FOURTEEN TELEOSTEAN FISHES AT BEAUFORT, N. C. 
407 
EXPERIMENTS IN GROWING YOUNG PIGFISH IN CAPTIVITY 
Several attempts at feeding and otherwise keeping the young fish alive and 
inducing them to grow, after the yolk had been absorbed, were made. No artificial 
food was found that gave any promise of success. Fry placed in glass dishes in the 
laboratory and supplied with running water, from which it was thought they might 
secure some natural food, fared no better than those kept in similar dishes without 
running water. Wooden frames (floats) covered with bolting silk were partly sub- 
merged in laboratory tanks, supplied with an abundance of running water. A similar 
but larger frame was anchored in the harbor. It was hoped that the fish might 
obtain natural food in this way. However, no fish were recovered from these “floats” 
if left over a period of several hours. It is believed the young fish are so delicate 
that they are injured by the roughness of the silk. It was not possible, at least, to 
transfer recently hatched fish alive on bolting silk from one dish to another, even 
though they were out of water for only a fraction of a second. Diatom mud w T as 
placed in dishes with sea water to which the fry were added after the mud had settled, 
or again the fish were placed in water decanted from diatom mud. These experiments 
all failed, and to date no method of growing the young fish in captivity has been found. 
Since the fry could not be grown in captivity beyond a length of about 3 milli- 
meters, it became necessary to catch fish of about that size, and larger ones, to obtain 
and to study all the stages in the development. 
The identification of young fish only about 3 millimeters long, unless compara- 
tively large series to connect them with larger or smaller specimens of known identity 
are available, obviously is difficult. Therefore, the completion of the series was 
attempted by “patching” out, one grading downward from individuals large enough 
to be readily recognized because of their resemblance to the adult. A series, ranging 
from adults downward to a length of 11 millimeters, was obtained within a few 
months after the work on the egg development was completed. These sizes were 
obtained with seines, the smaller ones occurring in abundance in shallow water in the 
immediate vicinity of the station where the bottom was overgrown with eelgrass. 
The missing sizes (3 to 11 millimeters long), however, were much more difficult to get. 
It was expected, of course, that they would occur in the tow, especially since the eggs 
were numerous and rather widely distributed. A few scattering ones were taken from 
time to time, but they were of such intermediate sizes that they were not recognized 
either as identical with the recently hatched young or as belonging to the series of 
larger pigfish already secured. It was not until the third season after this study was 
begun that the proper sizes were taken in sufficient numbers to complete the series, and 
then only once and by a mere chance. This particular time the bottom townet, which 
was being hauled on Newport River, a short distance from the laboratory, became well 
filled with sand. A pailful of this sand was brought to the laboratory, and the 
missing, and much sought for, sizes of pigfish occurred in abundance in this sand. 
Although many hauls had been made over the same course with a bottom townet 
without gathering up sand, pigfish from 3 to 11 millimeters long had been missing 
almost constantly. It might be inferred from these results that the young pigfish 
after absorbing its yolk falls to the bottom, where it remains in the sand until a length 
of about 11 millimeters is attained, when it resorts to shallow water in grassy areas, 
which are its favorite haunts during its first summer. 
Growth . — The study of the rate of growth of the pigfish after its first summer 
and its span of life, pursued by the junior author, has not progressed far enough to 
admit of an adequate discussion at the present time. Therefore, the account here 
