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may also be carnivorous and feed upon other smaller 
species of tiny creatures, but somewhere down this 
line if traced to its source, the plant life provides 
that food that enables one to live upon the other. 
PROTECTION 
Here we will consider protection for these fishes 
from their natural enemies, The parent fish takes 
its young into the weed bed, not only because food 
is more abundant there, but because it affords hiding 
places among the dense growth. A bird takes its 
young into the brush, vines or trees; a deer seeks 
the dense forest; a mountain creature a cave be- 
neath a lofty cliff; the ground creature in its burrow, 
Fishes depend upon aquatic vegetation, dead branches 
or tree trunks, over-hanging banks and beneath the 
edges of rocks, depending largely upon the species, 
but plant life affords the most ideal place, 
There are many other advantages to a proper bal- 
ance of aquatic vegetation in those waters aside from 
food and cover for game fish. These are truly im- 
portant but too numerous to explain about all of 
them. However, may we touch on a few of those 
which are most important: 
You have heard of people being locked in a vault 
and dying from suffocation, due to using all of the 
oxygen from the small space of air therein. You 
know that people cannot exist in the absence of 
oxygen, neither can any creature with blood in its 
veins. Surely you know that when your lungs take 
the oxygen from the air, that it’s the vegetation upon 
the earth that lives upon this used air and puts back 
into it that oxygen so essential to our existence. 
Plant life in the water does exactly the same for 
those game fish imprisoned therein. Should there 
exist a shortage of oxygen, the tiny fish will perish 
first, the same as a babe could not exist as long as 
a healthy adult. Should a million of these fish die in 
your lake, you would be unaware of it. The tiny 
creatures would be consumed by the bird life along 
the shores, and were they not, you could not locate 
them without a microscope or if you knew exactly 
what to look for, 
While game fish have no lungs, they do have blood 
and require oxygen. They take the oxygen directly 
into the blood stream through the tender tissues of 
the gills. This oxygen is most abundant among the 
vegetation, that is a second reason why that the 
adult fish takes its young there to live. 
Plant life aids in the purification of the waters. 
It takes up the poisonous carbon dioxide gases given 
off by the decomposing bottom soils. At the same 
time this aquatic vegetation aids in the clarification 
of the waters. It collects the floating particles of 
sediment washed from the surrounding highlands. 
One seldom ever sees a weedy lake with other than 
clear waters which are best for fish life. Lakes bar- 
ren of vegetation are often roiled by turbid waters. 
Game fish in muddy waters often acquire a muddy 
taste. 
Time and space will not permit us to go further 
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