GALLERY
In the gallery of the New York aquarium a similar arrangement groups the fresh-water forms on the west and the marine tropical fishes on the east side of the building. Many of the tanks contain young fry of the species represented on the floor below, particularly trout, salmon and other food fishes.
Fine specimens of three interesting salamanders, the hellbender. or water dog of the Ohio Valley, the giant salamander of Japan, China and Tibet and the mud puppy of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley, are included in the fresh-water series.
The hellbender, the largest American salamander, has well developed lungs and, although a water dweller, comes to the surface to breathe, swallowing air through the mouth and passing it back into the lungs. It has, however, a gill opening on each side of the throat.
The giant salamander differs from its American relative, the hellbender, in having no gill openings. It lives in small streams of mountain meadows and is used as food by the Japanese.
The mud puppy breathes with gills like a fish and rarely rises to the surface. It has short but well developed limbs and is a nocturnal animal, hiding in rock crevices or weed masses in the daytime and swimming or creeping about at night to feed on crustacea, fishes, worms and frogs.
Other fresh-water fishes on this floor of the New York aquarium are the small ladder fish, a rare little fish from the interior rivers of South America, common catfish, chub, sucker, red horse, Mississippi catfish and spotted catfish, sunfish, fresh-water killie, white perch and the burbot, a fresh-water representative of the cod family.
A tank of very interesting little sea horses, the only fish with a prehensile tail, is also exhibited on this floor of the New York Aquarium. The sea horses are difficult to keep in captivity because they feed only on the minute crustaceans infesting the eel grass in which they live. The male of this species hatches the eggs and cares for the young in an abdominal pouch. En-closed in a skeleton of horny segments that permits little lateral flexion, and having only one dorsal fin, the sea horse is a poor swimmer and cannot resist currents, remaining for the most part stationary, attached by its tail to grasses or seaweeds. Its comparatively large air bladder is an important factor in its equilibrium. If this is pricked to let out a bubble of gas the size of a small pinhead, the fish falls to the bottom, where it must remain until the wound is healed and a new supply of gas secreted to enable it to rise. There are about thirty-six species, mostly tropical, but one extends north to Cape Cod.
Part of the wall space in the gallery is utilized for exhibiting color prints prepared by the United States Fish Commission, representing American food and game fishes and fishes of the Hawaiian Islands and the West Indies.
The small tanks in the center of this gallery of the New York Aquarium contain the Mexican swordtail, the Indian gourami and other fishes. It is interesting to see the gouramis utilize their filamentous fins as organs of touch.
During the appropriate seasons there is maintained at the Aquarium, as a fish-cultural exhibit, a hatchery in which millions of young food and game fishes are produced for the enrichment of the fishing waters of New York State, the fish eggs for this purpose being supplied by the United States Bureau of Fisheries.
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