Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 264, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1915 — STORIES from the BIG CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES from the BIG CITIES

Philadelphia Man Keeps 10,000 Tropical Fish

PHILADELPHIA.— One of the most remarkable of this city’s many remarkable men Is a carpenter, who has cultivated a scientific hobby of collecting tropical fish, and he now has about 10,000 of them, contained In aquaria

on his roof and in a large glass house In hts back yards. The man's name Is William L. Paullin, and, in addition to seven fine children, he has this wonderful and unsurpassed collection of both goldfish and tropical ones. Let no reader have visions of huge sturgeon or Florida sharks or giant-finned animals of any kind. Many of these thousands are only a quarter of an inch long, some only a sixteenth, and never will be any larger, whereas the “tallest” fish of the whole

place is only about six Inches long. The most valuable are two "Pterophyllum scalers” that came from Brazil. Taken together they would weigh about five ounces, but you would have to pay $l5O for them, as they are exceptionally rare and beautiful. Mr. Paullin is the only man in America who has ever raised young ones from this kind of fish. Brought together in Mr. Paullln’s little home near the “Neck” are fishes such as these from all over the world. India, Slam, China, Africa, Mexico and all parts of South America have contributed to his museum. Every now and then one of Mr. Paullin’s sturdy boys rims over to the swamps by “Neck” and captures millions of little Daphnia or water lice, and the fish in the aquaria have a splendid feast upon them. “Pish are cruel animals, however,” said Mr. Paullin; "they eat their own young. Yet the most Interesting I have is the ‘mouth-breeder’ or ‘Paratilapia multicolor’ that protects its young in its mouth. The female carries the eggs in her mouth for ten days, then the fish are bom and after they swim about in the daytime, she opens her mouth at nightfall, and her little ones swim into it to be kept safely there for the night, like chicks under their mother’s wings.”