PRICE, TEN CENTS ISSUED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE STUDY, CARE AND BREEDING OF AQUATIC LIFE mill i y A) | © aeilllll pet AL i "Ze = THE RED TRITON—(Sperlerpes ruber) << Photo from life by Dr. Shufeldt | } SEPTEMBER 1912 PUBLISHED AT PHILADELPHIA, PA. BY THE AQUARIUM SOCIETIES [J OF THE CITIES OF — NEW YORK : BROOKLYN CHICAGO : PHILADELPHIA 579 W. 18tst ST ., SUBWAY. BLDG; NEW YORK -GTi® Importers Breeders Dealers Animals, Birds, Fish, Foods €9 Supplies Finest Collection of Fancy Fish on Exhibition in America Visitors welcome at all times We offer the following varieties of fish for sale, all in fine condition: Anabas scandens Girardinus reticulatus Poecilia poecilioides Barbus conchonius Haplochilus chaperi Poecilia specia Barbus semi-faceolatus Haplochilus panchax Polycentrus shomburgkii Badis badis Haplochilus rubrostigma Polyacanthus dayi Betta rubra Haplochilus sexfasciatus Pseudoxiphoporus bimaculata Betta Splendens Heros facetus Rivilus flabellicauda Callichthys callichthys Macropodus viridi-auratus ‘Trichogaster faciatus Callichthys marmoratus Mollienesia latipinna Trichogaster lalius Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum | Ophiocephalus striatus Tetrogonopterus lineatus Danio rerio Paratilapa multicolor Tetrogonopterus guppi Danio malabaricus Paratilapa specia Tetrogonopterus rubilus Gambusia affinis Pandon buchholzi Tetrogonopterus ulreyi Gambusia caudimaculata Platypoecilia maculata Xiphophorus brevis © Gambusia holbrooki Platypoecilia niger Xiphophorus helleri Gambusia nicaraguenis Platypoecilia rubra Xiphophorus rachowi Geophagus gymnogensis Platypoecilia specia WE are constantly getting in new varieties of fish, so if there are any species that you want, let us know, and we will quote prices. We always have on hand a nice collection of common and rare Gold Fish at prices that are right; also aquarium plants, snails, tadpoles, etc. We manufacture the’‘NoXal Brand” Fish Food REGULAR, for Gold Fish; something better than the rest, but at the same price, 10 cents per tin. SPECIAL, for all varieties of Fancy Fish; (the one food that is sci- entifically compounded) containing the ingredients so necessary for the rapid and healthy development of the young fish and for the keeping of the older ones in perfect condition; comes in four sizes. 15 cents per bottle. WILLIAM MACK AQUARIST Phone, 9635 Riverside BIRD SPECIALIST 102 West 106th Street, New York City Goldfish Dead? Plants Decayed? There’s a Reason! A helping hand to the amateur aquarist and a little profit to ourselves. We take the time to answer questions. What is your trouble? Full instructions for balancing your aquarium for year without change of water, 35 cents copy, postpaid. We buy, sell, exchange, import and breed the rarest Chinese scale- less dragon-eyed goldfish and Japanese scaled fantail and fringetails. nails, beautiful aquariem plants. Goldfish shipped anywhere in United States, guaranteed safely. ‘‘Golden Dragon,”’ the fish food that saves the lives of your fine fish, and makes them fat and happy, 20 cents box, postpaid. Don't exveriment—feed the Im- perial Food of Old Japan. Contains dried daphnia, laxatives and cereals, etc. Pair fine young Japanese fantails, $1.50. Big bunch aquarium plants, 25 cents, postpaid. The Criental Goldfish Co., 924 Gates Av., Brooklyn, N.Y. S. Chichester Lloyd, Manager “ENUF SAID” E.C. VAHLE, 315 N. Madison St., Chicago Wholesale and Retail Dealer in BIRDS and ANIMALS PARROTS, MONKEYS AND PET STOCK We are Specialists. Singing Canaries and Song Birds ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC BIRD STORE 307 W.. Madison Street, Chicago, Ill. ELP along the work of “The Aquarium’ by subscribing for a friend. Fo tL. TAPPAN Dealer and Breeder of Rare and FANCY FISH Chanchitos, Gambusia, Paradise Fish and Goldfish Send $1.00 for my new book, AQUARIA FISH. A practical work on care and breeding of fish in the aquarium. 92 SEVENTH STREET, SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. Terminal Pet Shop Importers, Breeders and Dealers in Japanese Goldfish and Tropical Fish Fish foods, plants and aquaria Pets of every description Birds, seeds and cages Burnett’s Japanese Fish Food Booth No. 18 Concourse HUDSON TERMINAL BUILDING NEW YORK Prices cheerfully furnished for special sized aquariums MmOUA RIA SUPPLIES Birds, Cages, Seeds, Etc. KAEMPFER’S BIRD STORE 114 N. State Street CHICAGO, ILL. Write for Price List Aquarium Book Herman T. Wolf’s work ‘“‘Goldfish Breeds and Other Aquarium Fishes’’ is the standard authority. Tells all about breeding fancy goldfish and treats in a practical way on all aquarium and terrarium subjects. 240 beautiful illustrations. Price, postage prepaid by us, $3.00 INNES & SONS Twelfth Street, Corner Cherry, Philadelphia, Pa. IMPORTER AND ee Tropical Fishes (Live-bearing and Spawning) Plants, Snails, etc. Xyphophorus helleri Paradise, Polyacanthus Poecilia richogaster Girardinus Chanchito Mollienesia Bitterlings Gambusia Danio rerio Fundulus and many others Domestic Fishes & Plants HERMANN RABENAU Aquaria & Supplies Se5e5e5ese5esesersesesesesesesese5e5 SeeseseseseSe5eSe5e5e25 e5e5e5e5eSe5e5e5, Near last : Open daily stationon 143-1153 Liberty Avenue erccnt Fulton St.El. Mondays (City Line) BROOKLYN and Tuesdays Bi OSS SER ines se I aaa Si ia 4 4815 D Street, Olney, Philadelphia, Pa. 4 § Largest Greenhouses in the World \] I" Devoted to the Breeding of Fancy, i Chinese and Japanese Goldfish and : é Propagation of Aquarium Plants ‘ : WHOLESALE AND RETAIL ; FISHES PLANTS 5 § COMMON CABOMBA § SCALED MYRIOPHYLLUM Q SCALELESS greece f coure sAGrTTaRIA ES a eevee VALLISNERIA FRINGETAIL Syn a ADRS \] TELESCOPES POTAMOGETON CELESTIALS SNOW FLAKE | LION’S HEADS WATER POPPY ( SHUBUNKINS WATER HYACINTH je Pease SAYIN ; : WATER FERN 4 pie shunt LACE LEAF ] COREE TENCE WATER LETTUCE { = GAMBUS1A-AFFINIS UMBRELLA PALMS 8 STICKLE-BACKS CYPERUS PAPYRUS § | CY PERUS | f SNAILS ALTERNIFOLIUS 4 y GRACILIS gennOn LAXUS FOLVA \] AM 2 S1ORN VARIEGATED 4 Boy ct OF OMAE BOSTON FERNS gy fj AFRICAN Drawinc sy H. T. WOLF PTERIS FERNS | 4 JAPANESE WATER LILIES i 4 Submerged and Semi-Submerged Plants i FOR PONDS ON ESTATES Q | Manufacturer of the Celebrated ‘‘SUPERIOR’’ AQUARIUMS \] Rustless corner pieces. Marbleized slate bottoms. Made in galvanized sheet iron, wrought iron ( and brass nickel plated. i é Manufacturer of the Celebrated “AMERJAP’’ FISH FOOD 4 Made from the purest of materials. For fish only. Keeps your fish in good condition, keeps your \) aquarium pure and sweet and does not injure the plants in the aquarium. Eaten by the fish with avidity. | | Once tried, always used, 1] ( We carry the finest line of aquarium ornaments in the country. No rough, sharp edges to injure and i maim the fish, but every ornament glazed with a smooth and beautiful finish, and in harmonious colors, 8 creating an artistic effect in the aquarium. \] Globes, Nets, Pebbles, Sand, Foods, Etc. Everything Pertaining to the Aquarium and Pond : Send for Price Lists 4 $3930 93991339333 SVE SVE IESE fe Votume I Aquarium Notes R. W. SHUFELDT, M.D., Washington, D.C. T was with especial pleasure that I read every line of the first number of the new nature magazine, THe Aguarium, and no one wishes you more substantial and continued success in this venture and much The maga- needed publication than I do. zine promises to be everything we need in this im- portant and inter- esting depart- ment. At different times in my life, I have kept aqua- of kinds; ria various examined those kept by my friends, and ac- complished some- thing in the way of photographing live fishes and other living forms THE AQUARIUM SEPTEMBER, 1912 NuMBER 4 curate photographs from life of so many forms for illustrative purposes. In former years, we were obliged to rely entirely upon the brush and pencil to obtain our pictures of fishes, fresh water and marine vertebrata, and the entire list of aquatic plant-life and invertebrata, wherewith to illustrate our literature; while, at the present time, these tedious and expensive methods are giving the work of the cam- way before with more era its far accurate and beautiful re- sults. Some ten or twelve years ago, I experiments in the of living fishes in made my°- first photography their natural ele- the first paper having been ment, published by the government.* When this ap- peared, it induced in aquaria. To me it is truly re- markable that THE RED TRITON—(Spelerpes ruber ) some such publi- Photo from life by Dr. Shufeldt cation as THE Aquarium has not appeared in this country sooner; for, as we all know, there are many such magazines published in Europe and elsewhere; and, what is more to the point, the aquarium is one of the important ad- juncts we possess to aid us in the study of living aquatic forms of all kinds, to say not a word in regard to its use in securing ac- 29 M. Fabre-Domer- gue to present me with a_ beautiful copy of his superb work in the same _ field. A few years afterwards, I had an aqua- *Shufeldt, R. W. Experiments in Photography of Live Fishes. Bulletin United States Fish Commission, Vol. XIX for 1899, pp. 1-5, plates 1-9. }+Fabre-Domergue. La Photographie des Animaux Aquatiques. Paris, 1899, p. 5. 10 photogravure plates and 2 text cuts. This work is not nearly as well known in this country as it deserves to be; its author had special facilities for pursuing the experiments he did, as he was, at the time, adjunct director of the zoological and physi- ological laboratory of marine forms of the College of France. (Concarneau). rium made to order for the special purpose of photographing all kinds of animals, under With this device I secured some beautiful nega- water or not, as the case might be. tives of living fishes, turtles, marine inver- tebrates, newts, etc. Subsequently, I studied the results obtained through the employment of similar aquaria used by Spencer of the New York Aquarium, and others. At this time, I am about to order a similar device for photographic purposes, and I trust to publish, in the present maga- zine, a few of the results I obtain. Some days ago I succeeded in securing a few excellent negatives of a fine adult speci- men of Spelerpes ruber—the Red 'Triton— which is fairly abundant in the country dis- tricts about Washington. My pictures, so far, are of the animal out of water, and one of the best of them is here reproduced as an illustration to these notes. It was col- lected for me by Mr. G. W. H. Soelner, of 3436 Seventeenth Street, this city, a nat- uralist who has made a specialty of mollusks, and has a fine collection of them, including many rare species. Many of the Uvodela are most interest- ing and instructive forms to keep in aquaria, their several metamorphoses and life afford- ing some of the most important and in- structive data in the entire range of biology. I have frequently kept the Spotted Triton ( Diemyctylus viridescens ) and photographed it alive under water. Its habits in captiv- ity are well worthy of study. Years ago I had them breed in an aqua- rium, but the young were all killed by a small pike that lived in the same tank. My Red Triton has now lived over a month in a small china-lined receptacle, without hav- ing eaten anything, and yet it appears none the worse for the experience. I may say that I have next to it, ina glass jar half full of water, a large spécimen of the Giant Water-bug (Belostoma americanum), which has not eaten anything for nearly six weeks. He is in fine condition, and a day or two age I threw him a small, live grasshopper, 30 which he at once siezed in his mandibles in He did not consume it, however, being appa- the most voracious manner possible. rently satisfied by sucking the fluid parts This specimen spends nearly all his time floating from it and ignoring all the rest. just beneath the surface of the water; but if one jars the receptacle in which he lives, the least bit, he at once swims about in the most frantic style imaginable. I have ob- tained good photographs of Belostoma, but with them in aquaria with other animals. have never experimented keeping On the whole, I have been very success- ful in keeping native fishes—for I care but little for goldfish in comparison—such as several species of sunfishes, the pickerel, catfishes, eels, sticklebacks and some dozen My however, was gained from the study of a others—alive. best object lesson, large number of Amblystoma tigrinum, which My ob- servations on the subject appeared in several I kept for long periods together. letters to the editor of Science, beginning in the issue of October 22, 1886 (p. 367), where some of the points in the habits of these animals were published for the first time. Fish Life of a Florida Swamp JOHN TREADWELL NICHOLS, New York E have left the shallow waters which fringe the Gulf of Mexico and en- tered Shark River, an opening between the the water, and which here stretch north and strange mangrove trees growing in south for miles, forming the west coast of Florida. a large boat to penetrate far into the inte- The channel is deep enough for rior to clear, fresh water, and a few more miles in small boats bring us to a stretch of of bushes and grass, glistening under the sun, river between banks mangrove trees, which is uncomfortably hot, though the month is February. The whole scene teems with life. “Yip, fish-hawk yip, yip!” comes the ery of a from high up in the dazzling sunny sky. Far above him, balancing black turkey buz- zards look down upon his back, and others drift by low, near the tops of the trees. A gray-blue kingfisher, the same species that fishes the northern streams in summer, flies along the creek, and flocks of herons and white ibises are squawking and grunt- ing everywhere. A reddish serpent, lying where myriad swarms of little fishes are drifting. About a half of these are Gam- busia, with only here and there a_black- spotted holbrooki. About a third are Fundu- lus goodei, a wonderfully pretty little fish with red fins and a bold black stripe the length of the body. a beautiful green species, spotted with sil- Fundulus chrysotus is ver, golden or red; and there is Girardinus Upper—GOODEI looped across a slimy patch of water-weed, shoots into the depths like a fish when I strike at him with an oar. Here and there great thick skinned spotted gar pikes (Lepi- sosteus) are dozing just beneath the surface, and several species of sunfish, as also the large-mouthed bass (M, icropterus salmoides ) , are swimming restlessly about in the more open water, making occasional predatory rushes into the shallows along the shore and among the clogging green weed which here and there rises te the surface, and Center -GAMBUSIA 31 Lower—JORDANELLA formosus, a minute live-bearing species; Cyprinodon variagatus, the sheepshead min- now of the north; Jordanella floride, some- thing the shape of the last, with usually a squarish black spot on the side, and Fundulus ocellaris, with a black spot on the back fin. The northern fresh water fishes known are two salmon fish which still occur . . fo} . 1 in latitude 82° N. in Grant Land, less than most 500 miles from the pole. THE AQUARIUM Issued in the Interests of the Study, Care and Breeding of Aquatic Life Published monthly except July and August at 12th Street, cor.of Cherry, Philadelphia, by the Aquarium Societies of Brooklyn, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia Send all manuscripts, exchanges, books for review, etc., direct to the Editor-in-chief; all other matter to the Business Manager Epiror-1n-Cuier, EUGENE SMITH Bank for Savings Building, Hoboken, N. J. Business Manacer, W. F, DEVOE Box 383, Baldwin, Long Island, N. Y. SuBscRIPTIONS, $1 S1nGLE Copigs, 10c Advertising Rates upon Application :: Vou. I SEPTEMBER, 1912 No. 4 Aquatic Plants Worth Cultivating (ConcLUDED) W. A. POYSER, Chicago THe QuILLwortT as AN AQUARIUM PLANT. Even to botanists the Isoetaceae, re- gardless of its interesting characterisics, is a comparatively little known group of The de- plants comprising about fifty species. generic name Isoetes is said to be rived from two Greek words meaning and and was applied be- of the article “equal” “year” cause of the perennial character leaves. While the purpose of this is, primarily, to direct attention to their interest as aquarium plants, inasmuch as they are usually ignored or given scant attention in works on the aquarium, it may not be amiss to give a brief description from a_ botanical point of view which should aid in identification. The group as a botanist regards this Students of plant life are not by any means agreed as systematic difficult one. to what constitutes a distinct species in this family, nor its relationship to other classes of plants. They belong in that division of the Vegetable Kingdom called “Pteridophyta,” which includes the ferns and some other spore-bearing or flowerless plants called the fern allies. In the scale of plant development the pteridophytes lie above the mosses and below the flowering plants. Some botanists consider the Iso- etes to be related to the Moonwort and Adderstongue ferns, around which so much superstition gathered in ancient times, while others consider that their structure indicates a connection with the pines and related plants which are the more primitive forms of the sub-kingdom of flowering plants. The Isoetes, or to use its comon name, quillwort, is essentially an upright or spreading rosette of hollow cylindrical pointed leaves of a grass-like or rush-like aspect. The leaves vary in length in the various species from a few inches to two feet, and in number from ten to two hundred or even. more, springing from a flat bi-lobed or tri- lobed tuber-like root-stock. The new leaves are produced from the centre of the rosette. The plant reproduces from spores which are born in a_hol- of the base of the The quillwort is heterospor- lowed-out portion outer leaves. ous, that is, bears spores of the two sexes on the s The about one-fourth the size of a pin-head and same plant but in different leaves. megaspores or female spores are few in number, while the male or micro- spores are about one-thousandth of an inch long and very numerous. The spores have an outer coat of silicon, that of the mega- A microscope is, of course, required to see spore being beautifully sculptured. the markings. Much stress is laid on this marking in distinguishing the various spe- cies. The quillwort occurs growing in sand, mud and gravel on the bottom and banks of and lakes.