31 
pond. Strange to say, the breeding was sparse, absent for long 
stretches, at both the upper and lower ends. Possibly the freshet 
coincident with the beginning of our visit washed out or stranded 
all the floatage from the upper part of the pond, and with the floatage 
went the attendant larvae. 
Minnows were scarce in this pond, and yet a shallow place in an 
old cotton field which showed free breeding one day showed none two 
days afterwards, and the spaces between the rows had many minnows. 
This is the only shallow place in any pond where we have ever seen 
very free breeding. There was some protection from dead grass, but 
larvae were quite abundant where there was no protection. 
Willows were abundant in the Parr Shoals Pond, and when par¬ 
tially submerged they sent out a mass of fine roots just at or above the 
water level. These should be ideal shelters for larvae, but larvae were 
very rarely found among them, even when they contained floatage. 
The same plant with the bunch of white, fibrous, aerial roots hanging 
down in the water mentioned above occurring in the Coosa Pond 
was very abundant here, and, as at the Coosa, larvae were never found 
among its roots. 
This observation at Parr Shoals seems worthy of record, only we 
have no explanation of it to make. On the evening of August 12 
there was a rise of 10 to 12 inches in the lower part of the pond. 
Much drift came down. There was a steady moderate wind directly 
up the river, slightly toward the right bank. This had little effect 
on the heavy stuff, which was deep in the water, but held back the 
lighter. In the afternoon of August 13 fine drift could be seen in 
some places like a film on the water. There was little current then— 
almost none except in midstream. On the 14th there was found 
a body of very fine floatage, 75 by 150 feet, above the mouth of 
Cannons Creek in very still water. In this there was a very large 
number of “ baby ” larvae—none over 2 or 2J days old, most of them 
just hatched. Whether this patch of floatage was the film seen the 
day before concentrated, or whether it drifted in already formed, 
is a question. The larvae were all of approximately one age and 
all very young. The floatage itself was out in deep water over the 
old river bed—about 30 feet deep—but not in midstream. If the 
floatage had been simply released by the rise of the river from where 
it was resting with the larvae already in it, one would have ex¬ 
pected them to have been of different ages, as at Stevens Creek. 
The fact that they were all of one age implies that they were from 
eggs laid about the same time and very recently when this film of 
floatage was adrift, i. e., eggs were laid out in the stream. As we 
left the next morning, the progress of this lot could not be followed. 
The floatage would naturally, most of it, go to the bank. 
