With August the record ended. Neither time nor in- 
clination allowed further observations, for the season had 
covered the production of food during the moat critical 
period of the life of a baby trout. 
The "Rockery" received the first water from the spring 
pond, already mentioned, and in the basin at its top was 
placed both old and fresh cow ordure weekly. In the first 
pool there was a division of the water, and in one-half 
horse dung was frequently put, both fresh and stale, and 
in all the pools was a deposit of duck dung of the previous 
year, well dissolved, and stocked with all the forms of 
life which was thought desirable to cultivate. At different 
times water was taken from each of the five places in this 
way: One gallon from the surface by immersing the 
measure, one gallon from the middle, and one from the 
bottom by means of tubes, and the contents filtered 
through No. 8 wire cloth, cheese cloth, and then through 
the finest of mill silk bolting cloth. The last would retain 
almost all but the smaller diatoms, and they were 
caught in a funnel of filtering paper below all the other 
strainers. 
This work, being done twice each month for the five 
months including April and August, should give a fair 
average of the amount of food in the pools during the 
season in which the operations were conducted. The fol- 
lowing gives the amount of entomostraca obtained, and 
excluding snails and the diatoms. In other words, the 
amount of food available for trout fry in their first season, 
such as they can see, seize, swallow and assimilate. The 
pools contained about 150 cubic feet of water, or 1,125 gal- 
lons, of which 15 gallons, or -fg, were strained on ten 
different days, at the 1st and 15th of each month. 
Of the above-named food 2.25 grams were caught, equal- 
ing .225 grams per day. This multiplied by 75 gives us 
16.875 grams for the entire water per day, and again mul- 
tiplied by the i53 days gives a total of 2,581.875 grams in 
the whole season. Dividing this by 24 gives us 107.578oz., 
a trifle less than 6f lbs. avoirdupois. 
We must consider the fact that no fish were feeding in 
these pools, and that the calculation is made as if the 
animals lived only one day and were replaced by others. 
This is not the fact, and how long they may live I cannot 
say, but if each individual lived a week the amount of 
food produced would be less than lib. in the entire season, 
as the calculation is for a daily renewal of all life. Two 
hundred baby trout could have lived there during the first 
week of their lives and fed well; after that time, when 
their appetites began to get sharper, say in a' fortnight, all 
the food to be found would be just what came in the 
water supply, and that would not have fed half a dozen 
when two months old. If I had been skeptical of the 
practical utility of this scheme before this experiment 
there has been nothing to convince me of error; still, if 
other trials uader other circumstances show that it is 
practicable to raise enough natural food to rear 20,000, or 
even 10,000, to be six months old, I must try the plan 
which has proved to be successful. While writing this I 
do not know that any other men but Mr. Clark and my- 
self have worked in this field in America, still it is to be 
hoped that they have done so, and that they will publish 
their experience. Such work is very interesting to one 
who has a taste for it, as most fi3 ,culturists have, and this 
paper may stimulate others to similar trials. I think one 
plan was to have a number of separate ponds in which to 
breed the food and to tap them in succession, and allow 
each one to furnish food to the fish, which were not to be 
driven to the pasture, but to remain in one pond and get 
the food supply from different sources at different times. 
This is certainly the best plan, as any trout breeder will 
certify, because it is a difficult matter to get the last dozen 
trout from a pool containing vegetation or hiding places 
of any kind. At present writing I have less faith in the 
scheme than when I began to experiment with it. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
A New Chicago Bass Country. 
Chicago, III., June 6.— I mentioned last week that a 
friend and myself had discovered a lake down in Indiana, 
where we intended to catch about 450 bass. We made 
the trip, but owing to a newly discovered clause in the 
Indiana fish laws — as see the "Game Laws in Brief" — by 
which, since 1895, it has been unlawful to take any fish 
from Indiana lakes for any other purpose but that of 
stocking other waters, we did not catch the 450 has*, 
which we will get some other time. But the trip resulted 
in the discovery of about 450 lakes and streams full of bass 
which I had no idea lay so close to Chicago, whose vicin- 
ity I fondly dreamed I had pretty fairly explored. In- 
deed, though we got no fishing, I got almost more news 
than I knew what to do with, and returned very much 
surprised at the extent of fishing country there is lying at 
the door of Chicago, to which, so far as I can learn, 'the 
Chicago anglers rarely go. Moreover it is a strange and 
interesting country, and well worth careful study. For 
instance, so far from its being a low and marshy country, 
it is one of swift and cold streams; and so far from being 
occupied only by bass and pickerel as fish life, it also car- 
ries trout. I venture the assertion that Forest and 
Stream is the first newspaper to discover the fact that 
there are trout in Indiana, as it was the first to publish 
the fact that there are trout within eighty miles north of 
Chicago. 
Our newly discovered country lies within sixty-five to 
eighty miles from Chicago, to the southeast, just at that 
point below the foot of Lake Michigan where all the East- 
bound railway trains make their turn around the lake and 
start for the East. I came pretty near discovering this 
country four years ago, when Alex. Loyd and I made 
our expedition to explore the headwaters of the Calumet 
River and discover its Bource— something which at that 
time had never been properly done. As readers of For- 
est and Stream probably do not remember, we followed 
the Calumet far up through the marsh region which lies 
outside the sandhills that hedge the lower end of Lake 
Michigan to a point near Chesterton, just above the 
mouth of Salt Creek. Here we broke an oar and were 
compelled to abandon the expedition, this being the proper 
finishing touch to most great expeditions, which come 
back with explanations and leave the results behind. On 
this last occasion I actually got the results, and am pre- 
pared to say that I have found the head of the Calumet 
River— its very head, the utmost and ultimate spring 
from which it begins to flow. A great many men have 
found the headwaters of the Nile, but does history say 
anything about anybody having found the headwaters 
of the Calumet? I opine not. And I opine further 
that even to-day there are very few Chicago sportsmen 
who can guess within thirty miles of where the head 
of the Calumet really is. Most of them would believe 
it rose in some marshy spring hole barely above the 
level of. the Tolleston marsh. I was surprised to learn 
how far from true this is, and surprised to learn also 
how close upon the trail of the Calumet Mr. Loyd and 
I were on that fateful evening when, just' at dusk, we 
broke an oar and had to seek shelter at a light gleam- 
ing dimly across the wide and desolate marsh. At that 
point we heard of an old mill pond up Salt Creek where 
once upon a time the bass were of enormous size, but 
which was partly drained twenty years ago. We heard 
vaguely also of another pond, nearly up to that mysteri- 
ous town known in Chicago as Valparaiso, but universally 
in Indiana called "Valpo." At a time subsequent to that 
voyage of discovery my friend Harryman and myself 
went fishing m Salt Creek, and found it held fine bass 
and excellent croppies. We did not then know how near 
we were to this country of which I am now writing, but 
we shall presently see that we were treading upon the 
very heel thereof. On this recent trip I heard fluently 
discussed these very points to which on the earlier trips I 
had attained, and found that some of them were not 
more than ten or twenty miles from the spot where I 
then actually stood. Then I was very proud that fortune 
had brought what zeal had sought, and that not to some 
one else, but to Forest and Stream belonged the glory of 
having set at rest the gravest of preexisting doubts, and 
of having discovered the actual head of the Calumet. 
Not only both these vaguely known ponds have been 
definitely located, but others, half a dozen of them, have 
been discovered. There shall appear to the anglers of 
Chicago an opportunity for bass fishing in a new sort of 
water— to wit, the mill pond, which hath in all time 
been held excellent. 
On this late trip Mr. Phillips and I went to Haskells, on 
the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway, at the point where 
it crosses the Monon line. Thence we walked four miles, 
which we discovered it took just fifty-seven minutes to 
do with one's kit on his back— this fact being stated for 
the benefit of those who wish to know about the schedule. 
At the end of the four miles we arrived at the village of 
Westville, a pretty little place of a few hundred inhabit- 
ants, and here we were received with the most cordial 
hospitality by Mr, and Mrs. E. Ansley, who certainly 
treated us better than any two hungry fishermen ever de- 
served. Here we lived as royal personages for the time 
of our stay, with horses and carriages at our disposal for 
the exploration of the land whenever it suited us to cease 
loafing and visiting. It was out of this visit, made with- 
out any geographical plans in view at all, that there arose 
the chance discovery of the head of the Calu.net and also 
of a vast and unexplored region of great sporting interest, 
which, though occupied for some generations by settlers, 
has never until this date been properly discovered and 
charted. It chances that Rob Ansley is the county sur- 
veyor for that county, and in his work of running the 
ditches of the drainage work along the Kankakee and 
other streams of that region has become very familiar 
with the topography of the country. Moreover, I became 
acquainted, of course, with Dr. B. W. Hollenbeck, a 
friend of the family, and an enthusiastic angler, who has 
fished in every lake and stream within fifty miles of West- 
ville. Thus alike the material of discovery and the means 
thereto lay fairly at hand, thanks to the Forest and 
Stream luck. The rest was simply matter of detail, as 
will appear hereinafter. 
On the first evening of my stay at Westville I rode out 
with Charlie Ansley to the little lake where Mr. Phillips 
and I intended to do our fishing. We found it a pretty 
sheet of water of about a quarter of a mile in diameter, 
round as a dollar and very clear. It had no inlet or out- 
let, and was commonly reputed to be fed by springs. 
Originally there were no fish at all in this little lake, but 
about twelve years ago a local angler begau to put into it 
the bass and sunfish he was catching in other waters 
near by, and before long the fishing became very good. 
The bass from this lake are very bright and clean-run 
looking fish, and Mr. Phillips, who had great sport here 
last year with the fly, says they are as gamy as any he 
ever took. At the time of our visit the caddis fly was 
just beginning to come up, so that we knew there would 
be fine fly-fishing in a week or so. This lake has a great 
local reputation, but not all who go there are able to take 
a good basket offish, for the bass, though of the big-mouth 
variety, are as capricious as small-mouths. I should not 
call this a good frog water, but better for minnows, from 
all I could learn. There is no feeding ground of any 
definition and all the shore seemed much alike. 
Schools of Black Bass. 
The bass here have a peculiar habit, which I have never 
heard of their having in any other water, and this I had 
full opportunity of seeing illustrated. I was standing on 
the bluff above the lake when I saw a commotion in the 
water and thought a heavy bass was rising there. I 
spoke to Charlie about it, but he said, "No, that's a 
school." 
"A school of what?" I asked him, and he replied that 
they were black bass. This I did not believe, but told him 
they must be crotpies or perch, which often travel thus 
in large schools at the surface of the water, just as these 
fish could now be seen doing. He insisted that they were 
black bass and later I learned absolutely that this was the 
case. We saw at times as many as three of these schools 
playing at once. They came on, leaping half out of the 
water, or with their backs half out of the water, making 
a constant bubbling commotion on the surface of the 
water like a school of small porpoises, one after another 
rolling up and then down. This always was in water 
apparently as deep as any in the lake, from 20 to 40ft., 
and the schools would work around on a space of not 
more than a few acres in extent, disappearing for perhaps 
half an hour at a time. 
I could never determine what they were doing in these 
schools, nor did I ever find anyone who could tell. Of 
course I have seen bass feeding in schools, but this was 
usually in shallow water and not then always on the sur- 
face. If these bass were feeding it was impossible to tell 
what they were pursuing. Certainly it was not minnows, 
for the fish were not in action enough for that and were 
not scattered and plunging, but in a regular and solid 
body and not over shallow wtter at all. One would be- 
lieve they were feeding on caddis, but the day was cold 
and no flies were coming up, and one would not look for 
the flies over the deep water. Moreover, we were within 
10ft. of the school once or twice, and I can say that no fly 
was on the water. I have seen trout acting this way and 
never knew them to bite then, but the trout played higher 
in the air. I can describe the action in no way better 
than by comparing it to the play of a school of porpoises. 
