172 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
us in when we entered to take the catch, for 1 saw one riding in 
on the back of Dr Betten’s neck. They were abundant outside 
and very hungry, and during the hour or more required to secure 
all the specimens that had appeared since a previous visit, we did 
not fold and pin the flaps very carefully. During the month 
about half a dozen beetles and about as many Hemiptera appeared 
in the tent— usually single specimens: but as these were nonaquatic 
forms such as were common in the surrounding woods, we have 
not listed them in the table; they may have fallen into the stream 
and been washed under the tent by the rapid current. 
The table gives the totals for each species or group of species. 
These numbers were in some cases a great surprise to me. Note 
for example, the number of specimens of the stone fly Leuctra. 
Our biggest collections in museums contain usually but a few 
specimens of this genus (if they have any at all). I had in 1905 
accumulated in my own collection, after several years of collecting 
stone flies, about a score of specimens. Here on the 12th of 
August we took 150 specimens from the tent at one picking, and 
it yielded 351 specimens in all. 
The grand total of 3844 specimens represents the yield in adult 
insects of six feet square of this brook for a month. The mile of 
this little stream that was of quite similar character certainly fur- 
nishes a quantity of insects that, however weighed, measured, or 
estimated, is very considerable. 
We deeply regretted and still regret that there remained no time 
to us for investigating the ecological relations of these forms in 
the brook bed; but we believe that the facts of the table justify 
the large amount of labor that was necessary to collect, preserve, 
study and classify all these specimens. 
Studies on fish food 
Out of the weed patch by the hatchery wharf, where, as already 
noted, we collected oftenest and where we knew the life conditions 
best, we took a number of common fishes for the purpose of study- 
ing their food. These belonged to the three species that appeared to 
be most common there; the common bullhead, Ameiurus 
nebulosus ; the common sunfish, Eupomotis gibbosus 
and the red-bellied minnow, Chrosomus erythrogaster. 
Food determinations were made by the only reliable method yet. 
devised — the microscopic examination of the contents of the alli- 
mentary canal. While the food of these three species has been 
