Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/420

412 tank was noticed one day; it continued, and the next day the fish was removed and carefully examined. It was found to have a few parasites upon it, and these were killed. Every fish in that tank was then examined and cleaned, the tank was thoroughly cleansed, and finally the reserve tank from which it came was similarly treated, with the result that no deaths resulted from that cause.

Besides animal parasites, they are always on the lookout for fungus growths, for some of these would decimate the tanks in short order if they were not destroyed. Fortunately, most of these yield readily to the treatment of a change of water. The salt-water fish is put for a short time in brackish or fresh water, or vice versa, and the plant is killed before the fish is injured. Sometimes one eye or both will bulge out of its socket, giving rise to what the Aquarium people graphically call 'bung-eye.' This is regularly treated in the hospital tanks and usually with success. Wounds and abrasions, mopishness and other troubles are recognized and treated in aquatic animals quite successfully.

Fully as exacting as questions of disease are the conditions surrounding the matter of feeding. The food must be fresh, much of it needs preparation, and it must be fed at proper intervals. Some fishes require feeding every day, others take it at intervals of three or four days or a week. The small fishes take their tiny meals of chopped clam every day, the larger fishes at varying intervals.

The dietary is varied, as the following list of some of the foods will show: Quahaugs or hard clams, soft clams, live shrimps, sand fleas, killifish (salt-water minnows), minnows, earthworms, sandworms (both white and red), fresh dead fish from which the bones are removed, salted codfish and beef's liver. Some of these are staples, some are tid-bits to tempt the appetite of moping or sick fishes, and of this latter sort salted codfish is far and away the most tempting.

The death rate among the inhabitants is surprisingly low; some forms will not endure captivity for any considerable time, as might be expected, but among those kinds that will live and thrive in confinement, there are many individuals that were put into the tanks when the Aquarium was opened in 1896.

The area from which the supply for exhibition is drawn is very large, exceeding, probably, that of any other aquarium in the world, and in this respect the collection in the New York Aquarium differs widely from those of the great aquariums of Europe, which rely upon the fauna of the immediately adjacent waters. The Gulf of St. Lawrence furnishes white whale; the Gulf of Mexico the West Indian seal. The cold streams of Maine supply the salmon, while from Bermuda come the tropical fishes of the West Indies. The great lakes contribute the whitefish and others, while the Mississippi Valley sends the catfish. Besides these, the fishes of the neighboring waters are well represented.