The sun., 1910-01-30
FEEDING CAPTIVE SEAHORSES.
II Takes Time and Labor Property 10
Provide for Them In winter.

Two hours work is needed daily 70
prepare the food for and to feed the
seahorses at the Aquarium at this season;
this because OF the difficulty Of finding
food exactly suitable for them in its
natural form.
In nature the seahorse finds sustenance
in many minute forms Of animal life.
the finest OF shrimps. little worms, and
so on. Some OF these il encounters as 1t
swims about, some IL seeks for.
Sometimes an oyster. is seen with its
shell drilled full OF little holes as big around
as pin, holes made by boring worm.
A seahorse in foragiug along the bottom
in search OF food may come to sucn an
oyster and then il may halt and balance
itself i'm the water there and wait for a
worm to stick its head out Of one Of the
holes; whereupon the seahorse bites the
worms head OF for its breakfast or dinner,
maybe pulling the worm half out Of the
hole in the struggle.
Seahorses in captivity are fed on gam
marus, the best food obtainable for them.
The gammsrus is a small shrimplike
orustacean which in some species grows
to be three-quarters OF an inoh or more in
length, and they range from that down
TO specimens not more than one sixty
fourth Of an inoh in length. little creatures
which even the smallest OF seahOrses
ca snap up and swallow entire.
Gammarus are found in salt and brack-
ish pools in salt meadows or marshes, and
il is habit Of theirs to collect in lunches
of marine vegetation. They are free swim
mers, but in these clumps 81 vegeta alton
they find shelter and protection from
their enemies, az well as food. In summer
punches Of this vegetation, with gam-
ma rus clinging to and hidden in it, az,
gathered and carried to the Aquarium and
placed in the seahorse tanks. This is
the ideal way Of feeding them. II is the
nearest possible approach to feeding
them with natural food In a natural way
The seshorse likes to poke around In these
masses Of marine growth and search out
the gammaTus and eat them.
But in winter IL may be impossible thus
to supply them. The salt and braokieh
pools hereabOut are now frozen over
with thick ice, and the little gammarus
and gone down to the middle OF the pools
there to bury themselves in the mud,
where under the thick Zoe they can't
be got at. There may be times in mild
spells when the ice softens and melts
around the edReseof the pools and the
little gammarus come up and can be had
in limited quantities; but commonly when
the pools are frozen over the only gam
marus that can he gathered are the big
ones found in some spot that has still
remained open and free from ice. as where
there is running water or a spring hole
These big gammarus may be far TOO
biR even for the biggest OF the seahorses
to tackle; so to prepare them for seahorse
food they must he cut up. There are two
tanks Of seahOrses and to feed them takes
an hours work for each tank; half an hour
in outing mp the food and half an hour in
the feeding.
The seahorses don't like cut up gam
marus SO well as they do whole ones, hut
they are hungry and they eat them the
bigger seahorseR snap at the fragments
first and gradually their smaller brethren
follow their example, and so finally they
all eat In this way they are being carried
through the winter.
The Aquarium has now seahorses rang
ing in length from one and half TO seven
inches, "A seven-inch seahorse being "A big
specimen for these waters; they grow three
or four inches bigger In the Pacific Ocean
The seahorses here all came from on
Atlantic CITY. A big fellow, measuring
six and a haH inches in leDath. was lost
out OF the lot or January 10, after surviving
here for one year, three months and TWEEN
ty- -sixs days, which Is very probably n
record fcr q seahOrse In captivity