6o 
AMERICAN FISHES. 
They have another reason for seeking a shelter in the shallow water, for 
their parents are surely guilty of inconsistent conduct. They are said to 
care tenderly for their callow brood, and even teach them howto eat; 
but this must be a mistake : for although it cannot be denied that they 
patiently mount guard over their nestful of eggs, they are often seen 
devouring their new-born offspring, who thrive in the very teeth of their 
piratical relatives. 
The rate of growth of the young has been studied in artificial ponds. 
In Granby, Conn., four-pound fish were taken in 1874, the progeny of 
two hundred and fifty fish placed in the pond in 1868. The eggs require 
two or three weeks to hatch. In September the young are about two 
inches long; when well fed they grow to four inches the first season. At 
two years of age they weigh about a pound, few caught in the North 
weighing more than four pounds. Leaving the egg in June, they grow to 
two or three inches before cold weather begins—trim, sprightly little 
darters, with black bands across the bases of their tails. Another twelve- 
month finds them in the garb of maturity, eight or nine inches long, and 
with their organs swelling in preparation for the act of spawning, which 
they are said to undertake at the age of two years, and when less than a 
foot long. The ordinary size of the adult fish is two and one-half to 
three pounds, though they are sometimes taken in the North weighing 
six or seven pounds. In Florida the Large-mouths grow larger. A seven 
or eight-pounder is not unusual in the St. John’s; and I was told that in 
March, 1875, a fish weighing nineteen and one-half pounds was caught 
in the lake at Gainesville, Fla. 
Fish culturists have made many efforts to hatch the eggs of the Black 
Bass, and have never succeeded. One reason for their failure, perhaps, 
lies in the fact that, while in the shad and salmon the eggs fall from the 
ovaries into an abdominal cavity, whence they are easily expressed, in 
the Bass and other spiny-rayed fishes they are retained until the parent 
fish are ready to deposit them. This failure is the less to be regretted 
since the young Bass may easily transported from place to place in barrels 
of cool water, and, when once introduced, they soon multiply, if protected, 
to any desired number. 
Black Bass are very tenacious of life. A Germantown correspondent 
mentions some taken at 10 o’clock a. m., sold and wrapped in paper, 
left in a warm room till 5 p. m., when they were found to be alive and 
well. 
