The Nome daily nugget., 1936-01-17
Minding Guppies
By James J. Montague
IF MY wife had asked me to loo

r MY wife had asked me to look
 after the cat over a week end. might have demurred. Cats are nocturnal animals. and are prone to distant perigrinations from which If they return at all. 1t Is with peevish dispositions and scars of battle. More over. if you forget to feed them they are likely to visit around among the neighbors' garage cans. and make them. selves i'll. Still have lived among cats more or less from boyhood, and. as far as any man can. understand them. Yet I should hesitate to under take the responsibility of cat.
 would not. without reluctance, have accepted mandate for a bird if 1t had been thrust upon me. You can keep a bird in his cage. so there will be no occasion to sit up nights wait ing for him to return. But he is dainty in his diet and subject to moult with out notice. The wrong food or she'd ding feathers lay him liable to serious ailments, and there never seems to be a bird physician around when you want him. However, as I have said, had a bird been committed to my charge, l probably would have said All right, but If the dratted thing pines away and dies because 1t cannot bear up un- der your absence, don't blame me. did all that was humanly possible to save It."
 But when l was asked to look after the guppies over week end said immediately: Certainly. Just tell what the eat and how often to change the water on them. and I'll be glad to look after them"
 That was before knew about gup- pies. What astonishes me now is why the lady didn't put me through cross. examination on pisclculture before she left the guppies with me. But she was in hurry to get away, and I fancy l might be competent to feed parcel of fish.
 The morning after her departure came downstairs to find that three of the little creatures were swimming on their backs. At first I took this pos ture to be an evidence of their desire to stunt little. as many animals will do when there are humans look ing at them. Then 1 noticed that one of them seemed out of action altOgeth- CT, and was cold and rigid when l scooped him out of the aquarium with the palm of my hand.
 Forthwith l turned to hand book on guppies which lay on the table From it's pages discovered that a person who can successfully cater to these insignificant denizens of the sea- ought to serve an apprenticeship of al least a year. and over and beyond that to be trained naturalist and aIuari- um curator. l telephoned to the office that l should be late. and seating my. self beside the aquarium, began to study my new occupation.
 My first discovery was that as soon as I rose in the morning l should have taken the temperature of the water Indistinctly l recalled that something had been said about that when the brutes were turned over to my custody seized the thermometer, and thrust 1t in among them with such violence that they all fled into a corner and went into panic huddle Taking it out again found that no guppy could live in such d temperature We'll, the book was wrong there. Al least two.thirds of them were living and among them were q few which were apparently as lively as grigs--whatever grigs are.
 Reading on learned that the re- ceptacle for the guppies should con tain a number of snaiIs. whose office was to destroy bits of food uneaten by the guppies so that 1t might not put rify and upset their stOmachs. The writer of the book apparently took It for granted that these fish, which man. age to support themselves in the vasty