31513	----	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 13, No. 6, pp. 309-322, 1 fig. February 10, 1961 Fishes of the Wakarusa River in Kansas BY JAMES E. DEACON AND ARTIE L. METCALF (Contribution from The State Biological Survey, and from the Department of Zoology of The University of Kansas) UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1961 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Robert W. Wilson Vol. 13, No. 6, pp. 309-322, 1 fig. Published February 10, 1961 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas PRINTED IN THE STATE PRINTING PLANT TOPEKA, KANSAS 1961 28-5872 Fishes of the Wakarusa River in Kansas BY JAMES E. DEACON AND ARTIE L. METCALF (Contribution from The State Biological Survey, and The Department of Zoology of The University of Kansas) _Introduction_ The Wakarusa River rises in the eastern edge of the Flint Hills and flows approximately 50 miles in an easterly direction and empties into the Kansas River near Eudora; with its tributaries, the Wakarusa drains 458 square miles in parts of Wabaunsee, Shawnee, Osage, and Douglas counties of northeastern Kansas (Fig. 1). The average gradient is 6.3 feet per mile. Turbidity is consistently more than 100 ppm in the lower portions of the mainstream and major tributaries, but is usually lower in the upper portions of tributaries. The channel of the mainstream is intrenched in its own alluvium (Dufford, 1958:36) and has high, muddy banks and mud- or sand-bottom; the upper parts of tributaries have lower banks and bottoms of gravel, rubble, or bedrock, although a few (such as Cole Creek) have areas of sandy bottom. A fringe forest of deciduous trees occurs along most streams. The topography and geology of the area have been discussed by Todd (1911), Franzen and Leonard (1943), and Dufford (1958). The five-year period prior to 1957 was the driest in the 70-year history of weather-records in Kansas (Metzler _et al._, 1958). Streams throughout the Wakarusa Basin suffered intermittency and, according to Mr. Melvon H. Wertzberger, the local Work Unit Conservationist with the Soil Conservation Service, many of them dried completely or contained only a few widely-scattered, stagnant pools. The effect of the drought on stream-flow at the mainstream gaging station 2.1 miles south of Lawrence is presented in Table 1. According to the Division of Sanitation, Kansas State Board of Health, no untreated domestic sewage or industrial waste is discharged into the Wakarusa River System at this time. The Wakarusa Watershed Association is in the preliminary stages of establishing a watershed control project in the basin. Objectives of the project are the improvement of land-use practices and the construction of several headwater retention structures. Such a program should have a long-range effect on the physical and biological characteristics of the streams of the basin. With this in mind we think it important to document the nature of the present fish-fauna and to attempt a historical résumé of the fauna, based on collections made in the past sixty years. [Illustration: FIG. 1. Map of the Wakarusa River and its principal tributaries.] _Methods_ Sodium cyanide, a 110-volt (600-watt) A.C. electric shocker, and seines (6, 12, and 25 feet long, 4 to 8 feet deep having 1/4-in. mesh) were used to collect fish in 1959. All fishes were preserved and examined in the laboratory with the exception of large, common species that were identified in the field and returned to the stream. TABLE 1. RECORD OF STREAM-FLOW, WAKARUSA RIVER 2.1 MI. S LAWRENCE, KANSAS. ============+=========+===========+=========+====== Water Year | Days | Days with | Maximum | Mean (Oct. 1 | with no | flow less | for | for to Oct. 1) | flow | than 5cfs | year | year ------------+---------+-----------+---------+------ 1951 | 0 | 0 | 22,600 | 596.0 1952 | 0 | 85 | 5,000 | 179.0 1953 | 83 | 191 | 685 | 10.2 1954 | 194 | 123 | 2,010 | 17.2 1955 | 116 | 174 | 2,630 | 22.3 1956 | 122 | 183 | 2,550 | 20.7 1957 | 141 | 84 | 11,700 | 137.0 1958 | 0 | 9 | 6,370 | 213.0 1959 | 0 | 46 | 8,000 | 184.0 ------------+---------+-----------+---------+------ _Collection Sites_ The following collections were made by personnel of the State Biological Survey of Kansas in the 1890's, from 1910 to 1912, and from 1942 to 1953. These collections, all from Douglas County, are deposited in the Museum of Natural History, The University of Kansas. In the annotated list they are designated "KU": 1. Rock Creek, 1898. 2. Washington Creek, 1898. 3. "2-1/2 miles east of Twin Mounds," Rock Creek, Sec. 1, T. 14 S, R. 17 E, 1899. 4. Rock Creek, 1911. 5. Rock Creek, 1912. 6. Washington Creek, 2-3/4 mi. W and 1 mi. S Lawrence, 1946. 7. Tributary of Yankee Tank Creek, Secs. 4 and 9, T. 13 S, R. 19 E, July 24, 1951. 8. Rock Creek, Sec. 19, T. 13 S, R. 19 E, Aug. 11, 1951. 9. Drainage ditch, tributary to Wakarusa River, Sec. 18, T. 13 S, R. 20 E, Aug. 24, 1951. 10. Wakarusa River, Sec. 20, T. 13 S, R. 20 E, Aug. 24, 1951. 11. Rock Creek, Sec. 27, T. 13 S, R. 18 E, Sept. 28, 1951. 12. Wakarusa River, Secs. 16 and 17, T. 13 S, R. 20 E, June 21, 1952. 13. Little Wakarusa River, Sec. 18, T. 13 S, R. 21 E, June 21, 1952. 14. Rock Creek, Sec. 33, T. 13 S, R. 18 E, Oct. 2, 1952. 15. Wakarusa River, Sec. 14, T. 13 S, R. 20 E, March 28, 1953. Several collections made between 1912 and 1948 are deposited in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. In the annotated list these collections, all from Douglas County, are designated "UMMZ": 1. Rock Creek, June 9, 1912. 2. Oxbow Lake, 6 mi. E Lawrence, 1924 (several dates). 3. Wakarusa River, 7 mi. SE Lawrence, April 9, 1924. 4. Rock Creek, 9 mi. SW Lawrence, April 14, 1924. 5. Rock Creek, 12-1/2 mi. S and 8-1/2 mi. E Topeka, July 4, 1948. Our collections, all of which were made in 1959, are identified by the letters DM followed by a station-number. Stations are numbered consecutively beginning at the mouth of the Wakarusa River and proceeding up each tributary as it is encountered. _Description of Stations_ 1. Wakarusa River, Sec. 4, T. 13 S, R. 21 E, March 14 and Oct. 18. Mouth of Wakarusa to one-half mile upstream; width _ca._ 25 feet; depth to 4 feet; bottom mud; banks mud, 10 feet high; current slight; water turbid. 2. Wakarusa River, Sec. 7, T. 13 S, R. 21 E, March 21. Width _ca._ 25 feet; bottom mud; banks mud, 10-20 feet high. 3. Little Wakarusa Creek, Sec. 19, T. 13 S, R. 21 E, May 2. Long sandy riffles, 6-10 inches deep; pools to 3 feet deep; bottom sand and mud; water slightly turbid. 4. Little Wakarusa Creek, Secs. 29 and 32, T. 13 S, R. 21 E, May 2. Riffles 8-10 inches deep having rubble bottom; pools to 4 feet deep having mud bottom; width 15-30 feet. 5. Little Wakarusa Creek, Sec. 7, T. 14 S, R. 21 E, May 2. Riffles 6-8 inches deep having gravel bottom; pools to 3 feet deep; bottom gravel and mud; width 8 to 15 feet; water slightly turbid. 6. Cole Creek, Sec. 21, T. 13 S, R. 20 E, May 2. Riffles 8-12 feet wide, 6 inches deep, bottom of flat, fragmented shale; pools having shale and mud bottom; water slightly turbid. 7. Cole Creek, Sec. 10, T. 14 S, R. 20 E, May 2. Small, shallow creek having sand bottom; water slightly turbid. 8. Cole Creek, Sec. 23, T. 14 S, R. 10 E, May 2. Banks steep, 20 feet high; bottom sand and hard clay; water clear. 9. Tributary to Yankee Tank Creek, Sec. 10, T. 13 S, R. 19 E, May 14. Width 2-10 feet; bottom mud; water turbid. 10. Washington Creek, Sec. 6, T. 14 S, R. 19 E, Feb. 26. Width _ca._ 25 feet; bottom rubble and gravel; water clear. 11. Washington Creek, Sec. 11, T. 14 S, R. 18 E, Feb. 26, March 28, March 30, and Oct. 18. One-half mile below dam at Lone Star Lake; width 10-15 feet; bottom gravel; water clear. 12. Tributary of east arm of Lone Star Lake, Sec. 13, T. 14 S, R. 18 E, March 31. Width 5-7 feet; bottom limestone rubble; water clear. 13. Tributary of southeast arm of Lone Star Lake, Sec. 24, T. 14 S, R. 18 E, March 30. 14. Tributary of southwest arm of Lone Star Lake, Sec. 22, T. 14 S, R. 18 E, March 30. 15. Tributary to Rock Creek, Sec. 34, T. 13 S, R. 18 E, Feb. 26. Width 10 feet; water clear. 16. Rock Creek, Sec. 7, T. 14 S, R. 18 E, July 25 and Oct. 18. Bottom gravel and mud; water clear. 17. Rock Creek, Sec. 23, T. 14 S, R. 17 E, July 25. Rubble riffles; pools having mud and sand bottom; water clear. 18. Wakarusa River, Sec. 14, T. 13 S, R. 18 E, July 23. Rubble riffles; pools having sand and mud bottom; water turbid. 19. Coon Creek, Sec. 27, T. 12 S, R. 18 E, March 21. Bottom rubble and mud; water clear. 20. Dry Creek, Sec. 8, T. 13 S, R. 18 E, May 16. Bottom rubble; water clear. 21. Deer Creek, Sec. 4, T. 13 S, R. 18 E, July. Pools having mud bottom; rubble riffles; water turbid. 22. Deer Creek, Sec. 31, T. 12 S, R. 18 E, March 21. Bottom mud and shale; water clear. 23. Elk Creek, Sec. 2, T. 14 S, R. 17 E, July 25. Stream intermittent; bottom rubble; water turbid. 24. Wakarusa River, 1/4 mi. NE mouth of Elk Creek, Sec. 26, T. 14 S, R. 17 E, Oct. 17. Bottom mud and rubble; water turbid. 25. Camp Creek, Sec. 12, T. 14 S, R. 16 E, Oct. 17. Upland creek having clear, flowing water; rubble riffles alternating with shallow pools. 26. Strowbridge Creek, Sec. 11, T. 14 S, R. 16 E, July 25. Pools having bottom of mud and detritus, emitting malodorous gases; rubble riffles; water turbid. 27. Tributary of Strowbridge Creek, Sec. 29, T. 14 S, R. 16 E, July 30. Bottom rubble and mud; water clear, almost intermittent. 28. Lynn Creek, Sec. 24, T. 13 S, R. 16 E, April 4. Bottom rubble, mud and gravel; depth more than 6 feet; water turbid. 29. Lynn Creek, Sec. 14, T. 13 S, R. 16 E, May 27. Bottom mud and rubble; water turbid. 30. Lynn Creek, Secs. 14 and 15, T. 13 S, R. 16 E, July 28. Pools having sand bottom; rubble riffles; water clear. 31. Lynn Creek, Sec. 10, T. 13 S, R. 16 E, July 28. Bottom sand, rubble and mud; water clear. 32. Tributary to Lynn Creek, Secs. 11 and 12, T. 13 S, R. 16 E, May 16. Bottom rubble; water clear. 33. Burys Creek, Sec. 8, T. 14 S, R. 16 E, July 25. Bottom mud, rubble and detritus; rubble riffles; water turbid. 34. Wakarusa River, Sec. 28, T. 13 S, R. 16 E, July 28. Bottom mud and rubble; rubble riffles; water turbid. 35. Unnamed tributary of Wakarusa River, Sec. 24, T. 13 S, R. 15 E, April 4. Bottom mud; water turbid. 36. Six Mile Creek, Sec. 17, T. 13 S, R. 15 E, May 16. Bottom gravel and rubble; rubble riffles; water clear. 37. Wakarusa River, Sec. 25, T. 13 S, R. 14 E, May 16. Bottom mud and coarse sand; water turbid. 38. South Branch of Wakarusa River, Sec. 8, T. 14 S, R. 14 E, July 30. Bottom rubble and gravel; water clear. 39. South Branch of Wakarusa River, Sec. 5, T. 14 S, R. 13 E, July 30. Bottom bedrock; flow slight; rubble riffles; water turbid. 40. South Branch of Wakarusa River, Sec. 36, T. 13 S, R. 12 E, July 30. Bottom mud; rubble riffles; water turbid. 41. Middle Branch of Wakarusa River, Sec. 21, T. 13 S, R. 14 E, April 4. Bottom mud; gravel riffles; water turbid. 42. Tributary of Middle Branch of Wakarusa River, Sec. 29, T. 13 S, R. 14 E, April 4. Bottom mud and bedrock; rubble riffles; water turbid. _Annotated List of Species_ _Lepisosteus osseus oxyurus_ Rafinesque. DM 2. The longnose gar is abundant in most large rivers of Kansas. The scarcity in the Wakarusa is probably attributable to the small size of the stream. _Lepisosteus platostomus_ Rafinesque. UMMZ 2. The shortnose gar is common in the Kansas River but seems less inclined than the longnose gar to ascend small streams. _Dorosoma cepedianum_ (LeSueur). UMMZ 2; DM 1. Gizzard shad. _Carpiodes velifer_ (Rafinesque). UMMZ 2. This record for the highfin carpsucker is based on a single specimen (UMMZ 63182). It was re-examined by Bernard Nelson who stated (personal communication) "The dorsal fin is broken and the 'pea-lip' smashed. A trace of the 'pea' is still discernible. The body is deeply compressed and other measurements agree with [those of] _C. velifer_. It was identified as _C. cyprinus_ at first, but later changed by Hubbs." _C. velifer_ probably was more abundant in Kansas during and before the early 1900's than at present. Several early records of the species are available, but the only specimen obtained in Kansas in recent years was captured in the Neosho River by Deacon in 1958. Moore (1957:80) states that _C. velifer_ occurs in the clearer rivers and lakes of the Mississippi valley, westward to Nebraska and Oklahoma. The almost complete disappearance of this species from Kansas probably resulted from an increase in turbidity, of the rivers, accompanying settlement and cultivation of the land. _Carpiodes carpio carpio_ (Rafinesque). KU 5, 12, 15; DM 1, 16, 21, 37. The river carpsucker occurred at stations scattered throughout the drainage, except in the smallest creeks. The largest numbers were found in the lower mainstream. _Ictiobus cyprinella_ (Valenciennes). KU 10; UMMZ 2; DM 1. The big-mouth buffalo was taken only near the mouth of the river; black buffalo, _Ictiobus niger_ (Rafinesque) and smallmouth buffalo, _Ictiobus bubalus_ (Rafinesque), possibly also occur there but were not taken in our survey. _Catostomus commersonnii commersonnii_ (Lacépède). KU 4, 8, 14; UMMZ 1, 5; DM 10, 11, 15, 16, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 34, 42. The white sucker occurs primarily in upstream-habitats in the Wakarusa Basin. _Moxostoma aureolum_ (LeSueur). KU 15; DM 1. The northern redhorse was taken only in downstream portions of the basin. Minckley and Cross (1960) regard specimens from the Wakarusa River as intergrades between _M. a. aureolum_ and _M. a. pisolabrum_. _Cyprinus carpio_ Linnaeus. KU 9, 12, 15; DM 1, 2. The carp, though most abundant in downstream situations, probably occurs throughout the drainage and is a potential pest in all impoundments likely to be constructed in the basin. _Notemigonus crysoleucas_ (Mitchill). KU 9; DM 9, 27, 33, 41. The golden shiner was found only in tributaries. _Semotilus atromaculatus_ (Mitchill). KU 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14; UMMZ 4, 5; DM 3, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. The creek chub was usually abundant in small upland tributaries. _Hybopsis biguttata_ (Kirtland). KU 1, 3; UMMZ 4. The hornyhead chub seemingly was common in early collections but has not been found since 1924. The fish characteristically inhabits clear streams having gravel-bottom. Disappearance of the species from the Wakarusa may have resulted from increased siltation and intermittency of flow. _Hybopsis storeriana_ (Kirtland). KU 10; UMMZ 3. _Hybopsis aestivalis_ (Girard). KU 10; UMMZ 3; DM 1. This species and the preceding one are common in the Kansas River but do not ascend far up the Wakarusa. _Hybopsis gelida_ (Girard) and _Hybopsis gracilis_ (Richardson) occur in the Kansas River and may be expected in the lowermost portion of the mainstream of the Wakarusa. _Notropis percobromus_ (Cope). KU 12; DM 1, 2. The plains shiner shows little tendency to move far upstream from the Kansas River, where it is abundant. _Notropis umbratilis_ (Girard). KU 5, 11, 14; UMMZ 1, 4, 5; DM 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41. In our survey the redfin shiner was the most abundant species at several stations, especially at those in the lower and middle portions of tributaries to the mainstream. _Notropis cornutus frontalis_ (Agassiz). KU 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 14; DM 16. Judging from the numbers preserved in early collections, the common shiner was more abundant and widespread in the 1890's than in 1959. A watershed improvement program effecting more stable flow and decreased turbidity might benefit this shiner. _Notropis lutrensis_ (Baird and Girard). KU 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15; UMMZ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; DM all stations _except_ 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 35. The red shiner was ubiquitous, and was the dominant species at a majority of stations. _Notropis stramineus_ (Cope). KU 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15; DM 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 24, 25, 31, 37. The sand shiner was most common in two environments: (1) near the mouth of the Wakarusa where abundance of the species may be attributed to the close proximity of a large population of _N. stramineus_ in the Kansas River, and (2) in upland tributaries that drain areas in which sand is found (especially in Cole Creek). _Notropis topeka_ (Gilbert). KU 1, 14; UMMZ 1, 4, 5; DM 22, 25, 27, 33. Minckley and Cross (1959) describe the habitat of the Topeka shiner as pools of clear upland tributaries with slight flow. We found the Topeka shiner in such habitat in Deer Creek, Strowbridge Creek and Burys Creek. The largest population occurred in a tributary of Strowbridge Creek. This stream probably was intermittent in 1958, and Deer and Burys creeks may have been intermittent at some time in 1957-1959. Although Minckley and Cross (1959:215) have stated that Rock Creek is "unsuitable for this species," we suspect that Rock Creek served as a refugium for _N. topeka_ in time of drought. It was found there (KU 14) in 1952, and again (DM 16) on April 8, 1960. _Notropis buchanani_ Meek. UMMZ 3. Inclusion of the ghost shiner is based on two specimens (UMMZ 63107) collected by C. W. Creaser in 1924. _Phenacobius mirabilis_ (Girard). KU 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15; UMMZ 4; DM 3, 6, 16, 18, 21, 22, 34. The suckermouth minnow occurred in several collections but was nowhere dominant. The largest populations were at DM 3, 6, and 22. _Hybognathus nuchalis_ Agassiz. KU 8, 15; UMMZ 3; DM 1, 6. The silvery minnow was taken only in the downstream portion of the Wakarusa and its lower tributaries. _Pimephales promelas_ Rafinesque. KU 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15; UMMZ 1, 4, 5; DM all stations _except_ 1, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 30. The fathead minnow was ubiquitous, and was dominant at several stations on the smallest creeks. _Pimephales notatus_ (Rafinesque). KU 1, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15; UMMZ 1, 4, 5; DM 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18, 24, 25, 26, 37, 41. The bluntnose minnow occurred at several stations on tributaries but was not common. _Campostoma anomalum_ (Rafinesque). KU 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; UMMZ 4, 5; DM 3, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 32, 33, 34. The stoneroller was usually abundant at upstream stations and was found in the mainstream of the Wakarusa River. _Ictalurus punctatus_ (Rafinesque). KU 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15; DM 1, 2, 18, 24. Channel catfish were taken by us only in the mainstream; anglers sometimes catch channel catfish in several of the tributaries. _Ictalurus melas_ (Rafinesque). Black bullhead. KU 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 14; UMMZ 2, 5; DM 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 21, 25, 26, 31, 32, 33, 38, 39, 40. _Ictalurus natalis_ (LeSueur). Yellow bullhead. KU 9, 14. _Pylodictis olivaris_ (Rafinesque). KU 8, 10; DM 18. The flathead catfish comprises a small but consistent part of the sport fishery of the Wakarusa, especially in the mainstream. _Noturus flavus_ Rafinesque. Stonecat. KU 10, 11, 12. _Noturus exilis_ (Nelson). DM 11. The slender madtom is recorded only from riffles in Washington Creek below Lone Star Lake. These riffles, because of the influence of the reservoir, are probably the most permanent in the drainage at present. The slender madtom may become more widespread if other reservoirs are built that stabilize stream flow in the basin. _Perca flavescens_ (Mitchill). The yellow perch is present in Lone Star Lake, and probably will become established in future reservoirs that are constructed. _Percina caprodes_ (Rafinesque). Log perch. KU 11, 14, 15; DM 11, 12, 16, 37, 41. _Etheostoma nigrum_ Rafinesque. KU 8, 14; UMMZ 1, 3, 4, 5; DM 16, 17. The johnny darter, like the common shiner, has been taken recently only in Rock Creek, where darters flourish. Often, ten to fifteen johnny darters were taken with one sweep of a 6- or 12-foot seine in shallow pools having mud bottoms. Watershed improvement may benefit this species. _Etheostoma spectabile pulchellum_ (Girard). KU 7, 10, 12, 14; UMMZ 4, 5; DM 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26. The orangethroat darter was most abundant in Deer Creek, Rock Creek and Washington Creek. _Micropterus salmoides salmoides_ (Lacépède). DM 16, 17, 21, 30, 32, 34, 37. The largemouth bass occurs throughout the drainage at present, and should become established without supplemental stocking in future reservoirs. The absence of this species in early collections suggests that widespread stocking of bass in various impoundments in the area in recent years has increased populations in the streams. An anomalous individual, lacking a right pelvic fin, was found in Lone Star Lake. _Chaenobryttus gulosus_ (Cuvier). The warmouth is present in Lone Star Lake. This species typically inhabits lakes and probably will establish itself in other reservoirs. _Lepomis cyanellus_ Rafinesque. Green sunfish. KU 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15; UMMZ 2, 4, 5; DM all stations _except_ 11, 12, 13, 14, 27, 30, 31, 39, 40. _Lepomis macrochirus_ Rafinesque. KU 6; DM 10, 16, 17, 24, 31, 33, 37, 41, 42. Both bluegill and green sunfish are common throughout the drainage and will contribute to the sport fishery of any reservoir constructed. The absence of the bluegill in early collections suggests that its population has increased recently owing to introductions in many impoundments. _Lepomis humilis_ (Girard). Orangespotted sunfish. KU 6, 9, 11, 14, 15; UMMZ 1, 2, 4, 5; DM 4, 6, 16, 17, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. _Lepomis megalotis breviceps_ (Rafinesque). Longear sunfish. KU 8 (one individual taken in Rock Creek, 1951). _Pomoxis annularis_ (Rafinesque). KU 9, 15; UMMZ 2. White crappie occur in Lone Star Lake and in farm ponds in the basin. _Pomoxis nigromaculatus_ (LeSueur). Specimens of black crappie were obtained from Lone Star Lake and in farm ponds in the basin. _Aplodinotus grunniens_ Rafinesque. Drum. KU 12. _Discussion_ Our data show that the present fish-fauna of the Wakarusa River has three major components: (1) A group of species that are mainly restricted to the lower mainstream; all of them are common in the Kansas River (_Lepisosteus osseus_, _Carpiodes carpio carpio_, _Ictiobus cyprinella_, _Moxostoma aureolum_, _Cyprinus carpio_, _Hybopsis storeriana_, _Hybopsis aestivalis_, _Notropis percobromus_, _Hybognathus nuchalis_ and _Pylodictis olivaris)_. (2) A group of species that are ubiquitous; they comprised the entire fauna in some tributaries, despite the existence of habitats that seemed suitable for other species (_Notropis lutrensis_, _Pimephales promelas_, _Ictalurus melas_, and _Lepomis cyanellus_). (3) A group of species having distributions centered in Rock Creek, Washington Creek, Deer Creek, and some nearby tributaries (_Catostomus commersonnii_, _Semotilus atromaculatus_, _Hybopsis biguttata_, _Notropis cornutus_, _Notropis topeka_, _Notropis umbratilis_, _Phenacobius mirabilis_, _Pimephales notatus_, _Campostoma anomalum_, _Noturus exilis_, _Percina caprodes_, _Etheostoma nigrum_ and _Etheostoma spectabile_). The distributions of groups (2) and (3) provide clues to the effect of drought on the fish-population, and on the relative ability of various species to repopulate areas where they have been extirpated. Larimore _et al._ (1959) studied the re-establishment of stream-fish following drought in Smiths Branch, a small warmwater stream in Illinois. They found that 21 of the 29 species regularly occurring there reinvaded most of the stream-course within two weeks after the resumption of normal flow, and that all but three species were present by the end of the first summer. Our study indicates a much slower rate of dispersal by many of the same species. This is presumably attributable to the ecological barrier presented by the Wakarusa mainstream. During the drought (1952-1956) the mainstream with its turbid water and mud bottom could hardly have served as a refugium for species requiring the clear water and gravel bottom of upland tributaries. Probably the main refugia for these species [group (3)] were in the upper portions of Rock Creek, Washington Creek and possibly Deer Creek. While collecting we observed that these creeks had larger proportions of gravel-rubble bottom, clearer water, deeper pools, and appeared to be more stable than other creeks in the drainage. In Washington Creek, Lone Star Lake enhanced stability of flow. At the end of the drought, fishes in group (3) probably were extirpated or decimated in other tributaries of the Wakarusa. After normal flow recommenced in 1956, fishes re-entered the previously uninhabitable streams or stream-segments. The rate of redispersal by various species probably depended upon their innate mobility, and upon their tolerance of the muddy mainstream of the Wakarusa. Our observations suggest that certain species in group (3) dispersed rapidly from refugia in Rock Creek, Washington Creek, and possibly Deer Creek. These species may, of course, have survived in a few remaining pools in tributaries throughout the basin, thereby necessitating only minor redispersal within these tributaries following drought. Species of group (3) that were most tolerant of drought or that dispersed most rapidly are _Catostomus commersonnii_, _Notropis umbratilis_, _Pimephales notatus_, and _Percina caprodes_; these were present in the uppermost portions of the basin in 1959. Fishes having lesser capacity for survival or dispersal are _Semotilus atromaculatus_, _Notropis topeka_, _Phenacobius mirabilis_ and _Campostoma anomalum_; in 1959, they were not found farther upstream than Burys Creek. _Etheostoma spectabile_, the orangethroat darter, was taken in Rock Creek, Washington Creek, Deer Creek, Strowbridge Creek, Elk Creek, and at station 24 on the Wakarusa. This is a riffle-dwelling, comparatively sedentary fish, not a strong swimmer. These traits, coupled with the long, muddy pools and infrequent riffles of the Wakarusa mainstream, provide a reasonable explanation of the comparatively slow rate of dispersal by the orangethroat darter. Several species showed no tendency for redispersal following drought, in that they were confined to Washington Creek or Rock Creek in 1959. _Noturus exilis_ was taken only in Washington Creek immediately below Lone Star Lake. Rock Creek is the last stream in the Wakarusa Basin in which _Notropis cornutus_, _Hybopsis biguttata_ and _Etheostoma nigrum_ have survived. These species require comparatively permanent streams having pool-and-riffle habitats and gravelly bottoms for spawning. _Hybopsis biguttata_ has been recorded only from Rock Creek, where it was last taken in 1924. It is interesting to note that this species had not reinvaded Smiths Branch, in Illinois, three years after the resumption of stream-flow (Larimore _et al._, 1959). _Notropis cornutus_ and _Etheostoma nigrum_, although formerly more widespread in the Wakarusa Basin, have been taken recently only in Rock Creek. Faunal changes that have occurred in the basin in the past 60 years indicate a decrease in extent of clear, continuously flowing stream-habitat. _Comparisons with Faunas of Nearby Streams_ Minckley (1959) reported 13 species from the Big Blue River Basin that were not taken in our survey of the Wakarusa. Most of the 13 are fishes that probably occur throughout the lower mainstream of the Kansas River and might enter the lower Wakarusa occasionally. _Chrosomus erythrogaster_ and _Notropis rubellus_ were reported by Minckley but have not been found in the Kansas River Basin east of the Flint Hills, either in recent or in early collections. On the other hand, five species have been reported from the Wakarusa but not from the Big Blue River. Two of these, _Notemigonus crysoleucas_ and _Chaenobryttus gulosus_, may have been introduced by man. The remaining three, _Hybopsis biguttata_, _Noturus exilis_ and _Percina caprodes_, have not been taken farther west than Mill Creek, Wabaunsee County. In general the faunas of the two systems are similar; forty species are common to both. Comparison of the faunal list reported from the Cottonwood River drainage (Arkansas River System) by Cross (1954) with that here reported reveals 26 species in common, 19 found only in the Wakarusa and 15 species found only in the Cottonwood. _Acknowledgments_ We thank Dr. Frank Cross, Mr. Bernard Nelson and Mr. Wendell Minckley for their suggestions and data, and Mrs. James E. Deacon for assistance in preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful also to landowners in the Wakarusa Basin for permitting us to collect on their properties, to Mr. Melvon H. Wertzberger for varied assistance, and to The Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission for financial assistance to one of us. The Kansas State Board of Health and the Water Resources Board supplied pertinent information. _Literature Cited_ CROSS, F. B. 1954. Fishes of Cedar Creek and the South Fork of the Cottonwood River, Chase County, Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci. 57:303-314. DUFFORD, A. E. 1958. Quaternary geology and ground water resources of Kansas River Valley between Bonner Springs and Lawrence, Kansas. Kansas Geol. Surv. Bull. 130, Part 1, pp. 1-96. FRANZEN, D. S., and LEONARD, A. B. 1943. The Mollusca of the Wakarusa River Valley. Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull. 29(9):363-439. LARTMORE, R. W., CHILDERS, W. F., and HECKROTTE, C. 1959. Destruction and re-establishment of stream fish and invertebrates affected by drought. Trans. Amer. Fish. Soc, 88(4):261-285. METZLER, D. F., CULP, R. L., STOLTENBERG, H. A., WOODWARD, R. L., WALTON, G., CHANG, S. L., CLARKE, N. A., PALMER, C. M., and MIDDLETON, F. M. 1958. Emergency use of reclaimed water for potable supply at Chanute, Kansas. Jour. Amer. Water Works Assoc. 50(8):1021-1060. MINCKLEY, W. L. 1959. Fishes of the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas. Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist, Publ. 11(7):401-442. MINCKLEY, W. L., and CROSS, F. B. 1959. Distribution, habitat, and abundance of the Topeka shiner, _Notropis topeka_ (Gilbert) in Kansas. Amer. Midi. Nat. 6(1):210-217. 1960. Taxonomic status of the Shorthead Redhorse, _Moxostoma aureolum_ (LeSueur) from the Kansas River Basin, Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci. 63(1):35-39. MOORE, G. A. 1957. Fishes. _Transmitted November 8, 1960._ Vertebrates of the United States, by Blair, W. F., Blair, A. P., Brodkorb, P., Cagle, F. R., and Moore, G. A. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, New York, pp. 31-210. Todd, J. E. 1911. History of Wakarusa Creek. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci. 24:211-218. _Transmitted November 8, 1960._ 28-5872 
34523	----	==================================================================== UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 11, No. 6, pp. 345-400, 2 plates, 2 figs. in text, 10 tables ---------------------- May 6, 1959 ------------------------- Fishes of Chautauqua, Cowley and Elk Counties, Kansas BY ARTIE L. METCALF UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1959 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Robert W. Wilson Volume 11, No. 6, pp. 345-400, 2 plates, 2 figs. in text, 10 tables Published May 6, 1959 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas A CONTRIBUTION FROM THE STATE BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF KANSAS PRINTED IN THE STATE PRINTING PLANT TOPEKA, KANSAS 1959 27-7079 Fishes of Chautauqua, Cowley and Elk Counties, Kansas BY ARTIE L. METCALF CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 347 Physical characteristics of the streams 351 Climate 351 Present flora 353 History 354 Conservation 357 Previous ichthyological collections 357 Acknowledgments 358 Materials and methods 358 Collecting stations 359 Annotated list of species 362 Fishes of doubtful or possible occurrence 383 Faunal comparisons of different streams 384 Distributional variations within the same stream 387 Faunas of intermittent streams 390 East-west distribution 392 Summary 394 Literature cited 397 INTRODUCTION Aims of the distributional study here reported on concerning the fishes of a part of the Arkansas River Basin of south-central Kansas were as follows: (1) Ascertain what species occur in streams of the three counties. (2) Ascertain habitat preferences for the species found. (3) Distinguish faunal associations existing in different parts of the same stream. (4) Describe differences and similarities among the fish faunas of the several streams in the area. (5) Relate the findings to the over-all picture of east-west distribution of fishes in Kansas. (6) List any demonstrable effects of intermittency of streams on fish distribution within the area. Cowley and Chautauqua counties form part of the southern border of Kansas, and Elk County lies directly north of Chautauqua. The following report concerns data only from those three counties unless otherwise noted. They make up an area of 2,430 square miles having a population of 50,960 persons in 1950 (55,552 in 1940, and 60,375 in 1930). The most populous portion of the area is western Cowley County where Arkansas City with 12,903 inhabitants and Winfield with 10,264 inhabitants are located. Each of the other towns has less than 2,000 inhabitants. In the Flint Hills, which cross the central portion of the area surveyed, population is sparse and chiefly in the valleys. Topographically, the area is divisible into three general sections: the extensive Wellington formation and the floodplain of the Arkansas River in western Cowley County; the Flint Hills in the central part of the area; and the "Chautauqua Hills" in the eastern part. The drainage pattern is shown in Figure 1. The Wellington formation, which is devoid of sharp relief, borders the floodplain of the Arkansas River through most of its course in Cowley County. A short distance south of Arkansas City, however, the Arkansas is joined by the Walnut River and enters a narrow valley walled by steep, wooded slopes. Frye and Leonard (1952:198) suggest that this valley was originally carved by the Walnut River, when the Arkansas River flowed southward west of its present course. They further suggest that during Nebraskan glacial time the Arkansas probably was diverted to the rapidly downcutting Walnut. The Arkansas River has a gradient of 3.0 ft. per mile in Cowley County. This gradient and others cited were computed, by use of a cartometer, from maps made by the State Geological Survey of Kansas and the United States Geological Survey. Northward along the Walnut, steep bluffs and eroded gulleys characterize both sides of the river, especially in southern Cowley County. Two massive limestones, the Fort Riley and the Winfield, form the bluffs in most places. The well-defined Winfield limestone is persistent on the west bank of the river across the entire county. The Walnut has only a few small tributaries in the southern half of Cowley County (Fig. 1). In the northern half, however, it is joined from the east by Timber Creek and Rock Creek. Timber Creek drains a large level area, formed by the eroded upper portion of the Fort Riley limestone, in the north-central portion of the county. The gradient of Timber Creek is 12.9 feet per mile. The gradient of the Walnut River is only 2.3 ft. per mile from its point of entrance into the county to its mouth. [Illustration: FIG. 1. Map of Cowley, Chautauqua and Elk counties, Kansas, showing the streams mentioned in the text.] Grouse Creek, like the Walnut, has formed a valley of one to three miles in width, rimmed by prominent wooded bluffs. Those on the west side are capped by the Fort Riley limestone with the resistant Wreford and Crouse limestones forming lower escarpments. On the east side the Wreford and Crouse limestones provide the only escarpments along the stream above the Vinton community, except for occasional lower outcrops of Morrill limestone. Below Vinton the Fort Riley limestone again appears, capping the hills above the Wreford limestone. The headwaters of the western tributaries of Grouse Creek are generally in the Doyle shale formation; the eastern tributaries are in the Wreford limestone, Matfield shale, and Barnestone limestone formations. The gradient of Grouse Creek is 9 ft. per mile, of Silver Creek 14.6 ft. per mile, and of Crab Creek 14.4 ft. per mile. The Big Caney River (Fig. 1), having a gradient of 15.4 ft. per mile in the area studied, drains an area with considerable geological and topographic variation. The main stream and its western tributaries originate in Permian formations, whereas the eastern tributaries originate in Pennsylvanian formations. Cedar Creek is exemplary of western tributaries of Big Caney. This creek arises in the Wreford limestone, as do several nearby tributaries of Grouse Creek. Although the Grouse tributaries descend through only part of the Council Grove group, Cedar Creek flows downward through the entire Grove, Admire, and Wabaunsee groups and part of the Shawnee Group (Moore, 1951). In only 15 miles, Cedar Creek traverses formations comprising more than 60 per cent of the entire exposed stratigraphic section in Cowley County. Bass (1929:16) states that reliefs of 350 feet within a mile are present in parts of this area. Large terraces of limestone characterize the eastern flank of the Flint Hills, which the western tributaries of Big Caney drain. Most striking is the Foraker limestone. It characteristically consists of three massive members in Cowley County, the uppermost of which forms the prominent first crest of the Flint Hills. As the rapid-flowing western tributaries of Big Caney descend over these successive limestone members, large quantities of chert and limestone rubble are transported and deposited in stream beds of the system. In many places the streams of the Big Caney system flow over resistant limestone members, which form a bedrock bottom. The eastern tributaries of Big Caney drain, for the most part, formations of the Wabaunsee group of the Pennsylvanian. Most of these streams have lower gradients than those entering Big Caney from the west. The tributaries of Big Caney, along with length in miles and gradient in feet per mile, are as follows: Spring Creek, 7.1, 54.5; Union Creek, 6.3, 42.9; Otter Creek, 14.6, 27.4; Cedar Creek, 11.6, 31.0; Rock Creek, 15.9, 26.5; Wolf Creek, 9.3, 17.2; Turkey Creek, 8.5, 26.4; Grant Creek, 13.9, 23.4; and Sycamore Creek, 8.9, 27.0. Spring Creek and Union Creek are short and have formed no extensive floodplain. The high gradients of these creeks are characteristic also of the upper portions of several other tributaries such as Cedar Creek and Otter Creek. Middle Caney Creek (Fig. 1) has its source in the Wabaunsee and Shawnee groups of the Pennsylvanian but its watershed is dominated by the "Chautauqua Hills" of the Douglas Group. This area is described by Moore (1949:127) as "an upland formed by hard sandstone layers." The rough rounded hills supporting thick growths of oaks differ in appearance from both the Big Caney watershed on the west and the Verdigris River watershed on the east. The gradient of Middle Caney in Chautauqua County is 10.8 feet per mile. Its largest tributary, North Caney Creek, has a gradient of 15.5 feet per mile. The Elk River Basin resembles the Big Caney River Basin topographically. Elk River has a gradient of 14.4 feet per mile. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF STREAMS The stream channels derive their physical characteristics from the geological make-up of the area and from land-use. The Arkansas River typically has low banks; however, in a few places, as in the NE 1/4 of Section 21, T. 33 S, R. 3 E, it cuts into limestone members to form steep rocky banks. The bottom is predominantly sand. In years of heavy rainfall the river is turbid, but during 1956, when it occupied only a small portion of its channel, it was clear each time observed. All streams surveyed were clear except after short periods of flooding in June, and except in some isolated pools where cattle had access to the water. In the Walnut River, sand bottoms occur in the lower part of the stream but the sand is coarser than that of the Arkansas River. Upstream, gravel and rubble bottoms become more common. Steep rocky banks border most of the course of the Walnut. During 1956, stream-flow was confined to the center of the channel, remote from these rocky banks. The rubble and bedrock bottoms found in most streams of the Flint Hills have been described. In the alluvial valleys of their lower courses mud bottoms are found. Gravel is present in some places but sand is absent. Banks are variable but often steep and wooded. Along east- or west-flowing streams the north bank characteristically is low and sloping whereas the south bank is high, rises abruptly, and in many places is continuous with wooded hills. The lower sections of Otter Creek, Cedar Creek, and Rock Creek fit this description (Bass, 1929:19) especially well, as does Elk River near Howard. Streams in the Chautauqua Hills resemble those of the Flint Hills in physical characteristics, except that a larger admixture of sandstone occurs in the rubble. CLIMATE The climate of the area is characterized by those fluctuations of temperature, wind, and rainfall typical of the Great Plains. The mean annual temperature is 58 degrees; the mean July temperature is 81 degrees; the mean January temperature is approximately 34 degrees. The mean annual precipitation is 32.9 in Cowley County, 38.5 in Chautauqua County, and 35.1 in Elk County. Wind movement is great; Flora (1948:6) states that south-central Kansas ranks close to some of the windiest inland areas in the United States. The area has been periodically subjected to droughts and floods. Such phenomena are of special interest to ichthyological workers in the area. At the time of this study drought conditions, which began in 1952, prevailed. Even in this period of drought, however, flooding occurred on Grouse Creek and water was high in Big Caney River after heavy local rains on the headwaters of these streams on June 22, 1956. Some of the lower tributaries of these same streams (such as Crab Creek and Cedar Creek) did not flow while the mainstreams were flooding. This illustrates the local nature of many of the summer rains in the area. Table 1 indicates maximum, minimum, and average discharges in cubic feet per second at several stations in the area and on nearby streams. These figures were provided by the U. S. Geological Survey. TABLE 1.--CUBIC FEET PER SECOND OF WATER DISCHARGED AT GAUGING STATIONS IN CHAUTAUQUA, ELK, MONTGOMERY, AND COWLEY COUNTIES FOR YEARS PRIOR TO 1951. ======================================================================= Gauging |Drainage |Avg |Maximum| |Minimum| station |area |dis- |dis- | |dis- | |(sq. mi.)|charge|charge | Date |charge | Date ---------------|---------|------|-------|----------|-------|----------- Arkansas River | 43,713 |1,630 |103,000| June 10, | 1 |October 9, at Arkansas | | | | 1923 | | 1921 City | | | | | | ---------------|---------|------|-------|----------|-------|---------- Walnut River | 1,840 | 738 |105,000| April 23,| 0 |1928, 1936 at Winfield | | | | 1944 | | ---------------|---------|------|-------|----------|-------|---------- Big Caney River| 445 | 264 | 35,500| April 10,| 0 |1939, 1940, at Elgin | | | | 1944 | |1946, 1947 ---------------|---------|------|-------|----------|-------|---------- Elk River near | 575 | 393 | 39,200| April 16,| 0 |1939, 1940, Elk City | | | | 1945 | |1946 ---------------|---------|------|-------|----------|-------|---------- Fall River near| 591 | 359 | 45,600| April 16,| 0 |1939, 1940, Fall River | | | | 1945 | |1946 ---------------|---------|------|-------|----------|-------|---------- Verdigris River| 2,892 |1,649 |117,000| April 17,| 0 |1932, 1934, at Independence| | | | 1945 | |1936, 1939, | | | | | |1940 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Something of the effect that drought and flash-flood have had on Big Caney River is shown by the monthly means of daily discharge from October, 1954, to September, 1956, at the stream-gauging station near Elgin, Kansas (Table 2). Within these monthly variations there are also pronounced daily fluctuations; on Big Caney River approximately 1/4 mile south of Elgin, Kansas, discharge in cubic feet per second for May, 1944, ranged from .7 to 9,270.0 and for May, 1956, from .03 to 20.0. TABLE 2.--MONTHLY MEANS OF DAILY DISCHARGE IN CUBIC FEET PER SECOND FOR BIG CANEY RIVER AT ELGIN, KANSAS _Month_ _1954-55_ _1955-56_ October 103.00 69.60 November .31 .78 December .18 1.92 January .78 1.65 February 4.76 2.08 March 3.37 1.27 April 4.91 .47 May 624.00 7.37 June 51.30 35.20 July 1.20 1.85 August 0.00 0.00 September .04 0.00 PRESENT FLORA The flora of the region varies greatly at the present time. Land-use has altered the original floral communities, especially in the intensively cultivated area of western Cowley County and in the river valleys. The sandy Arkansas River floodplain exhibits several stages ranging from sparsely vegetated sandy mounds near the river through stages of Johnson grass, willow, and cottonwood, to an elm-hackberry fringe-forest. The Wellington formation bordering the floodplain supports a prairie flora where not disturbed by cultivation; Gates (1936:15) designates this as a part of the mixed bluestem and short-grass region. _Andropogon gerardi_ Vitman., _Andropogon scoparius_ Michx., _Sorghastrum nutans_ (L.), and _Panicum virgatum_ L. are important grasses in the hilly pasture-lands. Although much of this land is virgin prairie, the tall, lush condition of the grasses described by early writers such as Mooso (1888:304), and by local residents, is not seen today. These residents speak of slough grasses (probably _Tripsacum dactyloides_ L. and _Spartina pectinata_ Link.) that originally formed rank growths. These no doubt helped conserve water and stabilize flow in small headwater creeks. Remnants of some of these sloughs can still be found. The streams in the Flint Hills have fringe-forests of elm, hackberry, walnut, ash, and willow. Eastward from the Flint Hills these fringe-forests become thicker with a greater admixture of hickories and oaks. The north slopes of hills also become more wooded. However, grassland remains predominant over woodland in western Chautauqua and Elk counties, whereas in the eastern one-half of Chautauqua County and the eastern one-third of Elk County the wooded Chautauqua Hills prevail. This is one of the most extensive wooded upland areas in Kansas. Hale (1955:167) describes this woodland as part of an ecotonal scrub-oak forest bordering the Great Plains south through Texas. He found stand dominants in these wooded areas to be _Quercus marilandica_ Muenchh., _Quercus stellata_ Wang., and _Quercus velutina_ Lam. Few true aquatic plants were observed in the Arkansas River although mats of duckweed were found in shallow backwater pools at station A-3 (Fig. 2) on December 22, 1956. In the Walnut River _Najas guadalupensis_ Spreng. was common at station W-2. Stones were usually covered with algae in both the Arkansas and Walnut rivers. A red bloom, possibly attributable to _Euglena rubra_ (Johnson), was observed on a tributary of the Walnut River on July 9, 1956, at station W-4. Green algae were abundant at all stations in the Caney, Elk, and Grouse systems during May and June, 1956, and reappeared late in September. _Chara_ sp. was common in these streams in April and May. The most characteristic rooted aquatic of streams in the Flint Hills was _Justicia americana_ L. At station G-7 on Grouse Creek and Station C-8 on Big Caney River (Fig. 3), _Nelumbo lutea_ (Willd.) was found. _Myriophyllum heterophyllum_ Michx. formed dense floating mats at a number of stations. Other aquatic plants observed in the Caney, Elk, and Grouse systems included _Potamogeton gramineus_ L., _Potamogeton nodosus_ Poir., _Potamogeton foliosus_ Raf., _Sagittaria latifolia_ Willd., _Typha latifolia_ L., and _Jussiaea diffusa_ Forsk. HISTORY In 1857, a survey was made of the southern boundary of Kansas. Several diaries (Miller, 1932; Caldwell, 1937; Bieber, 1932) were kept by members of the surveying party, which traveled from east to west. These accounts contain complaints of difficulty in traversing a country of broken ridges and gulleys as the party approached the area now comprising Chautauqua County. One account by Hugh Campbell, astronomical computer for the party (Caldwell, 1937) mentions rocky ridges covered with dense growth of "black jack," while another by Col. Joseph Johnson, Commander (Miller, 1932) speaks of "a good deal of oakes in the heights"--indicating that the upland oak forest of the Chautauqua Hills was in existence at that time. On reaching Big Caney River near Elgin, Campbell wrote of a stream with very high banks and of a valley timbered with oak and black walnut. While the party was encamped on Big Caney River some fishing was done. Campbell (Caldwell, 1937:353) described the fish taken as "Cat, Trout or Bass, Buffalo and Garr." Eugene Bandel (Bieber, 1932:152) wrote, "This forenoon we did not expect to leave camp, and therefore we went fishing. In about two hours we caught more fish than the whole company could eat. There were some forty fish caught, some of them weighing over ten pounds." It was noted that the waters of Big Caney and its tributaries were "very clear." Progressing up Rock Creek, Johnson wrote of entering a high rolling plain covered with fine grass, and crossed occasionally by clear wooded streams (probably Big and Little Beaver Creeks and Grouse Creek). The diary of Hugh Campbell (Caldwell, 1937:354) contains a description of the Arkansas River Valley near the Oklahoma border. "The Arkansas River at this point is about 300 yards wide, its waters are muddy, not quite so much so, as those of the Mississippi or Rio Bravo. Its valley is wooded and about two miles in width, the main bottom here, being on the east side. On the west it is a rolling prairie as far as the eye can see, affording excellent grass." Some seining was done while encamped on the Arkansas River and "buffalo, catfish, sturgeons, and gars" were taken (Bieber, 1932:156). An editorial in the Winfield Courier of November 16, 1899, vigorously registers concern about a direct effect of settlement on fish populations in rivers of the area: "The fish in the streams of Cowley County are being slaughtered by the thousands, by the unlawful use of the seine and the deadly hoop net. Fish are sold on the market every day, sometimes a tubful at a time, which never swallowed a hook. "The fish law says it is unlawful to seine, snare, or trap fish but some of the smaller streams in the county, it is said are so full of hoop and trammel nets that a minnow cannot get up or down stream. These nets not only destroy what fish there are in the streams but they keep other fish from coming in, they are not operated as a rule by farmers to supply their own tables but by fellows who catch the fish to sell with no thought or care for the welfare of others who like to catch and eat fish. "If there is a fishwarden in Cowley County so far as his utility goes the county would be as well off without him and his inactivity has caused many of those interested to get together for the purpose of seeing that the law is enforced. "Depredations like this work injury in more ways than one. They not only deplete the streams of fish large enough to eat and destroy the source of supply but if the U. S. Fish Commission discovers that the law is not enforced and the fish not protected, there will be no free government fish placed in Cowley County streams. It is useless for the Government to spend thousands of dollars to keep the streams well supplied if a few outlaws are allowed to ruthlessly destroy them. The new organization has its eye on certain parties now and something is liable to drop unexpectedly soon." Graham (1885:78) listed 13 species of fish that had already been introduced into Kansas waters prior to 1885 by the State Fish Commission. These early references indicate that direct effects of settlement on the native flora and fauna were recognized early. Concern such as that expressed in the editorial above persists today; however, it is not clear whether the fish fauna of the streams of the area has been essentially changed by man's predation. The indirect effects through human modifications of the environment seem to be of much importance. Three modifications which have especially affected streams have been agricultural use, urbanization, and industrialization. The effect of land-use on streams is closely related to its effect on the flora of the watershed. Turbidity, sedimentation, and the rate, periodicity, and manner of flow all bear some relationship to the land-use of the watershed. Stream-flow in the area has been discussed in the section on climate. The effects of urbanization are more tangible and better recognized than those of agricultural land-use. Streams that flow through cities and other populous areas undergo some modification, especially of the streamside flora. Another effect of urbanization has been increased loads of sewage discharged into the streams. The combined populations of Arkansas City and Winfield rose from 3,986 in 1880 to 23,167 in 1950. Arkansas City found it necessary to construct a sewage system in 1889; Winfield in 1907. There are, at the present time, nine towns within the area that have municipal sewage systems. The State Training Home at Winfield also has a sewage system. The Kansas State Board of Health, Division of Sanitation, has provided information concerning adequacy of these systems and certain others in nearby counties as of February 5, 1957. This information is shown in Table 3. Representatives of the Division of Sanitation, Kansas State Board of Health, expressed the belief that pollution by both domestic sewage and industrial wastes would be largely eliminated in the "lower Arkansas" and in the Walnut watershed by 1959. Important oil and gas resources have been discovered in each of the three counties. The first producing wells were drilled between 1900 and 1902 (Jewett and Abernathy, 1945:24). The Arkansas River flows through several oilfields in its course across Cowley County (Jewett and Abernathy, 1945:97). A number of producing wells have been drilled in the Grouse Creek watershed since 1939 and many of these wells are near the banks of the creek. In the Big Caney watershed of Cowley and Chautauqua counties there has been little oil production in recent years; however, a few small pools are presently producing in southwestern Elk County. Clapp (1920:33) stated that "Many of the finest streams of our state are now destitute of fish on account of oil and salt pollution. The Walnut River, once as fine a bass stream as could be found anywhere, and a beautiful stream, too, is now a murky oil run, and does not contain a single fish so far as I know. The Fall and Verdigris rivers are practically ruined. Both the Caney rivers are affected, and may soon be ruined for fishing." Doze (1924:31) noted "Some of the finest streams in the state have been ruined as habitat for wild life, the Walnut River is probably the most flagrant example." TABLE 3.--SEWAGE DISPOSAL FACILITIES IN SOME SOUTH-CENTRAL KANSAS COMMUNITIES. ======================================================================= Community | Status on February 5, | Remarks | 1957 | -----------------------+------------------------+---------------------- Cowley County: | | Arkansas City | Discharging raw sewage | Adequate plant in | | design stage. Geuda Springs | Discharging raw sewage | Winfield | Inadequate | State training school| Adequate | Udall | Adequate | -----------------------+------------------------+---------------------- Chautauqua County: | | Cedar Vale | Inadequate | Sedan | Adequate | In operation 30 | | days. Elgin | Adequate | -----------------------+------------------------+---------------------- Elk County: | | Moline | Inadequate | Howard | Adequate | -----------------------+------------------------+---------------------- Sumner County: | | Belle Plaine | Discharging raw sewage | Adequate plant under | | construction. Mulvane | Discharging raw sewage | Adequate plant under | | construction. Oxford | Discharging raw sewage | Construction on | | adequate plant to | | start soon. -----------------------+------------------------+---------------------- Butler County: | | Augusta | Adequate | El Dorado | Discharging raw sewage | Adequate plant under | | construction. Douglass | Discharging raw sewage | Adequate plant to | | go into operation | | within 30 days. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Pollution by petroleum wastes from refineries has also affected the streams studied. The only refinery within the area is at Arkansas City. In Butler County there are four refineries on the Walnut watershed upstream from the area surveyed. Metzler (1952) noted that "fish-kills" occurred from the mid-1940's until 1952 in connection with wastes periodically discharged from these refineries. However, the largest kill, in 1944, was attributed to excessive brine pollution. In Arkansas City a meat-packing plant, a large railroad workshop, two flour mills, two milk plants, and several small manufacturing plants contribute wastes which may figure in industrial pollution. There are milk plants and small poultry processing plants at Winfield. In Chautauqua and Elk Counties there is little industrial activity. CONSERVATION In recent years several measures have been implemented or proposed to conserve the water and land resources of the Arkansas River Basin. Droughts and floods have focused public attention on such conservation. Less spectacular, but nevertheless important, problems confronting conservationists include streambank erosion, channel deterioration, silting, recreational demands for water, and irrigation needs. Congress has authorized the U. S. Corps of Engineers (by the Flood Control Act of 1941) to construct six dam and reservoir projects in the Verdigris watershed. Two of these--Hulah Reservoir in Osage County, Oklahoma, on Big Caney River, and Fall River Reservoir in Greenwood County, Kansas--have been completed. Other reservoirs authorized in the Verdigris watershed include Toronto, Neodesha, and Elk City (Table Mound) in Kansas and Oologah in Oklahoma. Construction is underway on the Toronto Reservoir and some planning has been accomplished on the Neodesha and Elk City projects. The possibilities of irrigation projects in the Verdigris and Walnut River basins are under investigation by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Foley, _et al._, 1955:F18). An area of 11 square miles in Chautauqua and Montgomery Counties is included in the Aiken Creek "Pilot Watershed Project," a co-operative effort by federal, state, and local agencies to obtain information as to the effects of an integrated watershed protection program (Foley, _et al._, 1955:131). PREVIOUS ICHTHYOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS Few accounts of fishes in the area here reported on have been published. Evermann and Fordice (1886:184) made a collection from Timber Creek at Winfield in 1884. The State Biological Survey collected actively from 1910 to 1912, but localities visited in the Arkansas River System were limited to the Neosho and Verdigris River basins (Breukelman, 1940:377). The only collection made in the area considered here was on the Elk River in Elk County on July 11, 1912. The total species list of this collection is not known. In the years 1924-1929 Minna E. Jewell collected at various places in central Kansas. On June 30, 1925, Jewell and Frank Jobes made collections on Timber Creek and Silver Creek in Cowley County. Hoyle (1936:285) mentions collections made by himself and Dr. Charles E. Burt, who was then Professor of Biology at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas. Records in the Department of Biology, Kansas State Teachers College at Emporia, indicate that Dr. Burt and others made collections in the area which have not been published on. TABLE 4.--COLLECTIONS MADE BY DR. FRANK B. CROSS OF THE STATE BIOLOGICAL SURVEY IN 1955. ==================================================================== Collection number | Date | River | Location ------------------+---------------+-----------+--------------------- C-131 | April 5, 1955 | Elk | Sec. 3, T31S, R11E ------------------+---------------+-----------+--------------------- C-132 | April 5, 1955 | Sycamore | Sec. 5, T34S, R10E ------------------+---------------+-----------+--------------------- C-133 | April 5, 1955 | Big Caney | Sec. 12, T34S, R8E ------------------+---------------+-----------+--------------------- C-136 | April 6, 1955 | Walnut | Sec. 29 or 32, T32S, | | | R4E -------------------------------------------------------------------- Claire Schelske (1957) studied fishes of the Fall and Verdigris Rivers in Wilson and Montgomery counties from March, 1954, to February, 1955. In the annotated list of species that follows, records other than mine are designated by the following symbols: E&F--Evermann and Fordice SBS--State Biological Survey (1910-1912) J&J--Jewell and Jobes (collection on Silver Creek) C--Collection number--Cross (State Biological Survey, 1955) UMMZ--University of Michigan Museum of Zoology OAM--Oklahoma A&M College Museum of Zoology ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Professor Frank B. Cross for his interest in my investigation, for his counsel, and for his penetrating criticism of this paper. This study would have been impossible without the assistance of several persons who helped in the field. Mr. Artie C. Metcalf and Mr. Delbert Metcalf deserve special thanks for their enthusiastic and untiring co-operation in collecting and preserving of specimens. Mrs. Artie C. Metcalf, Miss Patricia Metcalf, Mr. Chester Metcalf, and Mr. Forrest W. Metcalf gave help which is much appreciated. I am indebted to the following persons for numerous valuable suggestions: Dr. John Breukelman, Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia, Kansas; Dr. George Moore, Oklahoma A&M College, and Mr. W. L. Minckley, Lawrence, Kansas. MATERIALS AND METHODS Collections were made by means of: (1) a four-foot net of nylon screen; (2) a 10�4-foot "common-sense" woven seine with 1/4-inch mesh; (3) a 15�4-foot knotted mesh seine; (4) a 20�5-foot 1/4-inch mesh seine; (5) pole and line (natural and artificial baits). At most stations the four-foot, ten-foot, and twenty-foot seines were used; however, the equipment that was used varied according to the size of pool, number of obstructions, nature of bottom, amount of flow, and type of streambank. Usually several hours were spent at each station and several stations were revisited from time to time. Percentages noted in the List of Species represent the relative number taken in the first five seine-hauls at each station. COLLECTING STATIONS Collecting was done at stations listed below and shown in Fig. 2. Each station was assigned a letter, designating the stream system on which the station was located, and a number which indicates the position of the station on the stream. This number increases progressively upstream from mouth to source. Code letters used are as follows: A--Arkansas River; W--Walnut River System; B--Beaver Creek System; C--Big Caney River System; G--Grouse Creek System; M--Middle Caney Creek System; E--Elk River System. All dates are in the year 1956. [Illustration: FIG. 2. Map of Cowley, Chautauqua and Elk counties, Kansas, showing stations at which collecting was done.] A-1. Arkansas River. Sec. 2 and 3, T. 35 S, R. 4 E. June 14 and August 20. Braided channel with sand bottom. Water slightly turbid, with layer of oil sludge on bottom. A-2. Arkansas River. Sec. 22, T. 34 S, R. 3 E. August 25. Flowing through diverse channels. Average depth 12 inches. Bottom sand. (Plate 9, fig. 1.) A-3. Arkansas River. Sec. 21, T. 33 S, R. 3 E. August 27 and December 22. Flowing over fine sand. Average depth 11 inches. Some areas of backwater with oil sludge on bottom. W-1. Walnut River. Sec. 20, T. 34 S, R. 4 E. July 7. Flowing rapidly, with large volume, because of recent rains. Average width 300 feet. Bottom gravel. Water turbid. W-2. Walnut River. Sec. 11, T. 34 S, R. 4 E. July 20. Rubble riffles and large shallow pools with gravel bottoms. Average width, 100 feet. Water clear. W-3. Walnut River. Sec. 29, T. 32 S, R. 4 E. July 17. Pools and riffles below Tunnel Mill Dam at Winfield. Water clear. W-4. Badger Creek. Sec. 6, T. 33 S, R. 5 E. July 17. Small pools. Average width 7 feet, average length 40 feet, average depth 8 inches. Water turbid and malodorous. Bottoms and banks mud. Much detritus present. W-5. Timber Creek. Sec. 35, T. 31 S, R. 4 E. June 6. Intermittent pools, widely separated. Average width 9 feet, average depth 8 inches. Bottom mud and gravel. B-1. Big Beaver Creek. Sec. 8, T. 35 S, R. 7 E. May 28. Isolated pools. Average width 10 feet, average depth one foot. Water turbid. Bottom rubble. B-2. Little Beaver Creek. Sec. 18, T. 35 S, R. 6 E. July 21. Intermittent pools. Average width 10 feet, average length 35 feet, average depth 10 inches. Bottoms rubble, mud, and bedrock. B-3. Big Beaver Creek. Sec. 28, T. 34 S, R. 7 E. July 22. Series of small turbid pools. G-1. Grouse Creek. Sec. 5, T. 35 S, R. 5 E. May 30, September 5, and September 24. Intermittent pools in close succession. Average width 22 feet, average depth 16 inches. Water turbid on May 30 but clear in September. Bottom rubble. Steep banks. Little shade for pools. G-2. Grouse Creek. Sec. 23, T. 34 S, R. 5 E. August 29. Series of shallow intermittent pools. Average width 42 feet, average length 120 feet, average depth 15 inches. Bottom bedrock and mud. (Plate 9, fig. 2.) G-3. Grouse Creek. Sec. 6, T. 34 S, R. 6 E. July 12. Intermittent pools. Average width 20 feet, average length 65 feet, average depth 14 inches. Bottom bedrock and gravel. _Justicia americana_ L. abundant. G-4. Grouse Creek. Sec. 12, T. 33 S, R. 6 E. June 1 and September 7. Intermittent pools. Average width 15 feet, average length 100 feet, average depth 18 inches. Water turbid in June, clear in September. _Najas guadalupensis_ Spreng., and _Myriophyllum heterophyllum_ Michx. common. G-5. Grouse Creek. Sec. 19, T. 32 S, R. 7 E. July 2. Succession of riffles and pools. Water clear. Volume of flow approximately one cubic foot per second, but creek bankful after heavy rains on June 22. Average width 20 feet, average depth 18 inches. G-6. Grouse Creek. Sec. 32, T. 31 S, R. 7 E. July 8. Small intermittent pools to which cattle had access. Water turbid, bottom mud and rubble. Average width 10 feet, average depth 8 inches. Stream-bed covered with tangled growths of _Sorghum halepense_ (L.). G-7. Grouse Creek. Sec. 34, T. 30 S, R. 7 E. July 8. Stream flowing slightly. Water clear. Average width of pools 30 feet; average depth 20 inches. Bottom bedrock and gravel. _Myriophyllum heterophyllum_ Michx., _Nelumbo lutea_ (Willd.), and _Justicia americana_ L. common in shallow water. G-8. Silver Creek. Sec. 1, T. 33 S, R. 5 E. July 17. Intermittent pools. Average width 30 feet, average length 120 feet, average depth 12 inches. Water clear. G-9. Silver Creek. Sec. 4, T. 32 S, R. 6 E. July 17. Small upland brook with volume less than one-half cfs. Average width 12 feet, average depth 10 inches. Water clear, bottom mostly rubble. G-10. Crab Creek. Sec. 33, T. 33 S, R. 6 E. June 24. Intermittent pools, showing evidence of having flowed after rains on June 22. Average width 15 feet, average depth 16 inches. G-11. Crab Creek. Sec. 35, T. 33 S, R. 6 E. July 16. Small intermittent pools. Average width 13 feet, average length 55 feet, average depth 11 inches. Water clear. Bottom rubble and mud. G-12. Crab Creek. Sec. 28, T. 33 S, R. 7 E. June 2 and July 20. Isolated pools. Average width 18 feet, average depth one foot. Water turbid. Bottom bedrock and rubble. _Myriophyllum heterophyllum_ and _Justicia americana_ abundant. G-13. Crab Creek. Sec. 21, T. 33 S, R. 7 E. July 29. Isolated pools 300 feet by 24 feet. Average depth 12 inches. Water turbid. G-14. Unnamed creek (hereafter called Grand Summit Creek). Sec. 26, T. 31 S, R. 7 E. August 30. Intermittent pools. Average width 15 feet, average length 45 feet, average depth 11 inches. Water clear. Bottom rubble. [Illustration: PLATE 9 1. Station A-2. Arkansas River. (Cowley County, Section 22, T. 34 S, R. 3 E.) 2. Station G-2. Grouse Creek. (Cowley County, Section 23, T. 34 S, R. 5 E.)] [Illustration: PLATE 10 1. Station C-12. Cedar Creek. (Cowley County, Section 17, T. 34 S, R. 8 E.) 2. Station C-16. Spring Creek. (Elk County, Section 26, T. 31 S, R. 8 E.) Volume of flow of this small creek is indicated by riffle in foreground.] G-15. Unnamed creek (same as above). Sec. 17, T. 31 S, R. 8 E. July 27. Small upland creek bordered by bluestem pastures. Pools with average width of 10 feet, average length 30 feet, average depth 9 inches. Water slightly turbid. Bottom rubble and mud. G-16. Crab Creek. Sec. 22, T. 33 S, R. 7 E. July 25. Small isolated pools. Average width 17 feet, average length 58 feet, average depth 9 inches. Water turbid. G-17. Crab Creek. Sec. 23, T. 33 S, R. 7 E. July 25. Upland brook bordered by bluestem pastures. Unshaded intermittent pools. Average width 7 feet, average length 40 feet, average depth 9 inches. Water turbid. C-1. Big Caney River. Sec. 16, T. 33 S, R. 10 E. July 19. Intermittent pools. Average width 47 feet, average length 90 feet, average depth 13 inches. Bottom rubble and bedrock. Water clear to slightly turbid. C-2. Big Caney River. Sec. 1, T. 35 S, R. 9 E. September 5. Series of intermittent pools. Bottom rubble and large stones. C-3. Big Caney River. Sec. 29, T. 34 S, R. 9 E. June 17. Large shallow pool below ledge 3 feet high forming "Osro Falls." Bottom bedrock. C-4. Big Caney River. Sec. 32, T. 34 S, R. 9 E. June 3. Three large pools (50 feet by 300 feet) with connecting riffles. Water turbid. Bottom bedrock and rubble. C-5. Big Caney River. Sec. 11 and 12, T. 34 S, R. 8 E. May 27, May 29, June 11, June 18, June 19, and June 27. From a low-water dam, 6 feet high, downstream for 1/4 mile. Pools alternating with rubble and bedrock riffles. Collecting was done at different times of day and night, and when stream was flowing and intermittent. C-6. Big Caney River. Sec. 26, T. 33 S, R. 8 E. June 16. Intermittent pools with bedrock bottom. Water slightly turbid. Average width 16 feet, average depth 10 inches. C-7. Otter Creek. Sec. 26, T. 33 S, R. 8 E. June 16. Pools and riffles. Water clear. Algae abundant. Average width 10 feet, average depth 10 inches. C-8. Big Caney River. Sec. 1, T. 33 S, R. 8 E. June 10. Intermittent pools. Average width 10 feet, average depth 14 inches. Water clear. Bottom rubble and gravel. Aquatic plants included _Chara_ sp., _Sagittaria latifolia_ Willd., _Jussiaea diffusa_ Forsk., and _Nelumbo lutea_ (Willd.). C-9. Big Caney River. Sec. 6 and 7, T. 32 S, R. 9 E. June 27. Clear, flowing stream, 20 feet wide, volume estimated at 5 cfs. Bottom gravel and rubble. Extensive gravel riffles. C-10. Big Caney River. Sec. 29 and 32, T. 31 S, R. 9 E. June 27. Water clear and flowing rapidly, volume estimated at 5-6 cfs. Bottom rubble with a few muddy backwater areas. C-11. Big Caney River. Sec. 7, T. 31 S, R. 9 E. July 26. Flowing, with less than 1 cfs. Average width 20 feet, average depth 22 inches. Water extremely clear. Bottom gravel and rubble. _Myriophyllum heterophyllum_, _Potamogeton foliosus_, and _Justicia americana_ common. C-12. Cedar Creek. Sec. 17, T. 34 S, R. 8 E. March 10, April 2, June 1, June 6, and August 24. Pools and riffles along 1/4 mile of stream were seined in the early collections. In August only small isolated pools remained. Bottom bedrock and rubble. Much detritus along streambanks. (Plate 10, fig. 1.) C-13. Otter Creek. Sec. 16, T. 33 S, R. 8 E. June 15. Flowing, less than 1 cfs. Pools interspersed with rubble riffles. Water clear. C-14. Otter Creek. Sec. 30, T. 32 S, R. 8 E. May 31, and September 3. Series of small pools. Average width 10 feet, average depth 15 inches. Shallow rubble riffles. Water extremely clear. Temperature 68° at 6:30 p.m. on May 31; 78° at 2:00 p.m. on September 3. C-15. Spring Creek. Sec. 35, T. 31 S, R. 8 E. June 28. Small, clear, upland brook with rubble bottom. Pools 10 feet in average width and 11 inches in average depth. Numerous shallow rubble riffles. C-16. Spring Creek. Sec. 26, T. 31 S, R. 8 E. July 9. Small intermittent pools. Average width 10 feet; average depth 8 inches. Bottom gravel. (Plate 10, fig. 2.) C-17. West Fork Big Caney River. Sec. 36, T. 30 S, R. 8 E. July 27. Small pool below low-water dam. Pool 20 feet by 30 feet with average depth of 20 inches. C-18. East Fork Big Caney River. Sec. 31, T. 30 S, R. 9 E. July 27. Isolated pool 25 feet by 25 feet with an average depth of 15 inches. M-1. Middle Caney Creek. Sec. 23, T. 33 S, R. 10 E. July 4. Intermittent pools. Average width 45 feet, average depth 15 inches. Water stained brown. Oil fields nearby but no sludge or surface film of oil noted. Bottom rubble and bedrock. M-2. Pool Creek. Sec. 25, T. 33 S, R. 10 E. May 26. Pool 120 feet by 40 feet below limestone ledge approximately 12 feet high forming Butcher's Falls. Other smaller pools sampled. Water clear. Bottom bedrock and rubble. E-1. Elk River. Sec. 12, T. 31 S, R. 11 E. July 9. Four intermittent pools seined. Average width 32 feet, average depth 13 inches. Bottom bedrock, rubble, and mud. Water turbid. E-2. Elk River. Sec. 3, T. 31 S, R. 11 E. June 28. Intermittent pools below and above sandstone ledge approximately 6 feet high forming "falls" at Elk Falls. Average width 33 feet, average depth 15 inches. Bottom bedrock, rubble and mud. Water slightly turbid. E-3. Elk River. Sec. 21, T. 30 S, R. 11 E. June 28. Two small pools, 10 feet by 30 feet with average depth of 6 inches. Bottom bedrock. E-4. Elk River. Sec. 12, T. 30 S, R. 10 E. June 28. One long pool 500 feet by 50 feet with a variety of depths and bottom conditions ranging from mud to bedrock. Average depth 18 inches. Water turbid and pools unshaded. E-5. Elk River. Sec. 32, T. 29 S, R. 10 E. August 30. Intermittent pools. Average width 21 feet, average depth 20 inches. Bottom rubble. Water clear. E-6. Elk River. Sec. 23, T. 29 S, R. 9 E. August 30. Small isolated pools. River mostly dry. Bottom bedrock. Water slightly turbid with gray-green "bloom." E-7. Wildcat Creek. Sec. 11, T. 31 S, R. 10 E. Volume of flow less than one cfs. Average width 20 feet, average depth 18 inches. Domestic sewage pollution from town of Moline suspected. ANNOTATED LIST OF SPECIES #Lepisosteus osseus oxyurus# (Linnaeus): Stations A-1, W-2, W-3, G-2, G-3, G-4, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-5, C-8. Of 34 longnose gar taken, 27 were young-of-the-year. The latter were from shallow isolated pools (bedrock bottom at C-1, C-3, C-4; gravel bottom at C-6). At station W-1 in moderate flood conditions several young-of-the-year were found in the most sheltered water next to the banks. The longnose gar was found only in the lower parts of the streams surveyed (but were observed by me in smaller tributaries of these streams in years when the streams had a greater volume of flow). A preference for downstream habitat is suggested in several other surveys: Cross (1950:134, 1954a:307) on the South Fork of the Cottonwood and on Stillwater Creek; Cross and Moore (1952:401) on the Poteau and Fourche Maline rivers; Moore and Buck (1953:21) on the Chikaskia River. #Lepisosteus platostomus# Rafinesque: One shortnose gar (K. U. 3157) has been taken from the Arkansas River in Cowley County. This gar was taken by Mr. Richard Rinker on a bank line on April 10, 1955, at station A-3. #Dorosoma cepedianum# (Le Sueur): Stations W-3, G-4, C-4, C-5, M-1, E-1, E-4. In smaller streams such as the Elk and Caney rivers adult gizzard shad seemed scarce. They were more common in collections made in larger rivers (Walnut, Verdigris, and Neosho). In impoundments of this region shad often become extremely abundant. Schoonover (1954:173) found that shad comprised 97 per cent by number and 83 per cent by weight of fishes taken in a survey of Fall River Reservoir. #Carpiodes carpio carpio# (Rafinesque): Stations A-1, A-2, A-3, W-3, G-1, C-3. Hubbs and Lagler (1947:50) stated that the river carpsucker was "Mostly confined to large silty rivers." Of the stations listed above C-3 least fits this description being a large shallow pool about 1/3 acre in area having bedrock bottom and slightly turbid water. The other stations conform to conditions described by Hubbs and Lagler (_loc. cit._). #Carpiodes velifer# (Rafinesque): SBS. Three specimens of the highfin carpsucker (K. U. 177-179) were collected on July 11, 1912, from an unspecified location on Elk River in Elk County. #Ictiobus bubalus# (Rafinesque): Stations W-3, G-1, G-2, C-1, C-3, C-4, C-6, E-1, E-2, E-3. The smallmouth buffalo shared the downstream proclivities of the river carpsucker. In half of the collections (G-2, C-1, E-1, E-2, E-3) only large juveniles were taken; in the other half only young-of-the-year were found. In one pool at station C-1 hundreds of young buffalo and gar were observed. This large shallow pool was 100 � 150 feet, with an average depth of 8 inches. The bottom consisted of bedrock. Station C-6 was a small pool with bedrock bottom, eight feet in diameter, with an average depth of only 4 inches. Station E-3 was also a small isolated pool with bedrock bottom and an average depth of 6 inches. #Ictiobus niger# (Rafinesque): Station C-5. Only two specimens of the black buffalo were taken. An adult was caught on spinning tackle, with doughballs for bait. The second specimen was a juvenile taken by seining one mile below Station C-5 on September 22. #Ictiobus cyprinella# (Valenciennes): Station G-2. Two juvenal bigmouth buffalo were taken in a shallow pool, along with several juvenal smallmouth buffalo. #Moxostoma aureolum pisolabrum# Trautman and #Moxostoma carinatum# (Cope): SBS. Two specimens of _Moxostoma aureolum pisolabrum_ (K. U. 242-243) and one specimen of _Moxostoma carinatum_ (K. U. 223) were taken from an unspecified locality on Elk River in Elk County on July 11, 1912. There are no other records for any of these fish in the collection area. _M. aureolum pisolabrum_ has been taken in recent years in eastern Kansas (Trautman, 1951:3) and has been found as far west as the Chikaskia drainage in northern Oklahoma by Moore and Buck (1953:21). That occasional northern redhorse enter the larger rivers of the area here reported on seems probable. _M. carinatum_ has been reported only a few times from Kansas. The only recent records are from the Verdigris River (Schelske, 1957:39). Elkins (1954:28) took four specimens of _M. carinatum_ from cutoff pools on Salt Creek in Osage County, Oklahoma, in 1954. This recent record suggests that occurrences in southern Kansas are probable. #Moxostoma erythrurum# (Rafinesque): Stations G-5, G-7, G-10, G-12, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-8, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-15, E-1, E-2, E-4 (C-131, C-133, C-136). The golden redhorse was common in several of the streams surveyed, and utilized the upland parts of streams more extensively than any of the other catostomids occurring in the area. _M. erythrurum_ and _Ictiobus bubalus_ were taken together at only two stations. In no case was _I. bubalus_ taken from a tributary of Grouse Creek or of Big Caney River. In contrast _M. erythrurum_ reached its greatest concentrations in such habitat, although it was always a minor component of the total fish population. Stations C-5 and E-2 were the lowermost environments in which this redhorse was taken. The largest relative number of golden redhorse was found at station G-12 on Crab Creek where 7.5 per cent of the fishes taken were of this species. This station consisted of intermittent pools averaging one foot in depth. Bottoms were bedrock and rubble and the water was clear and shaded. The fish were consistently taken in the deeper, open part of the pool where aquatic vegetation, which covered most of the pool, was absent. Another station at which _M. erythrurum_ was abundant was C-12 on Cedar Creek. Here a long, narrow, clear pool was the habitat, with average depth of 17 inches, and bottom of bedrock. #Minytrema melanops# (Rafinesque): Stations G-10, C-4, C-12, E-1. Occurrences of the spotted sucker were scattered. At stations C-4 and G-10 single specimens were taken. At station E-1 (July 9) one specimen was taken at the mouth of a small tributary where water was turbid and quiet. This specimen (K. U. 3708) was the largest (9-3/8 inches total length) found, and possessed pits of lost tubercles. #Cyprinus carpio# Linnaeus: Stations A-1, W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4, G-3, G-4, G-6, G-8, C-3, C-5, E-4. Carp were taken most often in downstream habitat. No carp were taken above station C-5 on Big Caney River. The earliest date on which young were taken was July 7, when 46 specimens, approximately 1/2 inch in total length, were taken from the Walnut River at station W-1. The small carp showed a preference for small shallow pools; adults were found in deeper pools. #Hybopsis aestivalis tetranemus# (Gilbert): Station A-3. Only one specimen of the speckled chub was taken. The species has been recorded from nearby localities in the Arkansas River and its tributaries both in Kansas and Oklahoma. Its habitat seems to be shallow water over clean, fine sand, and it occurs in strong current in mid-channel in the Arkansas River. Suitable habitat does not occur in other parts of the area covered by this report. #Notropis blennius# (Girard): Stations A-1, A-2, A-3. The river shiner was taken only in the Arkansas River and in small numbers. In all instances _N. blennius_ was found over sandy bottom in flowing water. Females were gravid at station A-1 on June 14. To my knowledge there are no published records of this shiner from the Arkansas River Basin in Kansas. In Oklahoma this species prefers the large, sandy streams such as the Arkansas River. Cross and Moore (1952:403) found it in the Poteau River only near the mouth. #Notropis boops# Gilbert: Stations G-5, G-7, C-3, C-5, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-15, C-16, E-4, E-5, M-1, M-2. Widespread occurrence of the bigeye shiner in this area seems surprising. Except for this area it is known in Kansas only from the Spring River drainage in the southeastern corner of the state (Cross, 1954b:474). _N. boops_ chose habitats that seemed most nearly like Ozarkian terrain. The largest relative number of bigeye shiners was taken at C-11 in a clear stream described in the discussion of _Notropis rubellus_. At this station _N. boops_ comprised 14.11 per cent, and _N. boops_ and _N. rubellus_ together comprised 24.78 per cent of all fish taken. At station G-7 on Grouse Creek the percentage of _N. boops_ was 7.15. Here, as at station C-11, water was clear. At both stations _Myriophyllum heterophyllum_ was abundant and at G-7 _Nelumbo lutea_ was also common. At G-7 _N. boops_ seemed most abundant in the deeper water, but at C-11 most shiners were found in the shallower part of a large pool. Two other collections in which _N. boops_ were common were from Spring Creek. It is a small, clear Flint Hills brook running swiftly over clean gravel and rubble. It had, however, been intermittent or completely dry in its upper portion throughout the winter of 1955-'56 and until June 22, 1956. In collections at C-15 on June 28, _N. boops_ formed 6.5 per cent of the fish taken. Farther upstream, at C-16 on July 9, in an area one mile from the nearest pool of water that existed prior to the rains of June 22, _N. boops_ made up 7.2 per cent of the fish taken. In streams heading in the hilly area of western Elk County, the relative abundance of _Notropis boops_ decreased progressively downstream. On upper Elk River percentages were lower than on upper Grouse Creek and upper Big Caney River. Hubbs and Lagler (1947:66) characterize the habitat of this species as clear creeks of limestone uplands. There are numerous records of the bigeye shiner from extreme eastern Oklahoma. It has been reported as far west as Beaver Creek in Osage County, Oklahoma. Beaver Creek originates in Cowley County, Kansas, near the origin of Cedar Creek and Crab Creek. Drought had left a few pools of water in Beaver Creek in Kansas at the time of my survey. The fish-fauna seemed sparse and _N. boops_ was not among the species taken. Of interest in considering the somewhat isolated occurrence of the bigeye shiner in the Flint Hills area of Kansas is a record of it by Ortenburger and Hubbs (1926:126) from Panther Creek, Comanche County, Oklahoma, in the Wichita Mountain area of that state. #Notropis buchanani# Meek: Stations G-1, E-4 (C-131). At station G-1 the ghost shiner was taken in small numbers in the shallow end of a long pool (150 � 40 feet.) The three individuals taken at station E-4 were in an isolated pool (50 � 510 feet) averaging 1-1/2 feet in depth. Water was turbid, and warm due to lack of shade. The habitat preferences of this species and of the related species _N. volucellus_ have been described as follows by Hubbs and Ortenburger (1929b:68): "It seems probable that _volucellus_ when occurring in the range of _buchanani_ occupies upland streams, whereas _buchanani_ is chiefly a form of the large rivers and adjacent creek mouths." The results of this survey and impressions gained from other collections, some of which are unpublished, are in agreement with this view. A collection on the Verdigris River at Independence, Kansas, directly downstream from the mouth of the Elk River, showed _N. buchanani_ to be common while _N. volucellus_ was not taken. At station E-5 upstream from E-4, however, _N. volucellus_ was taken but _N. buchanani_ was not found. In the upper Neosho basin, Cross (1954a:310) took _N. volucellus_ but not _N. buchanani_. Other collections have shown _N. buchanani_ to be abundant in the lower Neosho River in Kansas. Moore and Paden (1950:85) observe that _N. buchanani_ was found only near the mouth of the Illinois River in Oklahoma and was sharply segregated ecologically from _N. volucellus_ that occupied a niche in the clear main channels in contrast to the more sluggish waters inhabited by _N. buchanani_. #Notropis camurus# (Jordan and Meek): Stations C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, E-1, E-5 (C-131). Highest concentrations of the bluntface shiner were found close to the mouths of two tributaries of Big Caney River: Rock Creek and Otter Creek. On Rock Creek (Station C-4) this shiner was abundant in a shallow pool below a riffle where water was flowing rapidly. Many large males in breeding condition were taken (June 3). The species formed 20.2 per cent of the fish taken. On Otter Creek (Station C-13) the species was common in shallow bedrock pools below riffles. It formed 12.1 per cent of the fish taken. At station C-5, _N. camurus_ was characteristically found in an area of shallow pools and riffles. At station C-10 it was found in clear flowing water over rubble bottom and in small coves over mud bottom. At C-11 (July 26) _N. camurus_ was taken only in one small pool with rapidly flowing water below a riffle. In this pool _N. camurus_ was the dominant fish. At station C-12, on April 2, _N. camurus_ was abundant in the stream, which was then clear and flowing. On August 24, it was not taken from the same pool, which was then turbid and drying. The frequent occurrence of this species in clear, flowing water seems significant. Cross (1954a:309) notes that the bluntface shiner prefers moderately fast, clear water. Hall (1952:57) found _N. camurus_ only in upland tributaries east of Grand River and not in lowland tributaries west of the river. Moore and Buck (1953:22) took this species in the Chikaskia River, which was at that time a clear, flowing stream. They noted that in Oklahoma it seems to be found only in relatively clear water. _N. camurus_ did not seem to ascend the smaller tributaries of Big Caney River as did _N. rubellus_ and _N. boops_ even when these tributaries were flowing. #Notropis deliciosus missuriensis# (Cope): Stations A-1, A-2, A-3, W-1, W-2, W-3 (C-136). Sand shiners seemed to be abundant in the Arkansas River, rare in the Walnut River and absent from other streams surveyed. This shiner was most abundant in shallow, flowing water in the Arkansas River; in backwaters, where _Gambusia affinis_ prevailed, _N. deliciosus_ formed only a small percentage of the fish population. #Notropis girardi# Hubbs and Ortenburger: Stations A-2 and A-3. At station A-2 the Arkansas River shiner made up 14.6 per cent of all fish taken. At A-2, it was found only in rapidly-flowing water over clean sand in the main channels. It was absent from the shallow, slowly-flowing water where _N. deliciosus missuriensis_ was abundant. At A-3 _N. girardi_ made up 22 per cent of the total catch, and again preferred the deeper, faster water over clean-swept sand. Failure to find _N. girardi_ at station A-1 is not understood. Females were gravid in both collections (August 25 and 27). In neither collection were young-of-the-year taken. Moore (1944:210) has suggested that _N. girardi_ requires periods of high water and turbidity to spawn. Additional collecting was done at station A-3 on December 22, 1957. A few adults were taken in flowing water but no young were found. In this area, _N. girardi_ showed no tendency to ascend tributaries of the Arkansas River. Not far to the west, however, this pattern changes as shown by Hubbs and Ortenburger (1929a:32) who took this fish at seven of ten stations on the Cimarron, Canadian, and Salt Fork of the Arkansas. _N. girardi_ was taken only in the lowermost stations on both Stillwater Creek (Cross, 1950:136) and the Chikaskia River (Moore and Buck, 1953:22). In the next major stream west of the Chikaskia, the Medicine River, _N. girardi_ seems to occur farther upstream than in the Chikaskia. (Collection C-5-51 by Dr. A. B. Leonard and Dr. Frank B. Cross on Elm Creek near Medicine Lodge on July 20, 1951.) #Notropis lutrensis# (Baird and Girard): Stations A-1, A-2, W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4, G-1, G-2, G-4, G-5, G-8, G-9, G-10, G-11, G-12, G-13, G-14, G-15, G-16, B-1, B-2, B-3, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, M-1, E-1, E-2, E-4, E-7 (E&F, C-131, C-133, C-136). The red shiner was taken in every stream surveyed. The relative abundance seemed to be greatest in two types of habitat which were separated geographically. The first habitat was in large rivers such as the Arkansas and Walnut. In the Arkansas River the red shiner consistently made up 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the catch. On the Walnut River percentages ranged from 10 per cent (station W-3) to 45 per cent (station W-2). The second habitat in which numbers of _N. lutrensis_ reached high proportions was in the upper parts of the most intermittent tributaries. At the uppermost station in Silver Creek this species formed 30 per cent of the fish taken. In Crab Creek the following percentages were taken in six collections from mouth to source: 20.6%, 26.1%, 25%, 85%, 14.6%, and 1%. In the mainstream of Grouse Creek the highest percentage taken was 19.27 near the mouth at station G-1. In middle sections of Grouse Creek this species was either absent or made up less than 2 per cent of the fish taken. At no station on Big Caney River was the red shiner abundant. The smallest relative numbers were found at upstream stations, in contrast to collections made on tributaries of Grouse Creek. This distributional pattern possibly may be explained by the severe conditions under which fish have been forced to live in the upper tributaries of Grouse Creek. Water was more turbid, and pools were smaller than in Big Caney. These factors possibly decimate numbers of the less hardy species permitting expansion by more adaptable species, among which seems to be _N. lutrensis_. In the upper tributaries of Big Caney River conditions have not been so severe due to greater flow from springs and less cultivation of the watershed in most places. Under such conditions _N. lutrensis_ seems to remain a minor faunal constituent. #Notropis percobromus# (Cope): Stations A-1, A-2, W-1, W-2, W-3, G-1. At station W-1 the plains shiner constituted 20 per cent of the fish taken. The river was flowing rapidly with large volume at the time of this collection, and all specimens were taken near the bank in comparatively quiet water over gravel bottom. At station W-3, below Tunnel Mill Dam at Winfield, _N. percobromus_ comprised 18.7 per cent of the fish taken, second only to _Lepomis humilis_ in relative abundance. Immediately below the west end of the dam, plains shiners were so concentrated that fifty or more were taken in one haul of a four-foot nylon net. The amount of water overflowing the dam at this point was slight. Water was shallow (8-12 inches) and the bottom consisted of the pitted apron or of fine gravel. At the east end of the dam where water was deeper (1-3 feet) and the flow over the dam greater, large numbers of _Lepomis humilis_ were taken while _N. percobromus_ was rare. In the Arkansas River smaller relative numbers of this shiner were obtained. At station A-2, it formed 4.68 per cent of the total. At this station _N. percobromus_ was taken with _N. lutrensis_ in water about 18 inches deep next to a bank where the current was sluggish and tangled roots and detritus offered some shelter. At station G-1 on Grouse Creek the plains shiner made up 7.68 per cent of the fish taken. The habitat consisted of intermittent pools with rubble bottoms at this station, which was four miles upstream from the mouth of the creek. The plains shiner seems rarely to ascend the upland streams of the area. #Notropis rubellus# (Agassiz): Stations C-3, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14 (J&J). No fish in these collections showed a more persistent preference than _Notropis rubellus_ for clear, cool streams. All collections of the rosyface shiner were in the Big Caney River system, but at only four stations in this system was it common. At station C-11 the highest relative numbers (10.6 per cent) were obtained. This site possessed the most limpid water of any station on the mainstream of Big Caney. Aquatic plants (_Myriophyllum heterophyllum_ and _Potamogeton nodosus_) were common. Other fishes that flourished at this station were _N. boops_, _N. camurus_, _Campostoma anomalum_, and _Etheostoma spectabile_. The water temperature was 86° at surface and 80° at bottom whereas air temperature was 97°. _N. rubellus_ was common at all stations in Otter Creek, the clear, upland character of which has been discussed. In May and June only adults were found. On September 1, examination of several pools in upper Otter Creek revealed numerous young-of-the-year in small spring-fed pools. Literature is scarce concerning this shiner in Kansas. Cross (1954a:308) stated that it was abundant in the South Fork of the Cottonwood River and was one of those fishes primarily associated with the Ozarkian fauna, rather than with the fauna of the plains. Elliott (1947) found _N. rubellus_ in Spring Creek, a tributary of Fall River which seems similar to Otter Creek in physical features. Between the Fall River and Big Caney River systems is the Elk River, from which there is no record of the rosyface shiner. Perhaps its absence is related to the intermittent condition of this stream at present. The Elk River is poor in spring-fed tributaries, which seem to be favorite environs of the rosyface shiner. _N. rubellus_ was taken by Minna Jewell and Frank Jobes in Silver Creek on June 30, 1925 (UMMZ 67818). The shiner was not found in any stream west of the Big Caney system in my collections. In Oklahoma, Hall (1952:57) found _N. rubellus_ in upland tributaries on the east side of Grand River and not in the lowland tributaries on the west side. Martin and Campbell (1953:51) characterize _N. rubellus_ as preferring riffle channels in moderate to fast current in the Black River, Missouri. It is the only species so characterized by them which was taken in my collections. Moore and Paden (1950:84) state "_Notropis rubellus_ is one of the most abundant fishes of the Illinois River, being found in all habitats but showing a distinct preference for fast water...." #Notropis topeka# (Gilbert): Two specimens (formerly Indiana University 4605) of the Topeka shiner labeled "Winfield, Kansas" are now at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Collector and other data are not given. Evermann and Fordice (1886:185) noted that two specimens of _N. topeka_ were taken from Sand Creek near Newton in Harvey County, but do not list it from Cowley County near Winfield. They deposited their fish in the museum of Indiana University. #Notropis umbratilis# (Girard): Stations G-1, G-3, G-4, G-7, G-8, G-9, G-12, G-14, B-2, B-3, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, C-15, C-16, E-1, E-2, E-4, E-5, M-1, M-2 (J&J, C-131, C-132). The redfin shiner flourished in all the streams surveyed except the Arkansas and Walnut Rivers. _N. umbratilis_ has been found in upland tributaries of the Walnut River, some of which originate in terrain similar to that in which Elk River, Big Caney River, and Grouse Creek originate. (Collection C-26-51 by Cross on Durechon Creek, October 7, 1951.) This suggests downstream reduction in relative numbers of this species, a tendency which also seemed to exist on both Big Caney River and Grouse Creek. _N. umbratilis_ was the most abundant species in Big Caney River except at the lowermost stations where it was surpassed in relative abundance by _N. lutrensis_ and _Gambusia affinis_. _N. umbratilis_ was a pool-dweller, becoming more concentrated in the deeper pools as summer advanced. In May and early June, large concentrations of adult _N. umbratilis_ were common in the shallow ends of pools together with _N. rubellus_, _N. boops_, _Pimephales notatus_, and _Pimephales tenellus_. By July and August, only young of the year were taken in shallow water, and adults were scarcely in evidence. #Notropis volucellus# (Cope): Stations G-5, G-8, C-3, C-5, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, M-1, E-4, E-5. The mimic shiner was a minor element in the fauna, 2.02 per cent at station C-5 being the largest percentage taken. In the Big Caney River system _N. volucellus_ was taken only in the main stream. In the Grouse Creek drainage it was found at two stations in the upper part of the watershed, where water is clearer, gradient greater, and pools well-shaded and cool. In the Elk River the mimic shiner was taken only in the upper part of the main stream. The dominant shiner in situations where _N. volucellus_ was taken was, in all cases, _N. umbratilis_. Elliott (1947) found _N. volucellus_ in Spring Creek, a tributary of Fall River. Farther north in the Flint Hills region, _N. volucellus_ was reported by Cross (1954a:310). #Notemigonus crysoleucas# (Mitchell): Station W-5. This isolated record for the golden shiner consisted of nine specimens collected on June 6 in Timber Creek, a tributary of the Walnut River. Most of the creek was dry. _N. crysoleucas_ was taken in one pool with dimensions of 8 feet by 4 feet with an average depth of 4 inches. This creek is sluggish and silt-laden, even under conditions of favorable precipitation. Hubbs and Ortenburger (1929b:89) observed that the golden shiner prefers sluggish water. Hall (1952:58) took the golden shiner only in the lowland tributaries west of Grand River and not east of the river in upland tributaries. #Phenacobius mirabilis# Girard: Stations W-3, C-3. In no case was the suckermouth minnow common; it never comprised more than 1 per cent of the fish population. #Pimephales notatus# (Rafinesque): Stations W-4, G-5, G-7, G-9, G-12, G-13, B-3, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, C-15, C-16, C-17, C-18, M-1, M-2, E-1, E-2, E-4, E-5, E-7 (J&J, C-131, C-132, C-133). This was much the most abundant of the four species of _Pimephales_ in this area. It was taken at 33 stations as compared with 10 for _P. tenellus_, 8 for _P. promelas_, and 3 for _P. vigilax_. The bluntnose minnow was taken almost everywhere except in the main stream of the Arkansas and Walnut rivers and in lower Grouse Creek. _P. notatus_ seemed to prefer clearer streams of the Flint Hills part of my area. There was a marked increase in percentages taken in the upland tributaries of both Caney River and Grouse Creek. In the Elk River, too, higher concentrations were found upstream. The highest relative numbers of bluntnose minnows were taken at station G-12 on Crab Creek, station C-12 on Cedar Creek and station C-16 on Spring Creek. At G-12, this minnow was abundant in the deeper isolated pools. Males in breeding condition were taken on June 9. In Cedar Creek the population of bluntnose minnows was observed periodically in one pool in which they were dominant. This pool was 100 feet by 50 feet, shallow, and with bedrock bottom. At its upper end, however, there was a small area of heavily-shaded deeper water. Throughout the spring bluntnose minnows were found in large schools in the shallow area. As the summer progressed they were no longer there, but seining revealed their presence in the deeper, upper end. At station C-16 on Spring Creek on July 9 male _P. notatus_ were taken in extreme breeding condition, being light brick-red in color and with large tubercles. #Pimephales tenellus# (Girard): Stations G-1, C-2, C-3, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, M-1, E-2, E-4 (C-131 C-133). The mountain minnow was never taken far from the mainstream of Big Caney, Middle Caney, or Elk River. In this respect it differed from _P. notatus_, which reached large concentrations in the small upland tributaries. On the other hand, _P. tenellus_ was not so abundant as _P. vigilax_ in the silty larger streams. In no collection was the mountain minnow common. The highest percentages were 2.4 per cent (Station C-5), and 2.1 per cent (Station C-7) on Big Caney River. These stations consisted of clear, flowing water over rubble bottoms. Males at C-7 (June 16) were in breeding condition. Moore and Buck (1953:23) reported finding this species among rocks in very fast water rather than in the quiet backwaters frequented by _P. vigilax_. Other records of the mountain minnow from the Flint Hills indicate that it seeks areas of maximum gradient and flow; in this distributional respect it is like _Notropis camurus_. The two species are recorded together from other streams in this region such as the Chikaskia (Moore and Buck, 1953:23), Cottonwood (Cross, 1954a:310), and Spring Creek, tributary of Fall River (Elliott, 1947). It is conceivable that a preference for flowing water might explain its restriction to the medium-sized, less intermittent streams in this area. The only tributary which the species seemed to ascend to any extent was Otter Creek, which is seldom intermittent downstream. #Pimephales vigilax perspicuus# (Girard): Stations A-3, C-1, C-4. The parrot minnow was found only in downstream habitats. Collection C-4 (June 3) on Rock Creek was made about 1/2 mile from the mouth of this tributary of Big Caney and the creek here had almost the same character as the river proper. The presence of other channel fishes such as _Ictiobus bubalus_ indicates the downstream nature of the creek. Some males of _P. vigilax_ in breeding condition were taken in this collection. At C-1, only one specimen was found in a turbid, isolated pool with bedrock bottom. At A-1 only one parrot minnow was taken; it was in deep, fairly quiet water near the bank. Other collections outside the three-county area revealed the following: In the Neosho River, several parrot minnows were found in quiet backwaters and in shallow pools. In the Verdigris River three were taken directly under water spilling over the dam at this station, while others were found, together with _P. promelas_, in the mouth of a small creek that provided a backwater habitat with mud bottom. Cross and Moore (1952:405) found this species only at stations in the lower portion of the Poteau River. Farther west the minnow may ascend the smaller sandy streams to greater distances. Moore and Buck (1953:23) took parrot minnows at six of 15 stations on the Chikaskia River and found the species as far upstream as Drury, Kansas. Elliott (1947), in comparing the South Ninnescah and Spring Creek fish faunas, found only _P. vigilax_ and _P. promelas_ on the sandy, "flatter" Ninnescah and only _P. notatus_ and _P. tenellus_ on Spring Creek, an upland, Flint Hills stream in Greenwood County. #Pimephales promelas# Rafinesque: Stations A-2, A-3, W-3, W-4, G-9, B-1, M-1, E-4 (E&F, C-136). Occurrences of the fathead minnow were scattered, but included all streams sampled except Big Caney. Three of the collections were in small intermittent streams where conditions were generally unfavorable for fishes and in one instance extremely foul. Two of these stations had turbid water and all suffered from siltation. In Middle Caney Creek the species was rare but in the Elk River (June 28) more than 100 specimens, predominantly young, were taken. This station consisted of a large isolated pool with a variety of bottom types. Water was turbid and the surface temperature was high (93° F.). In different parts of the pool the following numbers of specimens were taken in single seine-hauls: 15 over shallow bedrock; 35 over gravel (1-1/2 feet deep); 50 over mud bottom (1 foot deep). _P. promelas_ was found also in the large, flowing rivers: Arkansas, Walnut, Verdigris, and Neosho. The species was scarce in the Arkansas River, and was found principally in muddy coves. In the Walnut (W-3), this minnow comprised 7.65 per cent of the fish taken and was common in quiet pools. #Campostoma anomalum# Rafinesque: Stations W-4, G-4, C-1, C-3, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, C-15, C-16, C-17, C-18, B-3 (E&F, C-131, C-136). Although the stoneroller was found in most streams surveyed, it was taken most often in the Big Caney system, where it occurred at 16 of the 18 stations. In contrast, it was represented at only one of 17 stations on Grouse Creek. High percentages were found in three creeks--Cedar, Otter, and Spring. As noted above, these streams are normally clear, swift and have steep gradients and many rubble and gravel riffles. On these riffles young stonerollers abounded. Station C-16 on Spring Creek typifies the habitat in which this species was most abundant. The stream has an average width of 10 feet and depth of a few inches. The volume of flow was less than 1 cubic foot per second but turbulence was great. Water was clear and the bottom was gravel and rubble. Following rains in June, stonerollers quickly occupied parts of Spring Creek (upstream from C-16) that had been dry throughout the previous winter. On April 2 many _C. anomalum_ and _Etheostoma spectabile_ were taken in shallow pools and riffles in an extensive bedrock-riffle area on Cedar Creek near station C-12. Most of the females were gravid and the males were in breeding condition. On June 6 these pools were revisited. Flow had ceased and the pools were drying up. Young-of-the-year of the two species were abundant, but only a few mature stonerollers were taken. On August 24, prolonged drought had drastically altered the stream and all areas from which stonerollers and darters had been taken were dry. Seining of other pools which were almost dry revealed no stonerollers. Collections on May 31, June 15, and June 16 in Otter Creek revealed large numbers of stonerollers. They were found in riffle areas, in aquatic vegetation, and especially in detritus alongside banks. Most of the specimens were young-of-the-year. #Anguilla bostoniensis# (Le Sueur): An American eel was caught by me in Grouse Creek in 1949. #Gambusia affinis# (Baird and Girard): Stations A-1, A-2, A-3, W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4, W-5, G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-5, G-7, G-8, G-9, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-6, C-15, E-1. Mosquitofish occurred widely but in varied abundance. Huge populations were in the shallow sandy backwaters and cut-off pools of the Arkansas River. In the shallow pools of several intermittent streams such as station G-8 on Silver Creek this fish also flourished. _G. affinis_ was taken at every station in the Arkansas, Walnut and Grouse systems except those stations on two upland tributaries of Grouse Creek (Crab Creek and Grand Summit Creek). The mosquitofish was not observed in the clear upland tributaries of Big Caney, nor on upper Big Caney River itself in May, June, and July. On September 3, however, _Gambusia_ were taken at station C-15 on Otter Creek and others were seen at station C-14 on the same date. Hubbs and Ortenburger (1929b:99) and Cross and Moore (1952:407) observed that _G. affinis_ usually was absent from small upland tributaries, even though it was abundant in lower parts of the same river systems. #Fundulus kansae# (Garman): Stations A-2, A-3, Evermann and Fordice as _Fundulus zebrinus_. At station A-2, seven plains killifish were taken together with a great many _Notropis deliciosus_ and _Gambusia affinis_ in a shallow, algae-covered channel with slight flow and sand bottom. At station A-3 many young killifish were taken in small shallow pools on December 22. _Fundulus kansae_ has been found in the lower part of the Walnut River Basin, especially where petroleum pollution was evident. Eastward from the Walnut River plains killifish have not been taken. #Fundulus notatus# (Rafinesque): Stations B-1, G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-5, G-7, G-8, G-10, G-11, G-14, C-1, M-1, E-1, Evermann and Fordice as _Zygonectes notatus_. The black-banded topminnow was not taken in the Arkansas River but was common in the Walnut and Grouse systems. It was common also in Middle Caney, but in Big Caney and Elk River it was taken only at the lowermost stations. This species did not seem to ascend far into smaller tributaries of Grouse Creek. In Crab Creek it was taken at the lower two of six stations and in Grand Summit Creek at the lower of two stations. The highest relative numbers were taken at stations G-3 (17.5 per cent), G-4 (24 per cent), G-10 (25.75 per cent) and G-11 (41.52 per cent), on Crab Creek and Grouse Creek. Both upstream and downstream from these stations, which were within five miles of each other, the relative abundance dropped off sharply. The bottoms at these stations were mostly rubble and mud, and water was turbid at three of the stations. At G-10 (June 24) and G-11 (July 16) young-of-the-year were abundant. #Ictalurus melas# (Girard): Stations W-2, W-3, W-4, W-5, B-1, B-2, B-3, G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-5, G-8, G-9, G-11, G-12, G-13, G-14, G-17, C-1, C-9, C-11, C-12, C-14, C-15, C-17, C-18, E-1, E-2, E-4, E-5, E-6, N-1, Evermann and Fordice as _Ameiurus melas_ (C-133). The black bullhead was taken at slightly more than half of the stations, and probably was present at others. Larger numbers were taken in Grouse Creek than in any other stream system. In many small, shallow pools in the Grouse Creek system young black bullheads shared dominance with _Gambusia affinis_ in the late summer. _I. melas_ was also abundant in isolated pools at the extreme upper ends of Crab Creek, Beaver Creek and Grand Summit Creek. _I. melas_ was most common in areas with silty bottoms. The species seemed scarce in the main stream of Big Caney River but was common in some of its tributaries. #Pylodictis olivaris# (Rafinesque): Stations A-3, G-1, C-5. Flathead catfish were taken by angling at stations A-3 and C-5. At station G-1 (September 5) a flathead catfish five inches long was taken in the four-foot nylon net. #Ictalurus punctatus# (Rafinesque): Stations A-3, W-2, W-3, G-2, C-5, E-4. Channel catfish from stations W-3, A-3, and C-5 were taken on hook and line. At station G-2 (August 29) twenty young-of-the-year were seined from the shallow narrow end of a large pool. All collections of both _I. punctatus_ and _P. olivaris_ were in the larger streams surveyed. #Ictalurus natalis# (LeSueur): Stations G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-8, G-11, C-12, C-14, C-15. The yellow bullhead was taken at only 9 stations, compared with 33 stations for the black bullhead. _I. natalis_ was represented in 7 of 17 stations in the Grouse Creek system but in only 3 of 18 stations in the Big Caney system. Of the seven records from Grouse Creek four were from the main stream. At every station where yellow bullheads were taken, black bullheads were found also and were abundant, usually several times more abundant than _I. natalis_. At G-11 on Crab Creek (July 16), _I. natalis_ made up 3.8 per cent of the fish taken. All were young-of-the-year, existing in a tiny, gravelly pool containing not more than five gallons of water, and were the only fish present. Young yellow bullheads were also found in small pools with gravel bottoms at station G-4 on September 7. #Labidesthes sicculus# (Cope): Stations G-1, G-2, G-3, G-7, G-10, B-2, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-12, E-1, E-2, E-3, E-7, M-1 (E&F, C-131). The brook silversides was taken, sometimes abundantly, in all stream systems except the Walnut and Arkansas. At station G-7 on July 8, 41.8 per cent of the fish taken were of this species. _L. sicculus_ was most abundant in large pools where the bottom was predominantly bedrock and gravel. The highest concentrations were in the mainstreams of Big Caney, Grouse, and Elk Rivers. Brook silversides were taken rarely in the smaller tributaries of these streams. #Percina phoxocephala# (Nelson): Stations C-2, C-3, C-5, G-1 (C-133). Slenderhead darters were scarce, and were found only over gravel bottoms. Specimens were taken from flowing and quiet water, and from both shallow and deep water. Larger numbers of _P. phoxocephala_ were taken by the writer in other collections made during 1956 on the Neosho and Verdigris Rivers over bottoms of rubble or gravel. Restriction of this darter to the larger streams follows a pattern observed by Cross (1954a:313) who noted it was absent from smaller riffles in minor tributaries. Elliott (1947), however, took one specimen of _P. phoxocephala_ in Spring Creek, a tributary of Fall River. #Percina caprodes carbonaria# (Baird and Girard): Stations G-3, G-4, G-7, G-12, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-9, C-12, C-13, C-14 (J&J, C-131, C-133). The logperch was generally distributed in the Caney, Elk, and Grouse systems. This species usually comprised less than 1 per cent of the fish taken; however, at station G-12 it formed 3.76 per cent of the total. In many instances the logperch was taken over submerged gravel bars, often along the edges of the larger pools. At 8 of 13 stations where the logperch was taken, the golden redhorse was also found. At every station where logperch were found, _Notropis umbratilis_ was taken and _Pimephales notatus_ also occurred at all but three of these stations. #Percina copelandi# (Jordan): Stations C-4, C-5, C-6, C-8, G-1 (C-131, C-133, J&J). Channel darters were collected over bottoms of rubble or gravel, both in flowing streams and in isolated pools. Although _P. copelandi_ was found only in Big Caney River and at the lowermost station on Grouse Creek (G-1) in this survey, this species has been taken previously from Elk River (K. U. 3463 and K. U. 3197) and from Silver Creek. _Notropis camurus_ occurred everywhere that _H. copelandi_ was found. In several instances the two species were taken in the same seine-haul. #Etheostoma spectabile pulchellum# (Girard): Stations W-4, G-1, G-4, G-5, C-6, C-9, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, C-15, C-16, C-17, C-18, E-1, E-5. Evermann and Fordice as _Etheostoma coeruleum_ (C-131, C-132). The habitat preferences of the orangethroat darter seemed similar to those of _Campostoma anomalum_. There were sixteen stations at which both species were taken, seven where only _E. spectabile pulchellum_ was taken and six where only _C. anomalum_ was taken. The largest relative numbers of both species were found in the same small, clear upland tributaries of Big Caney River. On May 31, collections from riffles at station C-15 (upper Otter Creek) consisted almost entirely of these two species. On September 1 at this station the stream was intermittent, but even the tiniest pools abounded with young darters and stonerollers. Gravid females and males in breeding condition were taken in riffles in Cedar Creek on April 2. During June numerous young and adult orangethroat darters were taken in Cedar Creek, in partly decayed leaves which lined the banks. On June 15 in Otter Creek young darters were abundant in streamside detritus and in clear, shallow, rubble riffles. At station C-11 a few darters were taken on rubble riffles; however, large numbers were found inhabiting thick mats of _Potamogeton foliosus_ Raf., which grew in shallow water. Many darters (_Etheostoma spectabile pulchellum_ and _Percina phoxocephala_) were taken in September along gravelly banks at stations C-2 and C-3 by disturbing small rocks and leaf-litter along the shores. Young orangethroat darters seemed to seek out sheltered areas and in some cases were found in sluggish, even foul, water (Stations W-4, B-1 and G-12). Moore and Buck (1953:26) note that the orangethroat darter is able to thrive in Oklahoma in rather sluggish and even intermittent waters which reach quite high summer temperatures. Unlike other darters taken in this survey, the orangethroat darter was common to abundant at several stations and was found at a great many more stations than any other darter. The comparatively great tolerance of this species to varying habitats, suggested by this survey, is also reflected by its widespread distribution in Kansas. #Micropterus salmoides salmoides# (Lacepede): Stations B-1, G-4, G-5, G-7, G-12, C-1, C-3, E-1, E-2, E-3. Most of the largemouth bass taken were young-of-the-year. In Big Caney River this species seemed rare, being found at only two downstream stations compared with eight stations at which _M. punctulatus_ was taken. Many ponds in the Flint Hills have been stocked with largemouth bass. At present largemouth bass are frequently caught by hook and line in Crab Creek (Station G-12); however, Mr. A. C. Metcalf, who has fished this stream for approximately 45 years, states that he took no bass in the creek prior to the building and stocking of large ponds on nearby ranches. #Micropterus punctulatus# (Rafinesque): Stations C-4, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-10, C-14, C-15, E-2, E-5 (C-133). The spotted bass was taken only in tributaries of the Verdigris River, where it seemed more numerous than the preceding species. It has been reported from other Verdigris tributaries such as Fall River (Elliott, 1947) and is common eastward from the Verdigris Basin. A spotted bass (K. U. 3467) was taken by Cross on the Little Walnut River in Butler County on April 5, 1955. This seems to be the only record of this species from the Walnut River Basin at the present time. #Pomoxis annularis# (Rafinesque): Stations W-3, W-5, G-1, G-2, G-5, G-10, G-11, G-12, C-1, C-2, C-4, C-5, C-6, M-1, E-1, E-2, E-4, E-5 (C-136). White crappie were found in almost all habitats and were taken in all rivers except the Arkansas. The relative abundance of this species was greater at downstream than at upstream stations on Grouse Creek, Big Caney, and Elk River. Schools of young crappie were frequently found and the factor of chance in taking or failing to take a school of crappie prevented confident appraisal of abundance. White crappie usually sought quiet waters. Often they were found in backwaters and many times schools were taken over bottoms where mud and detritus had been deposited. It was not uncommon to take _Pomoxis annularis_ and _Ictalurus melas_ in the same seine-haul in such areas. #Pomoxis nigromaculatus# (LeSueur): Station C-1. Black crappie were taken in Otter Creek on May 29 and September 3. Several ponds in eastern Cowley County are stocked with black crappie, but none was taken from streams into which these ponds drain. #Lepomis cyanellus# (Rafinesque): Stations W-3, W-4, W-5, B-1, B-2, B-3, G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-5, G-8, G-9, G-10, G-12, G-13, G-14, G-15, G-16, G-17, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-14, C-16, C-17, C-18, E-1, E-4, E-5, E-6, E-7, M-2 (C-131, C-132, C-133, C-136, E&F). The green sunfish was taken at 45 of 60 stations, which is the greatest number recorded for one species. The only stream from which it was not obtained was the Arkansas River. Green sunfish constituted a minor but consistent part of the fauna in Big Caney River except for some intermittent pools on small tributaries, where it was high in relative abundance. It usually comprised approximately 4 per cent of the fish taken at stations on Grouse Creek. In some intermittent tributaries of Grouse Creek and Elk River percentages also were high. Funk and Campbell (1953:74) observed that _L. cyanellus_ held a definite but minor place in all collections made on the Black River in Missouri. This pattern was also observed by the writer in collections made on the Neosho and Spring Rivers in southeastern Kansas. This seems to indicate that the Big Caney River populations (exclusive of the upstream stations in intermittent streams) follow a pattern commonly found in southeastern Kansas and probably in the Ozark region. #Lepomis humilis# (Girard): Stations A-3, W-2, W-3, W-4, W-5, G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, G-5, G-7, G-8, G-9, G-10, G-11, G-12, G-14, G-15, C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12, C-13, C-16, C-17, B-2, B-3, E-1, E-2, E-4, E-5, E-6, E-7, M-1. (C-131, C-132, C-133, C-136, J&J, E&F.) The orangespotted sunfish was found in every stream surveyed, although only one specimen was taken from the Arkansas River. The largest relative number of this species (44.6) was taken at station G-1. Percentages at other stations on Grouse Creek and its tributaries progressively declined in an upstream direction. In Big Caney River representation of _L. humilis_ in collections varied from 1.56 per cent at station C-1 to 23.47 per cent at station C-7. This sunfish was usually the dominant species in collections made from the Elk River, where the relative abundance ranged from 10 to 30 per cent. The orangespotted sunfish is widespread in Kansas and seems to be a diagnostic constituent of the Plains Fauna. Moore and Buck (1953:26) found it "very common" in the Chikaskia River in Kansas and Oklahoma. Cross (1950:140) noted that in Stillwater Creek it seemed to be the most tolerant and consequently the most abundant of the stream's cent rarchids. Moore and Paden (1950:91) note that _L. humilis_ is most common in muddy waters and found in overflow pools, backwaters, and oxbow lakes. This species is frequently found in farm ponds in the area surveyed, which further suggests a wide range of habitat tolerance. #Lepomis megalotis breviceps# (Baird and Girard): Stations W-3, W-4, W-5, B-1, B-2, G-1, G-4, G-5, G-7, G-8, G-9, G-10, G-11, G-12, G-13 (all Big Caney River stations except C-18), E-1, E-2, E-3, E-4, E-5, E-6, M-1, M-2 (C-131, C-132, C-133, J&J, E&F). In Big Caney River the longear sunfish shared dominance with the redfin shiner (_Notropis umbratilis_) at almost every station. The average of its relative abundance at all stations in the Big Caney system was 16.5 per cent. It was also abundant at several stations on Grouse Creek and made up 43.25 per cent of all fish taken at station G-4. Cross (1950:140) observed that _L. megalotis breviceps_ increased in Stillwater Creek probably as a result of clearer water and stabilized water level. In collections made west of the area treated here (Moore and Buck, 1953:26; Elliott, 1947) the longear sunfish is less abundant than in Big Caney River and Grouse Creek. #Lepomis macrochirus# (Rafinesque): Stations W-3, G-3, G-4, G-5, C-3, C-5, E-1, E-2 (C-131, C-132, C-133). The bluegill was, in all cases, a minor constituent in the fish fauna. No clear pattern of habitat preference can be deduced. In the Verdigris River at Independence (collection AM-53, August 22, 1956) bluegills were common in quiet pools and coves below a low-water dam. Moore and Paden (1950:91) note that _L. macrochirus_ prefers quiet waters and Hubbs and Lagler (1947:94) state that it is "generally restricted to the quieter pools." The bluegill is widely-stocked in impoundments of the area treated here. #Aplodinotus grunniens# (Rafinesque): Stations C-4, E-2. The dearth of stations from which the freshwater drum is reported may indicate difficulty in taking this species with seines, rather than scarcity. Both collections were at downstream stations. At station C-4 three half-grown drum were taken. Fishermen take "drum" at least as far upstream as station C-5 on Big Caney River. In the Elk River one specimen was taken in a 20-foot seine below a dam at Elk Falls. FISHES OF DOUBTFUL OR POSSIBLE OCCURRENCE In addition to the species listed above, the following species have been reported nearby and may occur within the area surveyed. _Lepisosteus productus_ (Cope)--This gar has not been reported from Kansas. It has been taken at several points in the northern half of Oklahoma and as far west as Canton Reservoir by Buck and Cross (1951). A specimen of the spotted gar was taken by Elkin (1954:28) in Salt Creek in Osage County, Oklahoma. _Polyodon spathula_ (Walbaum)--The paddlefish has never been reported from the Arkansas River system in Kansas. Several reports by fishermen were traced by the writer, but authentication was not achieved. One mounted specimen was examined in a sporting goods store in Arkansas City. This fish was said to have been taken on the Arkansas River south of Arkansas City but information on the date and method of capture were vague. Mr. Darrell Wheat of Arkansas City reported taking four paddlefish below a dam at Oxford, Kansas, in 1948 and 1949. _Hiodon alosoides_ (Rafinesque)--One specimen (K. U. 3095) of the goldeye was taken in 1953 on the Arkansas River near Oxford in Sumner County. Fishermen also report taking this fish occasionally in the Walnut River in Cowley County. _Noturus flavus_ (Rafinesque)--The stonecat was taken in the Verdigris system by R. D. Lindsay in 1911 (K. U. 2058) and more recently by Cross in Montgomery County (C-120) and Schelske (1957:46) in Wilson and Montgomery Counties. The close proximity of these collection areas to lower portions of the Elk River indicate probable occurrence in Elk River and other Verdigris tributaries. _Noturus nocturnus_ (Jordan and Gilbert)--The freckled madtom has been taken on all sides of the area studied making its occurrence therein highly probable. This madtom has been taken in Beaver Creek in Osage County, Oklahoma (OAM 4771); from a tributary of the Walnut River in Sedgwick County by Cross (1954); from the Chikaskia River (Moore and Buck, 1953:24); and from several localities on the Verdigris River (Schelske, 1957:47). _Etheostoma cragini_ (Gilbert)--One Cragin's darter (K. U. 3470) was taken by Cross in the Arkansas River near the Sumner-Cowley county line (Sec. 25, T31S, R2E). Records of this darter are few and widely scattered geographically. Several collections from north-eastern Oklahoma are noted by Moore and Cross (1950:144). _Etheostoma whipplii_ (Girard)--Schelske (1957:38) reports the redfin darter from the Verdigris River three miles southeast of Benedict, Kansas. Dr. George Moore of Oklahoma A. & M. College states that it has been taken in the Verdigris drainage in Oklahoma at several locations. _Etheostoma zonale arcansanum_ (Jordan and Gilbert)--Two banded darters (K. U. 3213) have been reported by Schelske (1957:49) from Fall River near Neodesha, Kansas. Because a tributary of Fall River enters Elk County its presence in this and other Verdigris tributaries in the area seems possible. This darter has been reported from only one other stream in Kansas, Shoal Creek in Cherokee County, where it has been collected often. _Roccus chrysops_ (Rafinesque)--The white bass has been stocked in Hulah Reservoir on Big Caney River in Oklahoma. To date it has not been reported from the Big Caney in Kansas. White bass are common in many reservoirs of Kansas and Oklahoma and have been taken in rivers in both states. Mr. Clement Gillespie of Arkansas City, Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission wildlife protector for the area, states that two hundred young of _R. chrysops_ were released in Grouse Creek several years ago under auspices of the Commission. The fish has not been reported by fishermen since that time to the knowledge of Mr. Gillespie or of the writer. _Lepomis microlophus_ (Gunther)--One redear sunfish was taken on Salt Creek in Osage County, Oklahoma, by Elkin (1954:28). Because this species has been stocked widely in Oklahoma its eventual occurrence in Kansas seems probable. _Chaenobryttus gulosus_ (Cuvier)--The warmouth has been taken south of the collection area in Osage County on Salt Creek by Elkin (1954:28). FAUNAL COMPARISONS OF DIFFERENT STREAMS The faunas of Elk River, Big Caney River, and Grouse Creek were generally similar. These streams and most of their tributaries originate in the same hilly area of eastern Cowley County and western Elk and Chautauqua counties; their similarities and differences have been pointed out. The following species were taken in all of these streams: _Lepisosteus osseus_ _Dorosoma cepedianum_ _Ictiobus bubalus_ _Moxostoma erythrurum_ _Minytrema melanops_ _Cyprinus carpio_ _Campostoma anomalum_ _Notropis boops_ _Notropis lutrensis_ _Notropis umbratilis_ _Notropis volucellus_ _Pimephales notatus_ _Pimephales tenellus_ _Fundulus notatus_ _Gambusia affinis_ _Ictalurus melas_ _Ictalurus punctatus_ _Etheostoma spectabile_ _Percina caprodes_ _Micropterus salmoides_ _Pomoxis annularis_ _Lepomis cyanellus_ _Lepomis humilis_ _Lepomis megalotis_ _Lepomis macrochirus_ _Labidesthes sicculus_ No species was found in Elk River to the exclusion of Big Caney and Grouse Creek. Fish taken exclusively in Grouse Creek were _Ictiobus cyprinella_ at station G-2 and _Notropis percobromus_ at station G-1. The following species were taken only in Big Caney River: _Ictiobus niger_, _Notropis rubellus_, _Phenacobius mirabilis_, _Pimephales vigilax_, and _Pomoxis nigromaculatus_. _Notropis buchanani_ and _Pimephales promelas_ were taken in Grouse Creek and Elk River, but not in Big Caney River, although the watershed of Big Caney lies largely between these two streams. Three species, _Notropis camurus_, _Micropterus punctulatus_, and _Aplodinotus grunniens_, were found in Elk River and Big Caney but not in Grouse Creek. _Ictalurus natalis_, _Pylodictis olivaris_, and _Percina phoxocephala_ were taken in Big Caney River and Grouse Creek but not in Elk River. _Percina copelandi_ was taken by Cross on Elk River in 1954 and 1955 (K. U. 3464 and K. U. 3197). Forty species were taken in Big Caney River, 35 in Grouse Creek and 31 in Elk River. Collections were made from only six stations on Elk River as compared with 18 from Big Caney and 17 from Grouse Creek. Twenty-four species were taken in the Walnut River system, only one of which (_Notemigonus crysoleucas_) was taken exclusively there. In the Arkansas River 18 species were found, four of which did not occur elsewhere. These were _Hybopsis aestivalis_, _Notropis blennius_, _N. girardi_, and _Fundulus kansae_. Table 5 lists the number of stations in each of the streams surveyed from which each species was taken. TABLE 5.--SPECIES OF FISHES COLLECTED AND NUMBER OF STATIONS IN EACH STREAM SYSTEM AT WHICH EACH SPECIES WAS FOUND. KEY: A: Arkansas River 3 stations B: Walnut River 5 stations C: Grouse Creek 17 stations D: Big Caney River 18 stations E: Elk River 6 stations F: Middle Caney 2 stations G: Beaver Creek 3 stations ============================================================ Total number | | | | | | | of stations | A | B | C | D | E | F | G --------------------+-------+---+----+----+--------+---+---- _L. osseus_ | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 | Seen | | _D. cepedianum_ | Seen | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | _Carpiodes carpio_ | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | | _I. bubalus_ | | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 | | _I. cyprinella_ | | | 1 | | | | _I. niger_ | | | | 2 | | | _M. erythrurum_ | | | 4 | 10 | 3 | | _M. melanops_ | | | 1 | 3 | 1 | | _Cyprinus carpio_ | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | | _C. anomalum_ | | 1 | 1 | 14 | 2 | | 1 _H. aestivalis_ | 1 | | | | | | _N. blennius_ | 2 | | | | | | _N. boops_ | | | 2 | 14 | 2 | 2 | _N. buchanani_ | | | 1 | | 1 | | _N. camurus_ | | | | 13 | 2 | | _N. deliciosus_ | 3 | 3 | | | | | _N. girardi_ | 2 | | | | | | _N. lutrensis_ | 3 | 4 | 13 | 14 | 5 | 1 | 3 _N. rubellus_ | | | | 11 | | | _N. percobromus_ | 3 | 3 | 1 | | | | _N. umbratilis_ | | | 8 | 18 | 4 | 2 | 2 _N. volucellus_ | | | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | _N. crysoleucas_ | | 1 | | | | | _H. placita_ | 3 | 2 | | | | | _P. mirabilis_ | | 1 | | 1 | | | _P. notatus_ | | 1 | 6 | 18 | 5 | 2 | 1 _P. promelas_ | 2 | 2 | 1 | | 1 | 1 | 1 _P. vigilax_ | 1 | | | 3 | | 1 | _P. tenellus_ | | | 1 | 7 | 1 | 2 | _F. notatus_ | | 4 | 10 | 1 | 1 | | 1 _F. kansae_ | 2 | | | | | | _G. affinis_ | 3 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 1 | | _I. melas_ | 1 | 4 | 12 | 9 | 5 | | 3 _I. natalis_ | | | 6 | 3 | | | _I. punctatus_ | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 | | _P. olivaris_ | 1 | | 1 | 1 | | | _E. spectabile_ | | 1 | 4 | 17 | 2 | | 1 _P. copelandi_ | | | 1 | 5 | | | _P. phoxocephala_ | | | 1 | 4 | | | _P. caprodes_ | | | 5 | 8 | 1 | | _M. salmoides_ | | | 4 | 2 | 3 | | 1 _M. punctulatus_ | | | | 7 | 1 | | _P. annularis_ | | 2 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 1 | _P. nigromaculatus_ | | | | 1 | | | _L. cyanellus_ | | 3 | 14 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 3 _L. humilis_ | 1 | 4 | 13 | 17 | 6 | 1 | 2 _L. megalotis_ | | 3 | 9 | 18 | 6 | 2 | 2 _L. macrochirus_ | | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | | _A. grunniens_ | | | | 1 | 1 | | _L. sicculus_ | | | 5 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 1 ------------------------------------------------------------ DISTRIBUTIONAL VARIATIONS WITHIN THE SAME STREAM An analysis of faunal variations in different parts of the same stream system was made for Big Caney River and Grouse Creek. Collecting was more extensive in these streams, and sampling was done over a wider range of habitat, than in the Arkansas and Walnut rivers. The fish taken in the first five seine hauls at each station were counted and the number of each species was recorded as a percentage of the total number of fish taken. These percentages were calculated for the main stream and for each tributary in an attempt to discern possible intra-stream faunal patterns. In Table 6 lower, middle, and upper segments of each stream have been segregated and the average of all stations within each segment is shown. The results are subject to several sources of error, some of which are discussed below: (1) Seining techniques could not be entirely standardized. One station might present a series of long narrow riffles and narrow, shallow pools in which only a small seine could be used effectively; another station might consist of a large, deep, isolated pool in which a larger seine was needed for effective sampling. In practice, the five seine hauls were made with any of several seines ranging from ten to twenty feet in length. (2) Seines are species-selective, due partly to the preference of certain fishes for special habitat niches. Fishes that are often found under stones or in weedy pools require special collecting techniques and frequently were not represented in the initial five hauls. If work subsequent to the first five hauls indicated that such fish were a prominent part of the fauna at a particular station, these results were considered before percentages were calculated. (3) Temporal variations occur in populations at the same station. There were both seasonal and diurnal differences in relative numbers of species taken in these collections. This was noted especially at station C-5 where collecting was done both at night and by day. Spawning by certain species during the course of the study complicated estimates of their relative abundance. (4) In tabulating percentages of fishes obtained an arbitrary element is often unavoidable in deciding whether a station, especially a station on a tributary, should be considered as part of the lower, middle, or upper segment of a river system. Despite these disadvantages it is felt that table 6 has factual basis permitting some reliable interpretation. TABLE 6.--RELATIVE ABUNDANCE IN PER CENT OF FISHES IN COLLECTIONS FROM THREE STREAM SEGMENTS. ==================================================================== | Big Caney River Grouse Creek |------------------------+----------------------- | Lower | Middle | Upper | Lower | Middle | Upper -------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+--------+------ _L. osseus_ | .7 | .5 | | .6 | .02 | _D. cepedianum_ | .3 | | | | .02 | _Carpiodes carpio_ | .06 | | | 1.0 | | _I. bubalus_ | .6 | .45 | | 1.4 | | _I. cyprinella_ | | | | .1 | | _I. niger_ | .01 | | | | | _M. erythrurum_ | .2 | 1.1 | 1.0 | .03 | .5 | 1.1 _M. melanops_ | .1 | .01 | | | .1 | _Cyprinus carpio_ | .7 | | | 1.3 | .2 | _C. anomalum_ | .6 | 5.9 | 18.0 | | .1 | _N. boops_ | .6 | .6 | 5.1 | | 1.3 | _N. buchanani_ | | | | .01 | | _N. camurus_ | 6.4 | 5.5 | .4 | | | _N. lutrensis_ | 8.8 | 1.0 | .5 | 6.4 | 11.4 | 15.2 _N. percobromus_ | | | | 1.1 | | _N. rubellus_ | .4 | 1.4 | 3.9 | | | _N. umbratilis_ | 17.6 | 28.3 | 15.4 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 5.5 _N. volucellus_ | .3 | .4 | | | .3 | _P. mirabilis_ | .3 | | | | | _P. notatus_ | 3.5 | 5.7 | 13.0 | | .9 | 6.6 _P. vigilax_ | .8 | | | | | _P. promelas_ | | | | | | 2.9 _P. tenellus_ | .7 | .5 | | .01 | | _G. affinis_ | 14.6 | .4 | .4 | 20.8 | 10.2 | 1.0 _F. notatus_ | .1 | | | 6.6 | 17.2 | 1.4 _I. melas_ | .9 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 5.6 | 2.3 | 18.0 _I. natalis_ | | | .5 | .5 | .8 | _P. olivaris_ | .01 | | | .01 | | _I. punctatus_ | .3 | | | .4 | | _E. spectabile_ | 1.9 | 4.9 | 18.0 | .4 | .3 | .3 _P. copelandi_ | .8 | .1 | | .01 | | _P. phoxocephala_ | .1 | | | .1 | | _P. caprodes_ | .4 | .6 | .2 | .2 | .2 | .4 _M. salmoides_ | .06 | | | | 1.1 | .3 _M. punctulatus_ | .5 | 1.7 | .4 | | | _P. annularis_ | 3.9 | .8 | | 2.9 | 4.2 | .3 _L. cyanellus_ | 3.4 | .8 | 6.6 | 5.2 | 1.8 | 30.5 _L. humilis_ | 10.6 | 13.1 | 1.8 | 31.4 | 17.7 | 14.8 _L. megalotis_ | 12.4 | 22.3 | 12.0 | 3.6 | 14.0 | 1.7 _L. macrochirus_ | .3 | | | .2 | 1.3 | _A. grunniens_ | .1 | | | | | _L. sicculus_ | 7.1 | 1.6 | .4 | 7.7 | 10.2 | -------------------------------------------------------------------- _Big Caney River_ The "lower segment" of Big Caney River is immediately upstream from Hulah Reservoir, and is not the lowermost portion of the entire river basin, but merely the lower part of the river in the area studied. A conspicuous characteristic of the lower segment was the general restriction of the deep-bodied suckers and the carp to this part of the stream. Other fishes that were most common in the lower section were _Pimephales vigilax_, _Percina phoxocephala_, _Gambusia affinis_, and _Aplodinotus grunniens_. _Labidesthes sicculus_ and _Lepisosteus osseus_ ranged into the middle section of the stream, but were present in larger numbers downstream. _Ictalurus punctatus_, _Pomoxis annularis_, and _Lepomis macrochirus_ were taken chiefly in downstream habitats; however, stocking has confused the distributional pattern of these species. _Notropis lutrensis_, although found throughout the system, progressively declined in numbers taken in the middle and upper sections. Approximately 18 species were usually taken in downstream collections. No species were found exclusively in the middle section of the Big Caney system. _Micropterus punctulatus_, _Notropis umbratilis_, and _Lepomis megalotis_ tended to be most common in the middle section of the main stream. These three species were taken together at stations C-5, C-6, C-8, and C-10. The upper section yielded no species that did not occur also in another section. Fishes most abundant in the upper section included: _Campostoma anomalum_, _Etheostoma spectabile_, _Notropis boops_, _Notropis rubellus_, _Pimephales notatus_, and _Lepomis cyanellus_. _Ictalurus natalis_ also seemed more common upstream than in lower parts of the basin. _Campostoma anomalum_ was one of the most common fishes taken at many of the stations on small upland tributaries. In downstream collections its relative abundance was less, although it was often concentrated on riffles. In the Big Caney system as a whole _Notropis umbratilis_ was the most abundant species. Several species were present throughout the system in proportions varying, sometimes greatly, from station to station. _Lepomis megalotis_ and _Lepomis humilis_ were erratic in occurrence, and the numbers of _Notropis camurus_ and _Ictalurus melas_ varied without pattern. _Grouse Creek_ The fauna of the main stream of Grouse Creek fluctuated more in number and kinds of fish from station to station than did the fauna of Big Caney River. Again, the deep-bodied suckers showed downstream proclivities. In addition, _Notropis buchanani_, _Pimephales tenellus_, _Percina copelandi_, _Percina phoxocephala_, _Notropis percobromus_ and _Pylodictis olivaris_ were taken only at the lowermost station (G-1). At stations G-2 and G-3 the creek is sluggish and often turbid, meandering between high mud banks in a flood plain. At these stations _Fundulus notatus_, _Gambusia affinis, La_-_bidesthes sicculus_, _Ictalurus melas,_ and _Lepomis humilis_ were the most common fishes. Shiners (_Notropis_ spp.) and _Lepomis megalotis_ were rarely taken. Hall (1953:36) states that _Gambusia affinis_, _Fundulus notatus_, and _Labidesthes sicculus_ are usually associated with overflow pools, oxbows, and vegetated backwaters. Those fishes mentioned in the preceding paragraph remained common in the middle section of the stream. In addition _Notropis lutrensis_, _Notropis umbratilis_, and _Lepomis megalotis_ were important members of the fauna. In the uppermost section shiners (_Notropis_ spp.) were common. In the few upstream stations that were still in good condition with clear flowing water, the fauna resembled that of the upstream stations on Big Caney River. Most upstream stations on Grouse Creek were located on highly intermittent streams that are treated below. FAUNAS OF INTERMITTENT STREAMS Because of severe, protracted drought, most of the streams studied had ceased to flow by the close of the survey period. However, the duration of intermittency varied greatly in different streams, as did its effect in terms of the number and sizes of residual pools, water temperatures, pollution, and turbidity. Crab Creek, Beaver Creek, and a small unnamed tributary of Grouse Creek were severely affected by intermittency. Their faunas are discussed below. In Crab Creek six collections were made from points near the mouth to the uppermost pool in which water was found. Pools near the mouth were as large as thirty feet in width and ninety feet in length, while those that were uppermost were shallow puddles averaging ten feet in length and five feet in width. The uppermost station was situated in bluestem pasture without benefit of shade from trees. The species taken and their relative abundances based on five seine hauls at each station are shown in Table 7. At the uppermost pool (G-17) only small green sunfish were found. At G-16, next downstream, this species was joined by large numbers of black bullheads and a few redfin shiners and red shiners. G-13 was similar to G-16, but two additional species occurred there. G-12 was a clear, deep pool much larger than any at the stations upstream. Here, seven species were added to the fauna, and the percentages of _Ictalurus melas_ and _Lepomis cyanellus_ were much less. At G-10 _Fundulus notatus_, _Labidesthes sicculus_, and _Minytrema melanops_ appeared. Nevertheless, fewer species (10) were captured here than at station G-12 upstream. TABLE 7.--PERCENTAGES OF FISHES TAKEN ON CRAB CREEK. ==================================================================== Stations | G-10 | G-11 | G-12 | G-13 | G-16 | G-17 --------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------ _Minytrema melanops_ | 8.7 | | | | | _Labidesthes sicculus_ | 20.0 | 1.0 | | | | _Fundulus notatus_ | 25.7 | 41.0 | | | | _Ictalurus natalis_ | | 3.8 | .43| | | _Pomoxis annularis_ | 8.8 | 11.8 | 1.9 | | | _Lepomis humilis_ | 15.45| 9.9 | 8.5 | | | _Micropterus salmoides_ | | | 1.9 | | | _Etheostoma spectabile_ | 1.0 | | 1.9 | | | _Percina caprodes_ | | | 3.8 | | | _Moxostoma erythrurum_ | 1.0 | | 7.0 | | | _Lepomis megalotis_ | 5.7 | 2.3 | 7.0 | 2.0 | | _Pimephales notatus_ | | 34.0 | 9.0 | | | _Ictalurus melas_ | 5.3 | .5 | 29.0 | 49.0 | | _Notropis umbratilis_ | | 4.7 | 9.0 | 1.0 | | _Notropis lutrensis_ | 20.6 | 26.0 | 25.0 | 14.0 | 1.0 | _Lepomis cyanellus_ | 1.0 | | 1.9 | 34.0 | 49.0 | 100.0 --------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------ TABLE 8.--FISH TAKEN IN NINE POOLS ON UPPER BEAVER CREEK (PROGRESSING FROM DOWNSTREAM TO UPSTREAM). ===================================================================== | _Notropis | _Notropis | _Lepomis | _Lepomis | _Ictalurus | umbratilis_ | lutrensis_| humilis_ | cyanellus_ | melas_ ------+-------------+-----------+----------+------------+------------ Pools:| | | | | 1 | 5 adults | 4 adults | adults | young | 1 juvenile | | 7 young | abundant | abundant | | | | | | 2 | 2 adults | 4 adults | 6 adults | young | | | | | abundant | | | | | | 3 | | 1 adult | 7 adults | 3 juveniles| 2 juveniles | | | | | 4 | | | 4 adults | young | young | | | | abundant | abundant | | | | | 5 | | | 2 adults | | | | | | | 6 | | | | 28 young | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | | | | 8 | | | | | 1 adult | | | | | 9 | | | | | 1 adult -------+-------------+-----------+----------+------------+------------ A series of collections similar to that on Crab Creek was carried out along 1-1/2 miles of Beaver Creek on July 22, 1956. Nine pools were sampled (Table 8) of which number nine was the uppermost point where water was found (except for farm ponds). Mainly young of _Lepomis cyanellus_ and _Ictalurus melas_ were found in the uppermost stations, as on Crab Creek. Only adults of _Notropis lutrensis_ and _Notropis umbratilis_ were taken. In another small intermittent tributary of Grouse Creek two collections (G-14 and G-15) were made. One was from several isolated pools near the source of the creek and the other was 1-1/2 miles upstream from the mouth. The two stations were approximately four miles apart. Table 9 indicates approximate percentages of fish taken in five seine hauls at these stations. TABLE 9.--FISHES TAKEN IN A TRIBUTARY OF GROUSE CREEK. ================================================= Species | Upstream | Downstream | station | station --------------------------+----------+----------- _Ictalurus melas_ | 45% | _Lepomis humilis_ | 48% | 40% _Notropis lutrensis_ | 5% | 30% _Lepomis cyanellus_ | 2% | 20% _Fundulus notatus_ | | 10% --------------------------+----------+----------- At two other stations, only _Lepomis cyanellus_ was found. One of these stations consisted of several small spring-fed pools in a dry arroyo tributary to Little Beaver Creek. Around these small "oases" rushes and smartweeds grew and blackbirds were nesting in the rushes. Although green sunfish up to eight inches in length were common in the shallow pools, no other species was found. The second station (C-17) on the East Fork Big Caney River is of special interest. The pool was isolated, had dimensions of about 25�25 feet, and had an average depth of 15 inches. The water was foul; cows had been fed fodder in a sheltered area above the pool during the preceding winter and the entire bottom was covered to a depth of 6 inches to 1 foot with a detritus of decomposing fodder, cattle feces, and leaves. The water became almost inky in consistency when the bottom was stirred and its odor was offensive. A thick gray-green bloom lay on the surface. This bloom was full of bubbles indicating gases rising from the bottom muds. One hundred fifty-three green sunfish, all less than 5 inches in length, were taken in one seine-haul at this station. EAST-WEST DISTRIBUTION In the Arkansas River system in Kansas there are marked differences between fish faunas of the western and eastern parts of the state. This can be illustrated by comparison of Spring River in Cherokee County with the Cimarron River in southwestern Kansas. Single collections from Spring River or its tributaries usually contain 25 or more species of fish. Collections from the Cimarron rarely contain more than five or six species. Many of those fishes found in Spring River are characteristic of an Ozarkian fauna, and some are endemic to the Ozark uplands. Fish found in the Cimarron or Arkansas in western Kansas are members of a plains fauna of wide distribution. There is mingling of these two faunal groups across the state, with the number of Ozarkian species diminishing westward, and certain plains species diminishing eastward. A number of species such as _Moxostoma duquesnii_ and _Notropis spilopterus_ are limited, on the basis of present records, to Spring River and its tributaries in Kansas. Others have not been taken west of the Neosho drainage. The Verdigris River provides the next major avenue of westward dispersal followed by Caney River, Grouse Creek, and the Walnut River. West of the Walnut River system Ozarkian species have been almost always absent from collections. The Chikaskia River is somewhat exceptional. Moore and Buck (1953) reported from this river several species that seem more typical of eastern faunal associations. Table 10 indicates the stream system in which the present westernmost records are located for a number of fishes found in the Arkansas River system in Kansas. TABLE 10.--PRESENT WESTERNMOST RECORDS OF SOME FISHES IN THE ARKANSAS RIVER BASIN IN KANSAS. Spring River _Cottus carolinae_ _Dionda nubila_ _Etheostoma blennioides_ _Etheostoma gracile_ _Etheostoma nigrum nigrum_ _Etheostoma punctulatum_ _Etheostoma saxatile_ _Hypentelium nigricans_ _Moxostoma duquesnii_ _Notropis spilopterus_ _Noturus exilis_ Neosho River _Cycleptus elongatus_ _Etheostoma chlorosomum_ _Etheostoma flabellare lineolatum_ _Hybopsis amblops_ _Hybopsis biguttata_ _Hybopsis x-punctata_ _Notropis zonatus pilsbryi_ Verdigris River _Etheostoma whipplii_ _Etheostoma zonale arcansanum_ _Percina copelandi_ _Moxostoma carinatum_ _Notropis boops_ _Notropis volucellus_ _Noturus miurus_ Chikaskia River _Ictalurus natalis_ _Percina phoxocephala_ _Labidesthes sicculus_ _Lepomis megalotis breviceps_ _Micropterus punctulatus_ _Moxostoma aureolum pisolabrum_ _Moxostoma erythrurum_ _Notropis camurus_ _Pimephales notatus_ _Pimephales tenellus_ _Noturus nocturnus_ The westernmost records for seven species are in the area studied. 1. _Lepisosteus platostomus._ 2. _Carpiodes velifer._ 3. _Moxostoma carinatum._ 4. _Minytrema melanops._ One specimen taken at station G-10 near the mouth of Crab Creek constitutes the present westernmost record. A specimen has been taken by Cross (C-24-51) in the headwaters of the Walnut River. 5. _Notropis boops._ The westernmost record is station G-5 on Grouse Creek. This fish has been reported slightly west of this in Oklahoma on Big Beaver Creek in Kay County (number 4776, Oklahoma A & M College Museum of Zoology). 6. _Notropis volucellus._ Two specimens were taken at station G-8 on Silver Creek. 7. _Percina copelandi._ The westernmost record is from station G-1, two miles above the mouth of Grouse Creek. The easternmost occurrences of four species are in the area studied. These species are _Hybopsis aestivalis tetranemus_ (Station A-2), _Notropis blennius_ (Station A-1), _Notropis girardi_ (Station A-2), and _Fundulus kansae_ (Station A-2 and Walnut River). These fish are associated with the Arkansas River proper and its sandy western tributaries. In Oklahoma, these fish are found in the Arkansas River as it proceeds eastward and in the downstream portions of some of its tributaries. These fish show little tendency to ascend the streams of the Flint Hills. SUMMARY The fish fauna of the area studied is transitional between the Ozarkian and Great Plains faunas. Fluctuation in water level seemed especially important in determining distribution of fishes in the area studied. Variable climate characteristic of the region studied causes recurrent floods and intermittency in streams. Both of these conditions have probably been accentuated by man's modifications of the habitat. The effects of intermittency were most strikingly demonstrated in small creeks of the uplands. The number of species of fish in the highly intermittent streams was small--especially in the uppermost pools sampled--but the actual number of fish was often high even though the number of species was low. In several instances the only fishes found in these isolated pools were _Lepomis cyanellus_ and _Ictalurus melas_. This phenomenon of concentrated numbers of individuals of a few species would indicate the presence of limiting factors that allow only those species most tolerant of the particular factor to flourish. Soon after rains restored flow in these intermittent creeks _L. cyanellus_ and _I. melas_ appeared in parts of the channels that had previously been several miles from the nearest water. Rapid upstream movements of other species after rains was also noted. It was impossible to ascertain the precise effects of gradient and bottom-type on distribution, but certain species such as _Notropis blennius_, _Notropis girardi_, and _Fundulus kansae_ were taken only in streams with sandy bottoms. _Notropis deliciosus_ and _Hybognathus placita_ were most abundant over sandy bottoms. The high gradient of upland tributaries in the Flint Hills area produced turbulence and bottoms predominantly of rubble. A fauna of which _Etheostoma spectabile_ and _Campostoma anomalum_ were characteristic existed in these waters while they were flowing. As flow decreased and intermittency commenced, qualitative and quantitative changes in the fish faunas were observed. Gradient did not change during drought, but turbulence did. Because turbulence varies with water level as well as gradient, the effect of gradient on fish distribution ultimately is linked to climate. Probably the small number of fish taken on the Walnut River in comparison with other eastern Kansas rivers (Verdigris, Neosho) results, in part, from the long-term pollution of the stream noted by Clapp (1920:33) and Doze (1924). No percid fishes, black bass, or madtom catfish were taken on the Walnut in Cowley County and the species of _Notropis_ numbered only three. Four faunal associations seem to be recognizable in the area. _Arkansas River Fauna_ This fauna contained _Notropis girardi_, _Notropis blennius_, _Hybopsis aestivalis tetranemus_, and _Fundulus kansae_ which, in this area, did not seem to wander far from the sandy main stream of the Arkansas. Minnows abounded; _Notropis lutrensis_ and _N. deliciosus missuriensis_ predominated; and _Notropis girardi_, _N. percobromus_, and _Hybognathus placita_ were common. In quiet backwaters, coves, and shallow pools _Gambusia affinis_ occurred in great numbers. _Lepisosteus osseus_ seemed to be the most important predator. _Lower Walnut River Fauna_ The Walnut River in Cowley County supported large populations of deep-bodied suckers, carp, and gar. _Notropis lutrensis_ and _N. percobromus_ were characteristic minnows. _Lepomis_ _humilis_ abounded at some stations. The fauna of the main stream of the Walnut River was somewhat intermediate between that of the Arkansas River and that of the three streams considered below. Fifteen of the species common to the Big Caney, Elk, and Grouse systems were also taken in the Walnut River main stream. Thirteen species were common to the Walnut and Arkansas rivers. Seven species were common to all these streams. _Caney-Elk-Grouse Main Stream Fauna_ This fauna includes fishes living not only in the main streams but also in the lower parts of the larger tributaries of these streams. The fauna was comparatively rich: in the main stream of Big Caney River 39 species were taken, in Grouse Creek 35 species, in the Walnut River main stream 21 species, and in the Arkansas River 19 species. It has been pointed out that large rivers such as the Walnut and Arkansas have been subjected to greater direct and indirect modification by man, possibly resulting in a less diverse fauna than would otherwise occur in these streams. At present, there is a paucity of ecological niches in the upland tributaries and large rivers, as compared with streams of intermediate size. Fishes typical of the Caney-Elk-Grouse association were _Notropis umbratilis_, _Lepomis megalotis_, _Lepomis humilis_, _Labidesthes sicculus_, _Fundulus notatus_, and the two species of _Micropterus (Micropterus punctulatus_ was not taken in Grouse Creek). _Upland Tributary Fauna_ Tributary faunas were divisible into two categories: (1) Those of the Walnut River and Grouse Creek (intermittency was severe, species were few, with _Ictalurus melas_ and _Lepomis cyanellus_ predominating); (2) those of Big Caney River (stream-flow was more stable, and eastern fishes, some of which have Ozarkian affinities, occurred in greater abundance than in any other part of the area surveyed). In the latter streams _Campostoma anomalum_ and _Etheostoma spectabile_ usually were dominant. _Pimephales notatus_, _Notropis volucellus_, _N. camurus_, _N. boops_, and _N. rubellus_ characteristically occurred. _Notropis lutrensis_ was sparsely represented in flowing tributaries. _Notropis umbratilis_, which seems to prefer habitats intermediate between those of _Notropis lutrensis_ and Ozarkian shiners, was usually represented. Deep-bodied suckers and carp were not taken in upland tributaries but _Moxostoma erythrurum_ was common and _Minytrema melanops_ was taken. The kinds and numbers of shiners (_Notropis_) taken at different points along Grouse Creek seem significant. _N. lutrensis_ and _N. umbratilis_ occurred throughout the stream but were rare in sluggish areas where populations of _Gambusia affinis_, _Fundulus notatus_, and _Labidesthes sicculus_ flourished. At the lowermost station _Notropis percobromus_ and _N. buchanani_ were taken; these were not present in other collections. In the uppermost stations where water remained plentiful, _N. boops_ and _N. volucellus_ were taken, and _N. rubellus_ has been recorded. In the broader distributional sense those fishes that seemed most tolerant of intermittency (_Lepomis cyanellus_, _Lepomis humilis_, _Ictalurus melas_, _Notropis lutrensis_) are widely distributed in the Arkansas River Basin, and are common in the western part of the Arkansas River Basin. Species less tolerant of intermittency are _Notropis boops_, _Notropis camurus_, _Notropis rubellus_, _Notropis volucellus_, and _Pimephales tenellus_; they have not been taken far west of the area studied, and become more common east of it. LITERATURE CITED BASS, N. W. 1929. The geology of Cowley County, Kansas. Kansas Geol. Survey Bull., 12:1-203, 23 figs., 12 pls. BIEBER, R. P. 1932. Frontier life in the army, 1854-1861. Southwest Historical Series, 2:1-330. BREUKELMAN, J. 1940. A collection of fishes in the State University Museum. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 43:377-384. BUCK, H., and CROSS, F. B. 1951. Early limnological and fish population conditions of Canton Reservoir, Oklahoma, and fishery management recommendations. A Report to the Oklahoma Game and Fish Council reprinted by the Research Foundation, Oklahoma A&M College. 110 pp., 17 figs. CALDWELL, M. B. 1937. The southern Kansas boundary survey. Kansas Hist. Quart., 6:339-377. CLAPP, A. 1920. Stream pollution. Kansas Fish and Game Department Bull., 6:33. CROSS, F. B. 1950. Effects of sewage and of a headwaters impoundment on the fishes of Stillwater Creek in Payne County, Oklahoma. Amer. Midl. Nat., 43 (1):128-145, 1 fig. 1954a. Fishes of Cedar Creek and the south fork of the Cottonwood River, Chase County, Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci. 57:303-314. 1954b. Records of fishes little-known from Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci. 57:473-479. CROSS, F. B., and MOORE, G. A. 1952. The fishes of the Poteau River, Oklahoma and Arkansas. American Midl. Nat., 47 (2):396-412. DOZE, J. B. 1924. Stream pollution. Bien. Report. Kansas Fish and Game Dept. 5:1-42. ELKIN, R. E. 1954. The fish population of two cut-off pools in Salt Creek, Osage County, Oklahoma. Proc. Oklahoma Acad. Sci., 35:25-29. ELLIOTT, A. 1947. A preliminary survey and ecological study of the fishes of the South Ninnescah and Spring Creek. Unpublished thesis, Kansas State College. EVERMANN, B. W., and FORDICE, M. W. 1886. List of fishes collected in Harvey and Cowley counties, Kansas. Bull. Washburn Lab. Nat. Hist., 1:184-186. FLORA, S. D. 1948. Climate of Kansas. Rept. Kansas State Board Agric. 67:xii-320, Illus. FOLEY, F. C., SMRHA, R. V., and METZLER, D. F. 1955. Water in Kansas. A report to the Kansas State Legislature as directed by the Kansas State Finance Council. University of Kansas, pp. 1-216--A1-J6. FRYE, J. C., and LEONARD, A. B. 1952. Pleistocene geology of Kansas. Bull. Kansas Geol. Surv., 99:1-230. 17 figs., 19 pls. FUNK, J. L., and CAMPBELL, R. S. 1953. The population of larger fishes in Black River, Missouri. Univ. Missouri Studies, 26:69-82. GATES, F. C. 1936. Grasses in Kansas. Rept. Kansas State Board Agric., 55 (220-A):1-349, frontispiece, 270 figs., 224 maps. GRAHAM, I. D. 1885. Preliminary list of Kansas fishes. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 9:69-78. HALE, M. E., Jr. 1955. A survey of upland forests in the Chautauqua Hills, Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 58:165-168. HALL, G. E. 1952. Observations on the fishes of the Fort Gibson and Tenkiller reservoir areas, 1952. Proc. Oklahoma Acad. Sci., 33:55-63. 1953. Preliminary observations on the presence of stream-inhabiting fishes in Tenkiller Reservoir, a new Oklahoma impoundment. Proc. Oklahoma Acad. Sci., 34:34-40. HOYLE, W. L. 1936. Notes on faunal collecting in Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 39:283-293. HUBBS, C. L., and ORTENBURGER, A. I. 1929a. Further notes on the fishes of Oklahoma with descriptions of new species of cyprinidae. Publ. Univ. Oklahoma Biol. Surv., 1(2):17-43. 1929b. Fishes collected in Oklahoma and Arkansas in 1927. Publ. Univ. Oklahoma Biol. Surv., 1 (3):47-112, 13 pls. HUBBS, C. L., and LAGLER, K. F. 1947. Fishes of the Great Lakes Region. Cranbrook Inst. Sci. Bull., 26 (Revised Edition):i-xi-1-186, illus. JEWETT, J. M., and ABERNATHY, G. E. 1945. Oil and gas in eastern Kansas. Bull. Kansas Geol. Survey, 57:1-244, 21 figs., 4 pls. METZLER, D. F. 1952. Water Pollution Report, Walnut River Basin. Department of Sanitation, Kansas State Board of Health (Unpublished), 64 pp. MILLER, N. H. 1932. Surveying the southern boundary line of Kansas. Kansas Hist. Quarterly, 1:104-139. MOORE, G. A. 1944. Notes on the early life history of _Notropis girardi_. Copeia, 1944 (4):209-214, 4 Figs. MOORE, G. A., and CROSS, F. B. 1950. Additional Oklahoma fishes with validation of _Poecilichthys parvipinnis_ (Gilbert and Swain). Copeia, 1950 (2):139-148. MOORE, G. A., and PADEN, J. M. 1950. The fishes of the Illinois River in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Amer. Midl. Nat, 44:76-95, 1 Fig. MOORE, G. A., and BUCK, D. H. 1953. The fishes of the Chikaskia River in Oklahoma and Kansas. Proc. Oklahoma Acad. Sci., 34:19-27. MOORE, R. C. 1949. Divisions of the Pennsylvanian system in Kansas. Bull. Kansas Geol. Survey, 83:1-203, 37 Figs. MOORE, R. C., FRYE, J. C., JEWETT, J. M., LEE, W., and O'CONNER, H. G. 1951. The Kansas rock column. Bull. Kansas Geol. Survey, 89:1-132, 52 Figs. MOOSO, J. 1888. The life and travels of Josiah Mooso. Telegram Post, Winfield, Kansas, pp. 1-400. ORTENBURGER, A. I., and HUBBS, C. L. 1926. A report on the fishes of Oklahoma, with descriptions of new genera and species. Proc. Oklahoma Acad. Sci., 6:132-141. SCHELSKE, C. L. 1957. An ecological study of the fishes of the Fall and Verdigris rivers in Wilson and Montgomery counties, Kansas, March 1954, to February 1955. Emporia State Research Studies, 5(3):31-56. SCHOONOVER, R., and THOMPSON, W. H. 1954. A post-impoundment study of the fisheries resources of Fall River Reservoir, Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 57:172-179. TRAUTMAN, M. B. 1951. _Moxostoma aureolum pisolabrum_, a new subspecies of sucker from the ozarkian streams of the Mississippi River System. Occ. Papers Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 534:1-10, 1 pl. _Transmitted December 19, 1958._ 27-7079 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Institutional libraries interested in publications exchange may obtain this series by addressing the Exchange Librarian, University of Kansas Library, Lawrence, Kansas. Copies for individuals, persons working in a particular field of study, may be obtained by addressing instead the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. There is no provision for sale of this series by the University Library which meets institutional requests, or by the Museum of Natural History which meets the requests of individuals. However, when individuals request copies from the Museum, 25 cents should be included, for each separate number that is 100 pages or more in length, for the purpose of defraying the costs of wrapping and mailing. * An asterisk designates those numbers of which the Museum's supply (not the Library's supply) is exhausted. Numbers published to date, in this series, are as follows: Vol. 1. Nos. 1-26 and index. Pp. 1-638, 1946-1950. *Vol. 2. (Complete) Mammals of Washington. By Walter W. Dalquest. Pp. 1-444, 140 figures in text. April 9, 1948. Vol. 3. *1. The avifauna of Micronesia, its origin, evolution, and distribution. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 1-359, 16 figures in text. June 12, 1951. *2. A quantitative study of the nocturnal migration of birds. By George H. Lowery, Jr. Pp. 361-472, 47 figures in text. June 29, 1951. 3. Phylogeny of the waxwings and allied birds. By M. Dale Arvey. Pp. 473-530, 49 figures in text, 13 tables. October 10, 1951. 4. Birds from the state of Veracruz, Mexico. By George H. Lowery, Jr., and Walter W. Dalquest. Pp. 531-649, 7 figures in text, 2 tables. October 10, 1951. Index. Pp. 651-681. *Vol. 4. (Complete) American weasels. By E. Raymond Hall. Pp. 1-466, 41 plates, 31 figures in text. December 27, 1951. Vol. 5. Nos. 1-37 and index. Pp. 1-676, 1951-1953. *Vol. 6. (Complete) Mammals of Utah, _taxonomy and distribution_. By Stephen D. Durrant. Pp. 1-549, 91 figures in text, 30 tables. August 10, 1952. Vol. 7. *1. Mammals of Kansas. By E. Lendell Cockrum. Pp. 1-303, 73 figures in text, 37 tables. August 25, 1952. 2. Ecology of the opossum on a natural area in northeastern Kansas. By Henry S. Fitch and Lewis L. Sandidge. Pp. 305-338, 5 figures in text. August 24, 1953. 3. The silky pocket mice (Perognathus flavus) of Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 339-347, 1 figure in text. February 15, 1954. 4. North American jumping mice (Genus Zapus). By Philip H. Krutzsch. Pp. 349-472, 47 figures in text, 4 tables. April 21, 1954. 5. Mammals from Southeastern Alaska. By Rollin H. Baker and James S. Findley. Pp. 473-477. April 21, 1954. 6. Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 479-487. April 21, 1954. 7. Subspeciation in the montane meadow mouse. Microtus montanus, in Wyoming and Colorado. By Sydney Anderson. Pp. 489-506, 2 figures in text. July 23, 1954. 8. A new subspecies of bat (Myotis velifer) from southeastern California and Arizona. By Terry A. Vaughan. Pp. 507-512. July 23, 1954. 9. Mammals of the San Gabriel mountains of California. By Terry A. Vaughan. Pp. 513-582, 1 figure in text, 12 tables. November 15, 1954. 10. A new bat (Genus Pipistrellus) from northeastern Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 583-586. November 15, 1954. 11. A new subspecies of pocket mouse from Kansas. By E. Raymond Hall. Pp. 587-590. November 15, 1954. 12. Geographic variation in the pocket gopher, Cratogeomys castanops, in Coahuila, Mexico. By Robert J. Russell and Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 591-608. March 15, 1955. 13. A new cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) from northeastern Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 609-612. April 8, 1955. 14. Taxonomy and distribution of some American shrews. By James S. Findley. Pp. 613-618. June 10, 1955. 15. The pigmy woodrat, Neotoma goldmani, its distribution and systematic position. By Dennis G. Rainey and Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 619-624, 2 figures in text. June 10, 1955. Index. Pp. 625-651. Vol. 8. 1. Life history and ecology of the five-lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 1-156, 26 figs, in text. September 1, 1954. 2. Myology and serology of the Avian Family Fringillidae, a taxonomic study. By William B. Stallcup. Pp. 157-211, 23 figures in text, 4 tables. November 15, 1954. 3. An ecological study of the collared lizard (Crotaphytus collaris). By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 213-274, 10 figures in text. February 10, 1956. 4. A field study of the Kansas ant-eating frog, Gastrophryne olivacea. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 275-306, 9 figures in text. February 10, 1956. 5. Check-list of the birds of Kansas. By Harrison B. Tordoff. Pp. 307-359, 1 figure in text. March 10, 1956. 6. A population study of the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) in northeastern Kansas. By Edwin P. Martin. Pp. 361-416, 19 figures in text. April 2, 1956. 7. Temperature responses in free-living amphibians and reptiles of northeastern Kansas. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 417-476, 10 figures in text, 6 tables. June 1, 1956. 8. Food of the crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos Brehm, in south-central Kansas. By Dwight Platt. Pp. 477-498, 4 tables. June 8, 1956. 9. Ecological observations on the woodrat, Neotoma floridana. By Henry S. Fitch and Dennis G. Rainey. Pp. 499-533, 3 figures in text. June 12, 1956. 10. Eastern woodrat, Neotoma floridana: Life history and ecology. By Dennis G. Rainey. Pp. 535-646, 12 plates, 13 figures in text. August 15, 1956. Index. Pp. 647-675. Vol. 9. 1. Speciation of the wandering shrew. By James S. Findley. Pp. 1-68, 18 figures in text. December 10, 1955. 2. Additional records and extensions of ranges of mammals from Utah. By Stephen D, Durrant, M. Raymond Lee, and Richard M. Hansen. Pp. 69-80. December 10, 1955. 3. A new long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis) from northeastern Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker and Howard J. Stains. Pp. 81-84. December 10, 1955. 4. Subspeciation in the meadow mouse, Microtus pennsylvanicus, in Wyoming. By Sydney Anderson. Pp. 85-104, 2 figures in text. May 10, 1956. 5. The condylarth genus Ellipsodon. By Robert W. Wilson. Pp. 105-116, 6 figures in text. May 19, 1956. 6. Additional remains of the multituberculate genus Eucosmodon. By Robert W. Wilson. Pp. 117-123, 10 figures in text. May 19, 1956. 7. Mammals of Coahuila, Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 125-335, 75 figures in text. June 15, 1956. 8. Comments on the taxonomic status of Apodemus peninsulae, with description of a new subspecies from North China. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 337-346, 1 figure in text, 1 table. August 15, 1956. 9. Extensions of known ranges of Mexican bats. By Sydney Anderson. Pp. 347-351. August 15, 1956. 10. A new bat (Genus Leptonycteris) from Coahuila. By Howard J. Stains. Pp. 353-356. January 21, 1957. 11. A new species of pocket gopher (Genus Pappogeomys) from Jalisco, Mexico. By Robert J. Russell. Pp. 357-361. January 21, 1957. 12. Geographic variation in the pocket gopher, Thomomys bottae, in Colorado. By Phillip M. Youngman. Pp. 363-387, 7 figures in text. February 21, 1958. 13. New bog lemming (genus Synaptomys) from Nebraska. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 385-388. May 12, 1958. 14. Pleistocene bats from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 389-396. December 19, 1958. 15. New Subspecies of the rodent Baiomys from Central America. By Robert L. Packard. Pp. 397-404. December 19, 1958. More numbers will appear in volume 9. Vol. 10. 1. Studies of birds killed in nocturnal migration. By Harrison B. Tordoff and Robert M. Mengel. Pp. 1-44, 6 figures in text, 2 tables. September 12, 1956. 2. Comparative breeding behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritima. By Glen E. Woolfenden. Pp. 45-75, 6 plates, 1 figure. December 20, 1956. 3. The forest habitat of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation. By Henry S. Fitch and Ronald R. McGregor. Pp. 77-127, 2 plates, 7 figures in text, 4 tables. December 31, 1956. 4. Aspects of reproduction and development in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster). By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 129-161, 8 figures in text, 4 tables. December 19, 1957. 5. Birds found on the Arctic slope of northern Alaska. By James W. Bee. Pp. 163-211, pls. 9-10, 1 figure in text. March 12, 1958. 6. The wood rats of Colorado: distribution and ecology. By Robert B. Finley, Jr. Pp. 213-552, 34 plates, 8 figures in text, 35 tables. November 7, 1958. More number will appear in volume 10. Vol. 11. 1. The systematic status of the colubrid snake, Leptodeira discolor Günther. By William E. Duellman. Pp. 1-9, 4 figs. July 14, 1958. 2. Natural history of the six-lined racerunner, Cnemidophorus sexlineatus. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 11-62, 9 figs., 9 tables. September 19, 1958. 3. Home ranges, territories, and seasonal movements of vertebrates of the Natural History Reservation. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 63-326, 6 plates, 24 figures in text, 3 tables. December 12, 1958. 4. A new snake of the genus Geophis from Chihuahua, Mexico. By John M. Legler. Pp. 327-334, 2 figures in text. January 28, 1959. 5. A new tortoise, genus Gopherus, from north-central Mexico. By John M. Legler. Pp. 335-343, 2 plates. April 24, 1959. 6. Fishes of Chautauqua, Cowley and Elk counties, Kansas. By Artie L. Metcalf. Pp. 345-400, 2 plates, 2 figures in text, 10 tables. May 6, 1959. More numbers will appear in Volume 11. * * * * * TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES 1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. 2. Passages in bold-italics are surrounded by #bold#. 3. Images and tables have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. 
38425	----	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 13, No. 7, pp. 323-348, pls. 21-24, 2 figs. February 10, 1961 Geographic Variation In the North American Cyprinid Fish, Hybopsis gracilis BY LEONARD J. OLUND AND FRANK B. CROSS UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1961 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Robert W. Wilson Volume 13, No. 7, pp. 323-348, pls. 21-24, 2 figs. Published February 10, 1961 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas PRINTED IN THE STATE PRINTING PLANT TOPEKA, KANSAS 1961 [Illustration] 28-5871 Geographic Variation In the North American Cyprinid Fish, Hybopsis gracilis BY LEONARD J. OLUND AND FRANK B. CROSS CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 325 METHODS, MATERIALS, AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 326 DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIES HYBOPSIS GRACILIS 327 _Hybopsis gracilis gracilis_ 328 _Hybopsis gracilis gulonella_ 330 INTRASPECIFIC VARIATION 333 NATURAL HISTORY 334 _Habitat_ 334 _Associated Species_ 336 _Food_ 338 _Spawning Season_ 338 DISCUSSION 340 LITERATURE CITED 343 INTRODUCTION The flathead chub, _Hybopsis gracilis_ (Richardson), occurs in the Plains Region of Canada and the United States, in four major drainage systems: Mackenzie River, which discharges into the Arctic Ocean; Saskatchewan River, which discharges into Hudson Bay via Nelson River; and Missouri-Mississippi System and Rio Grande, both draining into the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these systems is occupied in part only. In the Mackenzie Basin, _H. gracilis_ has been reported as far north as Fort Good Hope (Walters, 1955:347). Flathead chubs occur in the Saskatchewan Basin from Alberta eastward to Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, but have not been found in other streams that flow into Lake Winnipeg (Red River, Brokenhead River and Whitemouth River) nor in Nelson River downstream from Lake Winnipeg. In the Missouri Basin the species occurs more or less continuously from the high plains adjacent to the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Wyoming down the mainstream of the Missouri River to its mouth, and down the mainstream of the Mississippi River as far as Barfield, Arkansas, but not to the Gulf. The species probably attains its greatest abundance in the Missouri Basin, but it is scarce or absent in tributaries north and east of the Missouri mainstream, in the South Platte Basin, and in the central part of the Platte River in Nebraska. The flathead chub is unknown in the Mississippi Basin above the mouth of the Missouri River, and in the Ohio River Basin above its mouth. In the Arkansas River Basin, records are restricted to (1) the headwaters and tributaries of the Arkansas River from eastern Colorado downstream as far as Garden City, Kansas, (2) the Cimarron River at Kenton, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, and (3) the South Canadian River and tributaries from northeastern New Mexico eastward as far as Norman, McClain County, Oklahoma, but rarely there. Thus, the range in the Arkansas Basin seems to consist of three isolated segments. Likewise, isolated populations exist in the Rio Grande System, where flathead chubs are confined to the upper parts of the Rio Grande and Pecos basins, above the confluence of the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers. Records resulting from introductions have been reported for the Gila River by Koster (1957:62) and from the Snake River, Wyoming, by Simon (1946:72). Six names apply to the flathead chub, the earliest of which is _Cyprinus gracilis_ Richardson (1836:120). Other names have sometimes been accepted as applicable to valid species and/or subspecies, but usage, diagnoses, and stated ranges have been confusingly inconsistent. For most of the past 100 years, _Platygobio_ Gill has been recognized as the appropriate generic name for the flathead chub, but Bailey (1951:192) places _Platygobio_ and other nominal genera of barbeled minnows having short guts, protractile premaxillae, and four teeth (primary row) in the single genus _Hybopsis_ (Agassiz, 1854). Strangely, the orthotype of _Hybopsis_, _H. gracilis_ Agassiz, is a junior synonym of _H. amblops_ (Rafinesque) (Hubbs and Ortenburger, 1929b:66) and is a younger name than _C. gracilis_ Richardson. The purpose of this paper is to redescribe the species and to make known its pattern of geographic variation. Natural history will also be considered, as will habitat, food habits, and breeding season. METHODS, MATERIALS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ten meristic characters and seventeen measurements of body-parts (the latter expressed as proportions of standard length) have been analyzed. They are: number of rays in the dorsal, anal, caudal, pectoral and pelvic fins; number of scales in the lateral line, before the dorsal fin, around the body and around the caudal peduncle; number of vertebrae; body-depth, depth of caudal peduncle, length of caudal peduncle, predorsal length, length of depressed anal and dorsal fins, length of pectoral and pelvic fins, head-length, head-depth, head-width, snout-length, postorbital length of head, length of orbit, interorbital width, length of upper jaw and width of gape. Counts and measurements were made as described by Hubbs and Lagler (1958), with the exception of scales before the dorsal fin, which were counted as the number of vertical scale-rows between the upper margin of the opercular cleft and the origin of the dorsal fin. Vertebral counts, made from roentgenograms, excluded vertebrae in the Weberian complex (presumably always four) but included the hypural vertebra. Counts and measurements were made on series (usually ten fish) from localities throughout the range. To minimize effects of allometric growth, the fish were divided into several length-groups prior to analysis of proportional measurements: 30-50mm, 50-70mm, 70-100mm, 100-150mm, 150-200mm and 200mm standard length and over. The majority of specimens examined were 70-100mm in standard length. Specimens were obtained from the following institutions: University of Alberta (abbreviated UA in the text); Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan (UMMZ); University of Missouri (UM); Montana State College (MSC); University of Oklahoma Museum of Zoology (UOMZ); University of Saskatchewan; Royal Ontario Museum, Division of Zoology, Toronto (ROMZ); University of Wyoming (WU); Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas (KU). Specimens examined are listed in the accounts of the subspecies. We are grateful to D. A. Boag, Reeve M. Bailey, Arthur L. Witt, C. J. D. Brown, Carl Riggs, F. M. Atton, W. B. Scott, and George Baxter, all staff-members of the institutions listed in the immediately preceding paragraph, for placing specimens at our disposal. Mr. William Peters analyzed the contents of stomachs of specimens that were used for study of the food habits. Mr. Artie L. Metcalf assisted in collecting specimens. Drs. Kenneth B. Armitage and E. Raymond Hall offered valued suggestions in connection with the preparation of the manuscript. DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIES =Hybopsis gracilis= (Richardson) Flathead Chub (Synonymy under accounts of subspecies) _Description._--Pharyngeal teeth 2,4-4,2, hooked; dorsal fin of moderate size, falcate, first principal ray longest, extending beyond posterior rays in depressed fin, its origin usually slightly in front of insertion of pelvic fin, approximately equidistant from tip of snout and base of caudal fin, rays 8, rarely 9; pectoral fin strongly falcate, rays 14-20, usually 16-18; pelvic rays 8, rarely 9; anal fin falcate, rays 8, rarely 9; caudal rays 19, rarely 20. Body slightly compressed, nearly terete; head-length 23.1-28.8 per cent of standard length; head broad and flattened, snout subconical, premaxillae protractile, upper lip not medially expanded; mouth subterminal, nearly horizontal, large; a single pair of terminal maxillary barbels; orbit usually 5-7 per cent of standard length; lateral line slightly decurved; intestine short, peritoneum silvery. Color brown or olivaceous dorsally, silver or creamy white ventrally, without distinctive markings; dusky lateral band evident in preserved specimens. Taste-buds present on membrane between first and second principal rays of all fins, and on first to sixth interradial membranes of pectoral fin. On the caudal fin, taste buds between first and second principal rays of upper and lower lobes, though present, are less well developed than on other fins. Moore (1950:88) states that taste buds are numerous on the barbels, cheeks, lips, chin, snout, opercles and branchial membranes, and are present in decreasing numbers over the body. Nuptial tubercles of male minute and densely scattered over top of head and snout; usually present on pectoral rays 1-8, weak when present on rays beyond the eighth, never found beyond the eleventh ray; minute tubercles usually found on dorsal, pelvic and anal fins, rarely on lower scales of caudal peduncle; predorsal scales have a fine peripheral row of tubercles. =Hybopsis gracilis gracilis= (Richardson) (Plate 22) _Cyprinus (Leuciscus) gracilis_ Richardson, 1836:120 and Pl. 78 (original description; Saskatchewan R. at Carlton House). _Coregonus angusticeps_ Cuvier and Valenciennes, 1848:534 (original description; Saskatchewan R.). _Pogonichthys communis_ Girard, 1856:188 (in part; original description); Girard, 1858:247 and plate 55 (in part; characters; synonymy); Suckley, 1860:361 (Milk R.); Cope, 1879:440 (Fort Benton, Mo. R.; Judith R.). _Platygobio gracilis_, Jordan and Gilbert, 1882:219 (in part; characters; synonymy); Graham, 1885:74 (Kansas R.; synonymy); Jordan, 1885:29 (records); Jordan and Meek, 1886:13 (Mo. R., St. Joseph, Mo.); Meek, 1892:245 (characters; Mo. R., Sioux City, Iowa); Eigenmann, 1895:111 (Craig; Poplar; Brandon; Medicine Hat); Meek, 1895:137 (Platte R., Fremont, Neb.); Evermann and Cox, 1896:412 (in part; habitat; synonymy); Jordan and Evermann, 1896:326 (in part; characters; synonymy); Thompson, 1898:214 (Brandon; Saskatchewan R.); Evermann and Goldsborough, 1907:98 (records from Canada); Forbes and Richardson, 1920:170 (characters; habitat; synonymy; records from Illinois; but Fig. 45 is _Hybopsis meeki_ Jordan and Evermann, not _H. gracilis_); Hankinson, 1929:446 (records from North Dakota); Jordan, 1929:76 (in part; characters); Jordan, Evermann and Clark, 1930:136 (in part; synonymy); Churchill and Over, 1933:45 (characters; food; habitat; spawning; records from South Dakota); O'Donnel, 1935:481 (Ohio R., Cairo, Ill.; Miss. R., Chester, Ill.); Hinks, 1943:57 (records from Canada); Clemens, _et al._, 1947:17 (records from Saskatchewan); Dymond, 1947:19 (distribution in Canada); Rawson, 1951:208 (Great Slave Lake; Mackenzie R.); Shoemaker, Pickering and Durham, 1951:84 (Miss. R., Cates, Tenn.; Miss. R., between Hickman and Barfield, Ark.); Wynne-Edwards, 1952:18 (distribution in Canada); Miller and Paetz, 1953:47 (Peace R. at town of Peace River); Walters, 1955:347 (distribution in Canada; dispersal into Canada); Keleher, 1956:265 (Saskatchewan R., Manitoba); Lindsey, 1956:771 (distribution in Canada); Keleher and Kooyman, 1957:110 (Kelsey Lake, Manitoba); Lindsey, 1957:657 (Laird and Peace drainages, British Columbia); Scott, 1958:16 (distribution in Canada); Slastenenko, 1958:7 (distribution in Canada). _Platygobio pallidus_ Jordan and Gilbert, 1882:220 (original description; Ohio R., Cairo, Ill.); Jordan and Evermann, 1896:326 (characters; synonymy; Ohio R., Cairo, Ill.); Jordan, Evermann and Clark, 1930:136 (Ohio R., Cairo, Ill.; synonymy). _Platygobio gracilis communis_, Simon, 1946:71 (in part; characters; food; habitat; spawning); Moore, 1950:87 (habitat; sense organs). _Hybopsis gracilis communis_, Bailey, 1951:192 (record from Iowa; key); Harlan and Speaker, 1951:75 (characters; distribution in Iowa); Hubbs, 1951:9 (habitat; Miss. R.); Harrison and Speaker, 1954:516 (habitat); Personius and Eddy, 1955:42 (habitat; Little Mo. R.). _Hybopsis gracilis_, Cleary, 1956:271 (record from Iowa; distributional map); Bailey, 1956:332 (record from Iowa; key); Harlan and Speaker, 1956:90 (characters; distribution in Iowa); Eddy, 1957:111 (in part; characters; key); Moore, 1957:110 (in part; key); Underhill, 1959:100 (Vermillion R., South Dakota). _Diagnosis._--Post-Weberian vertebrae 40-42, usually 41-42; lateral line scales 50-56; pectoral rays 15-20, usually 17 or more; head-depth 12.3-15.1 per cent of standard length, usually 14.7 per cent or less. See Figs. 1 and 2. _Other characters._--Circumference scale-rows 31-42; predorsal scale-rows 20-29; size large, as much as 246 mm standard length (see Fig. 1 of Pl. 24); head-length 23.4-27.4 per cent of standard length, usually 25.5 per cent or less; postorbital length of head 10.9-13.9 per cent of standard length, usually 12.5 per cent or less; predorsal length 46.0-51.7 per cent of standard length; orbit 5.1-6.8 per cent of standard length; prepelvic length 46.6-52.2 per cent of standard length; caudal peduncle length 17.2-22.1 per cent of standard length. _Range_ (Plate 21).--Mackenzie Basin south from Fort Good Hope; Saskatchewan Basin east to Lake Winnipeg; mainstream of Missouri River and Mississippi River south to Barfield, Arkansas; intergrading with _H. g. gulonella_ in upper Missouri Basin and lower parts of major tributaries to Missouri River in Nebraska and Kansas. _Specimens examined._--Below are listed museum numbers, number of specimens (in parentheses), localities, and year of collection. Collections marked with asterisk (*) are intergrades more closely resembling _H. g. gracilis_ than _H. g. gulonella_. Records from literature are cited in the synonymy. ALBERTA: UA (6), Milk R. at town of Milk River, 1950; UA (3), Athabasca R. at Fort McMurray, 1955; UA (1), Red Deer R. at Steveville, 1952; UA (2), Peace R. at town of Peace River, 1952; UA (11), Peace R. at Dunvegan, 1956; UA (2), Simonette R. tributary to Smoky R., date unknown; ROMZ 17704 (1), Milk R. W town of Milk River, 1955. ARKANSAS: UMMZ 128573 (5), Mississippi Co., Mississippi R., 1939. ILLINOIS: UMMZ 134799 (146), Mississippi R. at Grand Tower, 1936; UMMZ 147045 (8), Mississippi R. at Cairo, 1944. KANSAS: KU 1234 (173), Leavenworth Co., backwater of Missouri R. near Corral Cr., 1940; * KU 1814 (1), Douglas Co., floodpool of Kansas R., below Lakeview, 1951; * KU 1825 (1), Douglas Co., floodpool of Kansas R., 1951; * KU 1841 (56), Douglas Co., Kansas R. at Lawrence, 1951; * KU 1898 (6), Douglas Co., floodpool of Kansas R., 1951; * KU 1911 (5), Douglas Co., floodpool of Kansas R., 1951; * KU 1928 (2), Jefferson Co., floodpool of Kansas R., 1951; KU 3850 (30), Atchison Co., Missouri R., 1957; * KU 4377 (2), Douglas Co., Kansas R. at Lawrence, 1958; * KU 4655 (2), Douglas Co., Kansas R. at Lawrence, 1959. MANITOBA: ROMZ 13834 (1), Kelsey Lake, 25 miles east of the Pas, no date; ROMZ 14500 (25), Saskatchewan R. at the Pas, 1947; ROMZ 16325 (1), Lake Winnipeg, no date. MISSOURI: UMMZ 147126 (130), Mississippi R. at Cliff Cave, 1944. MONTANA: * MSC 1878 (36), Carbon Co., Elbow Cr., 1957; * MSC 1943 (11), Phillips Co., Frenchman Cr., 1957; * MSC 2021 (10), Pondora Co., Marias R., 1955; * MSC 2022 (4), Lewis and Clark Co., Missouri R. below Holter Dam, 1948; * MSC 2052 (6), Gallatin Co., Missouri R. near Trident, 1948; * MSC 3074 (3), Custer Co., Hardy Reservoir, 1952; UMMZ 94146 (34), near mouth of Powder R., 1926. NEBRASKA: * KU 4158 (9), Holt Co., Niobrara R. 6 mi. N Midway, 1958; * UM (field no. 59-81) (56), Butler Co.-Colfax Co. line, Platte R. 1.5 mi. S Schuyler, 1959; * UM (field no. 59-74) (5), Dodge Co., Platte R. 1 mi. S North Bend, 1959; UMMZ 134826 (46), Otoe Co., Missouri R. 1.5 mi. E Minersville, 1940; UMMZ 134799 (67), Cass Co., Missouri R., 1940; UMMZ 135341 (43), Knox Co., Missouri R. 2 mi. NE Niobrara, 1940; UMMZ 135818 (95), Thurston Co., Missouri R. NE Macy, 1941. NORTHWEST TERRITORY: ROMZ 13627 (1), Great Slave Lake, no date; ROMZ 13628 (1), Great Slave Lake, no date. SASKATCHEWAN: * ROMZ 3885 (2), Sucker Cr., trib. Cypress Lake, 1927; ROMZ 14368 (2), South Saskatchewan R. at Yorath Island, 1941; ROMZ 16620 (5), South Saskatchewan R. at Saskatoon, 1953; KU 5126 (5), South Saskatchewan R. at Birson Ferry, 1957; KU 5127 (3), South Saskatchewan R. at Leader, 1957; KU 5128 (2), North Saskatchewan R. at Cecil Ferry, 1957; KU 5129 (1), South Saskatchewan R. at Clarkboro Ferry, 1957. SOUTH DAKOTA: * KU 4961 (9), Haakon Co., Bad R. at Midland, 1959; * KU 4963 (17), Washabaugh Co., White R. 6 mi. SW Belvidere, 1959; * UMMZ 120362 (168), White R. 6.5 mi. S Kadoka, 1934; * UMMZ 127484 (11), Todd Co., Little White R., 1934; UMMZ 127488 (29), Charles Mix Co., Missouri R., 1934; * UMMZ 127678 (32), Cheyenne R., E Wasta, 1939; UMMZ 166762 (21), Hughes Co., Missouri R. 3 mi. NE Pierre, 1952; * UMMZ 166803 (91), Harding Co., Little Missouri R. at Camp Crook, 1952; UMMZ 166845 (121), Carson Co.-Walworth Co. line, Missouri R. 2.5 mi. N Mobridge, 1952; UMMZ 166985 (61), Yankton Co., Missouri R. at Yankton, 1952. WYOMING: * WU 2073 (6), Washakie Co., Big Horn R. at Worland, 1956. =Hybopsis gracilis gulonella= (Cope) (Plate 23) _Pogonichthys communis_ Girard, 1856:188 (in part; original description); Girard, 1858:247 (in part; characters; synonymy); Cope and Yarrow, 1875:653 (characters; Pueblo, Colo.). _Pogonichthys (Platygobio) gulonellus_ Cope, 1864:277 (original description; near Bridger's Pass, Wyo.). _Platygobio gulonellus_ Cope, 1865:85 ("Platte R., near Fort Riley" [Fort Riley is on Kansas R., not Platte R.; Cope's specimens probably are from Platte drainage, on basis of known distributions of other species reported]). _Ceratichthys physignathus_ Cope and Yarrow, 1875:651 (original description; Arkansas R., Pueblo, Colo.). _Platygobio communis_, Gill, 1876:408 (characters; Platte Valley; Green River, Utah [the latter probably erroneous]). _Couesius physignathus_, Jordan and Gilbert, 1882:219 (characters; synonymy; Arkansas R., Pueblo, Colo.); Jordan, 1885:29 (records). _Platygobio gracilis_, Jordan and Gilbert, 1882:219 (in part; characters; synonymy); Cragin, 1885:109 (Garden City, Kans.); Gilbert, 1885:98 (Garden City, Kans.); Jordan, 1885:29 (records); Evermann and Cox, 1896:412 (in part; habitat; synonymy); Jordan and Evermann, 1896:326 (in part; characters; synonymy); Ortenburger and Hubbs, 1927:125 (Canadian R., Norman, Okla.); Hubbs, 1927:75 (parasites; teratology; records from New Mexico); Hubbs and Ortenburger, 1929a:28 (S. Canadian R., Durham, Okla.); Jordan, 1929:76 (in part; characters); Jordan, Evermann and Clark, 1930:136 (in part; synonymy). _Platygobio physignathus_, Jordan and Evermann, 1896:325 (characters; synonymy; records from upper Arkansas R.); Ellis, 1914:62 (characters; synonymy; records from Colorado); Cockerell, 1927:123 (distribution in Colorado); Jordan, Evermann and Clark, 1930:136 (synonymy; records from upper Arkansas R.). _Platygobio gracilis communis_, Simon, 1946:71 (in part; characters; food; habitat; spawning). _Platygobio gracilis gulonellus_, Simon, 1946:72 (characters; records from Wyoming; Arkansas R.). _Platygobio gracilis:_ _communis_ � _gulonellus_, Simon, 1946:92 (North Platte R., Neb.-Wyo. line). _Platygobio gracilis physignathus_, Moore, 1950:87 (habitat; sense organs). _Hybopsis gracilis communis_, Beckman, 1952:50 (characters; food; habitat); Cross, Dalquest and Lewis, 1955:222 (records from Texas). _Hybopsis gracilis physignathus_, Beckman, 1952:50 (characters; habitat). _Hybopsis gracilis_, Eddy, 1957:111 (in part; characters; key); Koster, 1957:61 (characters; habitat; spawning; food); Moore, 1957:110 (in part; key); Smith, 1958:177 (fossil record; Doby Springs, Okla.). _Diagnosis._--Post-Weberian vertebrae 36-38, rarely 39; lateral line scales 42-54, usually less than 50; pectoral rays 14-19, usually fewer than 17; head-depth 13.5-18.0 per cent of standard length, usually 14.8 per cent or more. See Figures 1 and 2. _Other characters._--Circumference scale-rows 30-40, slightly fewer than in _H. g. gracilis_; predorsal scale-rows 17-27, somewhat fewer than in specimens from Canada, but much the same as specimens from the Missouri-Mississippi system; size small, rarely as much as 130 mm standard length (Fig. 1 of Pl. 24); head-length 24.0-28.0 per cent of standard length, usually more than 25.5 per cent; postorbital length of head 11.2-14.4 per cent of standard length, usually more than 12.5 per cent (both characters illustrate the larger head of _H. g. gulonella_); predorsal length 46.4-52.7 per cent of standard length, longer than in the other subspecies; orbit 5.0-6.6 per cent of standard length; prepelvic length 47.4-53.7 per cent of standard length, longer than in _H. g. gracilis_; caudal peduncle length 17.1-22.7 per cent of standard length, essentially the same in both subspecies. The label on types of this subspecies, in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, states merely "near Bridger's Pass, Wyo., Expedition of 1856, Dr. W. A. Hammond" (letter from Dr. James Böhlke to Cross, dated Jan. 27, 1960). Dr. Hammond was a surgeon who also collected scientific specimens, assigned to an expedition under the command of Lt. F. T. Bryant. Bryant's log is recorded in the Proceedings of the 35th Congress (1858:455-481). The site at which these specimens were taken cannot be ascertained from the log, but study of it is helpful in indicating the probable locations. The expedition left Fort Riley on June 21, 1856, on the following route: up Republican River; across to Fort Kearney on Platte River; west along Platte River to S. Platte River; up S. Platte River to Pole (Lodgepole) Creek; Pine-Bluffs (Neb.-Wyo. line); across East Fork to West Fork of Laramie River; Cooper's Creek; West Fork of Medicine Bow; Pass Creek and down canyon of Pass Creek; across N. Platte River; up Sage Creek; on August 15, camped on Muddy Creek, tributary to Green River (first record of fish, trout); back to Sage Creek; August 19-21, camped on island in North Platte River; to Pass Creek; Elk Creek; west branch of Medicine Bow; Aspen Creek; West Fork of Laramie River; August 29, to East Laramie River where a large supply of fish was caught; tributary of Cache la Poudre then downstream to mouth of this river; down South Platte River past mouth of Crow Creek and Beaver Creek; left South Platte River 14 miles below mouth of Beaver Creek, toward Republican River; down Rock Creek to Arikaree; down Arikaree to Republican River and down the Republican to Fort Riley. Mention is made of fish only twice in the entire log. We doubt that Muddy Creek or the East Laramie River is the type locality of _P. gulonellus_, because the flathead chub has not since been found in either of these streams. The most likely collection site for _P. gulonellus_ is the North Platte River near the mouth of Sage Creek, in what is now Carbon County, Wyoming, where the expedition was camped for three days. This species is known to occur in the North Platte River, and since the type locality is reported as "near Bridger's Pass" this is the probable location. _Range_ (Plate 21).--Upper mainstream and tributaries of Rio Grande, Pecos, Arkansas and North Platte Rivers; isolated populations in tributaries of the upper Missouri River. _Specimens examined._--Below are listed museum numbers, number of specimens (in parentheses), localities and year of collection. Series marked by asterisks (*) are intergrades tending toward _H. g. gulonella_. Literature reports are cited in the synonymy. COLORADO: KU 4742 (162), Bent Co., Purgatoire R. at Las Animas, 1959; KU 4748 (105), Pueblo Co., Arkansas R. at west edge of Pueblo, 1959; KU 4758 (50), Fremont Co., Arkansas R. at Florence, 1959; KU 4769 (64), Fremont Co., Beaver Cr., 1959. KANSAS: KU 2648 (2), Finney Co., Arkansas R., 1958; KU 2858 (13), Finney Co., Arkansas R. at Garden City, 1951; KU 3964 (12), Kearney Co., Arkansas R., 1958; * KU 4041 (2), Cheyenne Co., Republican R., 1958; KU 4732 (30), Hamilton Co., Arkansas R. at Kendall, 1959; * KU 4868 (1), Kansas-Nebraska line, Republican R. 1.5 mi. S. Hardy, 1959. MONTANA: * MSC 1960 (8), Powder River Co., E. Fork of Powder R., 1957; MSC 2010 (64), Dawson Co., Redwater R., 1957. NEBRASKA: * KU 2140 (2), Dawson Co., Platte R., at Gothenburg, 1931; * KU 4863 (20), Furnas Co., Republican R. at Cambridge, 1959; * UM (field no. 59-49) (74), Scotts Bluff Co., North Platte R. at Morrill, 1959; * UMMZ 133918 (17), Dixon Co., Logan Cr., 1939; * UMMZ 134813 (31), North Platte R., Neb.-Wyo. line, 1941; * UMMZ 135084 (14), Harlan Co., Beaver Cr. 0.25 mi. S Stamford, 1940; * UMMZ 135200 (41), Scotts Bluff Co., North Platte R. 1 mi. SE Henry, 1940; * UMMZ 135280 (59), Cherry Co., Niobrara R. 3 mi. SE Valentine, 1940; * UMMZ 135700 (25), Buffalo Co., South Loup R. 8 mi. N Miller, 1941; * UMMZ 135778 (54), Thurston Co., Logan Cr. 2.5 mi. W Pender, 1941; * UMMZ 135786 (25), Dixon Co., Logan Cr. 0.5 mi. NW Wakefield, 1941. NEW MEXICO: KU 4219 (50), Colfax Co., Cimarron Cr. at Springer, 1958; KU 4235 (19), Mora Co., Sapello Cr. near Sapello, 1958; KU 4245 (157), Bernalillo Co., Rio Grande 12 mi. S Bernalillo, 1958; KU 4255 (22), Rio Arriba Co., Rio Grande at Velarde, 1958; KU 4266 (53), Sandoval Co., Rio Grande 2 mi. N Cochiti Pueblo, Marcelino Baca bridge, 1958; KU 4269 (91), San Miguel Co., Pecos R., 3 mi. S Pecos, 1958; KU 4274 (25), Sandoval Co., Jemez R. at Jemez Canyon Dam, 1958; KU 4294 (113), Guadalupe Co., Pecos R. 3 mi. N. Dilia, 1958; UMMZ 94897 (146), Pecos R. at San Tuan, 1926; UMMZ 94898 (1), Pecos R. at San Juan, 1926; UMMZ 118209 (68), Sapello Cr. at Sapello, 1937; UMMZ 133131 (7), Pecos R. 0.5 mi. N Santa Rosa, 1940; UMMZ 133136 (1), Rio Grande at Albuquerque, 1940. OKLAHOMA: KU 2329 (1), Cleveland Co.-McClain Co. line, S. Canadian R., 1952; UOMZ 26355 (10), Cimarron Co., Cimarron R. 2 mi. N. Kenton, 1957; UOMZ 5917 (2), Cleveland Co., S. Canadian R. S Norman, 1925. TEXAS: KU 3409 (18), Hemphill Co., Canadian R. at town of Canadian, 1955. WYOMING: WU 2084 (4), Platte Co., N. Platte R. at Glendo, 1956; WU 2095 (3), Converse Co., N. Platte R. at Douglas, 1956; UMMZ 104064 (58), N. Platte R. below Guernsey Dam, 1937; * UMMZ 114642 (7), drainage ditch in Wind R. drainage, 1936; * UMMZ 114644 (20), drainage ditch at Riverton, 1936; * UMMZ 127518 (63), Weston Co., Beaver Cr., 1934; * UMMZ 127681 (20), Big Horn Co., Big Horn R. tributary, 1939; * UMMZ 136488 (9), Crook Co., Belle Fourche R. 15 mi. N Devil's Tower, 1941; * WU 2122 and two uncatalogued series at WU (13), Belle Fourche R., no precise locality or date; UMMZ 159969 (14), Natrona Co., N. Platte R. 2 mi. E Casper, 1950. INTRASPECIFIC VARIATION Two subspecies of _H. gracilis_ are recognized by us: one northern and eastern, characteristically inhabiting large rivers (_H. g. gracilis_), and one southern and western, characteristically inhabiting small streams (_H. g. gulonella_). Other scientific names that have been applied to this fish in the past are listed in the synonymy. _H. g. gulonella_ is a chubby, deep-bodied fish, whereas _H. g. gracilis_ is long and slender. The head of the creek subspecies is deeper and longer than that of _H. g. gracilis_, being rounded anteriorly when seen in sideview. The head of the large-river subspecies is acutely wedge-shaped in profile. _H. g. gracilis_ has a larger orbit than _H. g. gulonella_. Fins of _H. g. gracilis_ are more strongly falcate than those of the other subspecies. _H. g. gracilis_ has a greater number of lateral line scales, pectoral rays and post-Weberian vertebrae than the creek subspecies. The large-river subspecies attains much larger size than does the creek subspecies (Plate 24). Except in areas of intergradation, complete separation of the two subspecies can be made on the basis of lateral line scales, pectoral rays, post-Weberian vertebrae and head-depth. The regressions of head-depth on standard length in _H. g. gracilis_ from the Saskatchewan River (several localities) and in _H. g. gulonella_ from Beaver Creek, Arkansas River Drainage (KU 4769) are shown in Plate 24. Although values for the largest specimens of _H. g. gracilis_ are omitted from Plate 24, the regression remains essentially linear to standard lengths of approximately 250 mm. On the basis of head-depth alone, separation of the two subspecies is possible in specimens larger than 40 mm. Similar results were obtained by using the regression of postorbital length on standard length, and could have been obtained by using other proportional measurements. NATURAL HISTORY _Habitat_ The species inhabits alkaline streams with shifting sand bottoms where the waterlevel fluctuates considerably with heavy rains and melting snow. The flathead chub is found in silty water and often is the predominant species in streams that have high turbidity. The remarkable ability of this fish to withstand exceedingly high turbidity is illustrated by its predominance in the Little Missouri River, which has an average concentration of suspended silt two and one-half times that of the Missouri River at Kansas City (Personius and Eddy, 1955:42). [Illustration: FIGURE 1. Graphic analysis of lateral line scales, pectoral rays and post-Weberian vertebrae in _Hybopsis gracilis_. In each symbol, horizontal line = range, vertical line = mean, open rectangle = one standard deviation on each side of mean, black rectangle = twice the standard error on each side of mean. _H. g. gracilis_ is found in large rivers throughout its range, occasionally migrating into smaller streams, especially in the spawning season. It prefers the main channel of rivers in moderate to strong current. All series examined are from elevations lower than 3,000 feet. Numbers to left of symbols = number of specimens examined from that locality; combined collections indicated by brackets. The dash-lines represent drainage patterns of rivers in which this species occurs.] _H. g. gulonella_ occupies small rivers and creeks, preferring pools with moderate currents. In fall, dense concentrations of this subspecies have been found in small pools, where brush, driftwood or other debris deflects the current and prevents filling with drifting sand. Hundreds of flathead chubs were collected in such pools in the Purgatoire and Arkansas rivers. Specimens were also collected with ease in Beaver Creek, Colorado, from pools with murky water and slight flow, over bottoms of gravel and bedrock. No brush or other debris was near the pools. In each case the streams carried little water, although they undoubtedly carry greater volumes of water in spring and early summer after rains and spring thaws. The preferred bottom-type for this subspecies seems to be gently shifting sand. _H. g. gulonella_ is found in warm-water streams, whereas _H. g. gracilis_ occurs in cooler water. The southwestern subspecies was taken in August in the Mora River drainage at Sapello (temperatures above 80° F.) but not at Mora (temperatures below 70° F.). In the Purgatoire River, a thriving population was found where the water temperature was 92° F., on September 6, 1959. In the Arkansas and Pecos rivers and the Rio Grande this subspecies is most abundant below the mountainous parts of the stream-courses, but at elevations higher than 4,000 feet on the plains. _Associated Species_ [Illustration: FIGURE 2. Graphic analysis of head-depth, postorbital length of head and predorsal length of _Hybopsis gracilis_, expressed as thousandths of standard length. Numbers in parenthesis = number of specimens examined from each locality. In each symbol, horizontal line = range, vertical line = mean, open rectangle = one standard deviation on each side of mean, black rectangle = twice the standard error on each side of mean. The dash-lines represent drainage patterns of rivers in which this species occurs. All measurements are of specimens 70 to 100 mm in standard length.] In the Pecos and Arkansas basins, species commonly taken with _H. g. gulonella_ are _Catostomus commersonnii_, _Hybognathus placita_, _Notropis lutrensis lutrensis_, _Notropis stramineus missuriensis_, _Pimophales promelas_, and _Campostoma anomalum plumbeum_. The only spiny-rayed fishes that we have found with _H. g. gulonella_ are _Lepomis cyanellus_ and _L. humilis_, both of which are scarce. Associates of _H. g. gracilis_ include the same species, plus other ostariophysan fishes such as species of _Carpiodes_, _Ictiobus_, and silt-adapted species of _Hybopsis_ and _Notropis_. We failed to find the flathead chub at any of 11 localities in the South Platte drainage, where we collected in September, 1959. Dr. George Baxter, of the Department of Zoology, University of Wyoming, told us that he has never found _H. gracilis_ in that drainage. The fauna of the South Platte includes _Catostomus catostomus_, _Semotilus atromaculatus_, _Hybopsis biguttata_, _Hybognathus hankinsoni_, _Notropis cornutus frontalis_, _Etheostoma nigrum_ and _E. exile_--species rarely if ever found with _H. gracilis_. Ecologically, _H. g. gulonella_ seems to be the counterpart of _Semotilus atromaculatus_ in streams where the latter species is absent. Observations of _H. g. gulonella_ in the Purgatoire River indicated that loosely-organized groups of flathead chubs congregated one to four inches above the bottom of pools, and near or under protective cover such as roots of vegetation or debris lodged against shore. Individuals moved about independently within the group (rather than as schools), and occasionally rose to the surface, perhaps for food. _Food_ The flathead chub is chiefly carnivorous, but its food includes some aquatic vegetation (Table 1). Most organisms found in specimens (both subspecies) were terrestrial insects (Coleoptera, Diptera, Orthoptera); all insects were adult stages, except those designated as larvae in Table 1. Roundworms probably were parasites, rather than food. Hubbs (1927:76) states that the food of young flathead chubs that were obtained from the Arkansas River System in New Mexico consisted "almost entirely of crustaceans (small ostracods and cladocerans to the exclusion of all else but an occasional larval or adult insect, etc.)." _Spawning Season_ Specimens of _H. g. gulonella_ that have been examined reach sexual maturity at approximately 65 mm standard length. Most specimens of _H. g. gracilis_ less than 85 mm in standard length are immature, but larger specimens probably are mature. The spawning season is in late summer, beginning in July and extending into September. Specimens from the Peace River, collected on August 10, 1952, include females that were mostly spent and tuberculate males. Males and females in spawning condition were collected in the Milk River in August of 1955. A large prespawning female was obtained in Red Deer River in June of 1952. A male from Fort McMurray had fairly well developed tubercles on August 9, 1955. A prespawning female was taken from the Saskatchewan River at Clarkboro Ferry on June 7, 1957. Tuberculate males were collected in the Powder River on June 30, 1957. Specimens from the White River in South Dakota, collected on July 7, 1934, include tuberculate males. The specimens discussed above are _H. g. gracilis_ or intergrades tending toward that subspecies. Specimens of _H. g. gulonella_ collected in the Arkansas River at Pueblo and Florence, Colorado, on September 7, 1959, include some tuberculate males, although most females are spent. On August 8, 1957, a series of flathead chubs that includes tuberculate males was collected in the Redwater River, Montana. In the Pecos River on August 25, 1958, spawning seemingly had been completed, although a few males still bore tubercles. TABLE 1. ORGANISMS FOUND IN STOMACHS OF HYBOPSIS GRACILIS FROM VARIOUS LOCATIONS, EXPRESSED AS PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL VOLUME. A: S. Saskatchewan R., Clarkboro Ferry, Sask. B: Milk R., Alberta C: Missouri R., S. D. D: Missouri R., Neb. E: Arkansas R., Fremont Co., Colo. F: Arkansas R., Pueblo Co., Colo. G: Pecos R., San Miguel Co., N. M. ==============================+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+===== | A | B | C | D | E | F | G ------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- No. specimens examined | 1 | 7 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | | | | | | | No. specimens containing food | 1 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 7 ------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- KIND OF ORGANISM | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Aphasmidia |10.0 |00.7 | |03.0 | | | Arthropoda | | | | | | | Araneae | | | | | | | Argiopidae | | | | |04.0 | | Theridiidae | | | | |04.0 | | Insecta | | | | | | | Ephemeroptera (nymph) | | | | | | | Baetidae | |05.0 | | | | | Heptagenidae | |08.0 | | | | | Hemiptera | | | | | | | Corixidae |35.0 |00.3 | | | | | Hymenoptera | | | | | | | Formicidae | |21.0 | | | | |60.0 Coleoptera | | | | | | | Staphylinidae | |01.7 |07.0 | | | | Scolytidae | |13.3 |70.0 | | | | Tenebrionidae | |05.7 | | |70.0 | | Carabidae | |05.7 | | | |01.0 | Curculionidae | |01.0 | | | | | Coccinellidae | | | | | | |09.0 Trichoptera (case) | |01.7 | | | | | Diptera | | | | | | | Mymaridae | |00.3 | | | | | Empididae | |01.3 | | | | | Cecidomyiidae | | | | |04.0 | | Trachinidae | |00.7 | | | | | Simulidae | |06.7 |20.0 | | | | Tabanidae | | | | |06.0 | | Chironomidae | | | | |06.0 | | Not identified to family| |01.0 | | | | | Orthoptera | | | | | | | Locustidae | |07.7 | | | | | Tettigoniidae | | |03.0 |70.0 | | |09.0 Tetrigidae | | | | |06.0 | | Homoptera | | | | | | | Fulgoridae | |05.0 | | | | |01.0 Insect egg | |00.7 | | | | | Plants | | | | | | | Cyanophyceae | | 09.0| | | | 99.0| 20.0 Cyperaceae | | 02.0| | | | | 01.0 Zannichellia palustris | | 00.3| | | | | Vascular remains | 55.0| | | 27.0| | | | | | | | | | Miscellaneous | | | | | | | Sand | | 00.7| | | | | Pharyngeal tooth | | 00.3| | | | | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- Total (%) |100.0| 99.8|100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0|100.0 ------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- Spawning apparently occurs when river levels recede to the seasonal lows. In late summer, temperatures of these rivers probably are maximal, their turbidities are reduced, and their sandy bottoms are stable. Underhill (1959) reports that this species is rare in the Vermillion River, a northeastern tributary of the Missouri River, except in autumn when large numbers occur near the mouth of the river. We suspect that this is associated with spawning. [Illustration: PLATE 21 Distribution of collections examined.] [Illustration: PLATE 22 _Hybopsis gracilis gracilis._ Missouri River, Thurston County, northeast of Macy, Nebraska. Largest specimen 87.5 mm standard length.] [Illustration: PLATE 23 _Hybopsis gracilis gulonella._ Pecos River, San Miguel County, 3 miles south of town of Pecos, New Mexico. Largest specimen 91 mm standard length.] [Illustration: PLATE 24 FIG. 1. Top: _Hybopsis gracilis gracilis_, 230.0 mm standard length, one of the largest specimens examined. Missouri River, Carson County-Walworth County line, 3 miles northeast of Mobridge, South Dakota, at mouth of Grand River. Bottom: _Hybopsis gracilis gulonella_, 121.6 mm standard length, the largest specimen examined of this subspecies. Beaver Creek, Fremont County, 10 miles northeast of Florence, Colorado, on Highway 115.] [Illustration: FIG. 2. Regression of head-depth on standard length in _Hybopsis gracilis gracilis_ from the Saskatchewan River, and in _H. g. gulonella_ from Beaver Creek, Arkansas River Drainage (KU 4769).] DISCUSSION _Hybopsis gracilis_ is highly variable in several morphological characteristics, including size and shape of head, body, and fins, and number of scales, vertebrae, and fin-rays. The variations are correlated in a way that indicates the existence of two subspecies. One of these, _H. g. gracilis_, attains large size, and has 1) a slender, streamlined body, 2) a depressed head that is acutely wedge-shaped in profile, 3) strongly falcate fins with the dorsal and pelvic fins originating anteriorly, and 4) many scales, vertebrae, and pectoral fin-rays. The second subspecies, for which _H. g. gulonella_ is the oldest applicable name, is small, and has 1) a deep, chubby body, 2) head convex in dorsal contour (less depressed than in _H. g. gracilis_), 3) fins less falcate than in the latter subspecies, with the dorsal and pelvic fins originating more posteriorly, and 4) fewer scales, vertebrae, and pectoral fin-rays than _H. g. gracilis_. These differences are consistently expressed throughout the size-ranges of the subspecies, and in series collected at the same or nearby localities in several different years. Considerable variability was found in features other than those mentioned above, but individual variation among specimens from the same locality and adjacent localities is so great that none is diagnostic of subspecies. For example, orbital size and length of fins (but not their falcate shape) are variables that have little diagnostic value, although both features seem to vary in clinal fashion, with the higher values in the north. Variation in _H. gracilis_, as shown in the graphic analysis (Figs. 1 and 2) and distribution map (Plate 21), presents two clines: a north-south cline and a large-river to small-river (mainly east-west) cline. The absence of _H. gracilis_ from certain portions of river systems is a matter of concern. The species has not been found in the lower Arkansas River and the Rio Grande, nor in sandy tributary creeks in eastern Kansas and Missouri that appear to provide suitable habitat. It has already been noted that _H. g. gulonella_ seems to be the ecological equivalent of _Semotilus atromaculatus_ in streams in which _S. atromaculatus_ is not found. _S. atromaculatus_ occurs in creeks of eastern Kansas and Missouri, and may provide interspecific competition that prevents establishment of the flathead chub in these creeks. Regardless of cause, the gaps in distribution of _H. gracilis_ tend to limit gene flow. Many characters used in the separation of the two subspecies are known to be influenced by environmental conditions, especially temperature. Hubbs (1922, 1926, 1941), Schultz (1927), Vladykov (1934), Tåning (1952) and Weisel (1955), among others, have pointed out a correlation between temperature (or developmental rate of fish) and the number of vertebrae, scales, and fin-rays. Likewise, Martin (1949) and Hart (1952) have shown that the proportions of some body-parts vary in response to temperature during early development. In _H. gracilis_, the general nature of the clines found in a majority of characters (but not all characters) suggests a temperature influence. However, temperature-dependent variability that has so far been demonstrated experimentally in fishes is generally of lesser magnitude than the differences distinguishing _H. g. gracilis_ and _H. g. gulonella_. To our knowledge, the most extreme differences that have been induced by modification of temperature are those reported for _Salmo trutta_ by Tåning (1952:181-182), who states: "Shock treatment produced by especially great changes in temperature (_c._ 10-14° C), especially during the super-sensitive period [of somatic differentiation that fixes vertebral number] may produce ... a difference of 3-4 vertebrae ... in offspring of the same parents." The difference cited approximates that which distinguishes natural populations of _H. g. gracilis_ and _H. g. gulonella_. Although we cannot assume that the sensitivity of the brown trout is the same as that of the flathead chub, the causative conditions in Tåning's study could scarcely be expected in nature; furthermore, it seems significant that extremely high (as well as extremely low) mean numbers of scales and vertebrae were found at southern localities, and that low mean numbers of scales and vertebrae were found as far north as Wyoming and Montana. We think it likely that temperature does influence the expression of characters in _H. gracilis_, directly in individual development, and indirectly as a selective mechanism in the evolutionary process. The extent to which each kind of influence exists can be proved only by experimental work with both subspecies, which we hope to undertake at a later date. Other environmental factors that may have selective influence in this species are rate of current, volume of flow, and turbidity. Interaction of these environmental factors could result in genetic fixation of morphological characters through natural selection. The characters that distinguish _H. g. gracilis_ from _H. g. gulonella_ seem adaptive to life in large rivers and small streams. Evidence that these characters are under limited, direct environmental influence is found among populations in the Arkansas River System. Although populations in the Arkansas River have no continuity with populations of _H. g. gracilis_, upstream-downstream variations like those found in other river systems are apparent, but in lesser degree. The direction of variation in the Arkansas River is the reverse of that in the Platte and other tributaries of the Missouri River. For example, the populations farthest upstream (Florence, Pueblo) have slightly higher mean numbers of lateral line scales than do populations from Kansas, downstream. A remarkable effect of extreme parasitism in _H. gracilis_ has been described by Hubbs (1927). Very young chubs that harbored numerous tapeworms (_Proteocephalus_) had unusually large numbers of lateral-line scales, large eyes, short snouts, small fins, small mouths lacking barbels, and coalescent nares (internarial bridge weak or absent). Some of these abnormalities presumably resulted from retention of larval characteristics of the fish, correlated with the degree of infestation by tapeworms. No teratological adults were found, indicating that severe infections prevent survival to maturity. _H. g. gracilis_ occurs in three separate river systems (Mackenzie, Saskatchewan, Missouri-Mississippi) from latitude 36° N to 66° N, and longitude 89° W to 123° W. _H. g. gulonella_ exists as several seemingly-isolated populations in the upper parts of the Rio Grande, Pecos, South Canadian, Cimarron, Arkansas, Platte, and upper Missouri basins, from latitude 35° N to 48° N, and longitude 97° W to 100° W. There is evidence of high mobility on the part of both subspecies, based on irregularity of their occurrence in certain localities. Many collections have been made in the Cimarron River in the vicinity of Kenton, Oklahoma, from 1925 to the present, but only one of these (in 1957) contained flathead chubs. Bait dealers who seine the South Canadian River in Dewey County, Oklahoma, have taken flathead chubs in abundance in some seasons, but not at all in others. Seasonal variation in abundance in the lower Vermillion River, South Dakota (Underhill, 1959:100) has been cited, and the number collected in the lower Kansas River near Lawrence has varied similarly. Many rivers occupied by _H. g. gulonella_ (and by intergrades) are intermittent, and in some years their sand-filled channels become wholly dry for many miles. These factors probably promote mixing of the two subspecies, and may account, over long periods of time, for the wide dispersal of _H. g. gulonella_ in the Missouri Basin. Flathead chubs are known from Pleistocene beds at Doby Springs, Oklahoma (the Doby Springs local fauna) (Smith, 1958:177). Drainage connections between the Arkansas, Kansas and Platte river systems existed in Kansan and Nebraskan times (Frye and Leonard, 1952:189-190). Populations that have subsequently become isolated in those rivers could be accounted for in this way. Flathead chubs could have entered the Rio Grande-Pecos system by stream-capture from the Arkansas System, in northeastern New Mexico or southern Colorado. _H. g. gracilis_ undoubtedly entered the Saskatchewan and Mackenzie basins from the upper Missouri Basin, following glacial retreat (Walters, 1955:347). LITERATURE CITED AGASSIZ, L. 1854. Notice of a collection of fishes from the southern bend of the Tennessee River, in the state of Alabama. Amer. Jour. Sci. and Arts, 17(50):297-308 and 353-365. BAILEY, REEVE M. 1951. A check-list of the fishes of Iowa, with keys for identification. _In_ Iowa fish and fishing, by James R. Harlan and Everett B. Speaker. 1st edition. Iowa Cons. Comm. 185-237. 1956. A check-list of the fishes of Iowa, with keys for identification. _In_ Iowa fish and fishing, by James R. Harlan and Everett B. Speaker. 3rd edition. Iowa Cons. Comm. 325-377. BECKMAN, WILLIAM C. 1952. Guide to the fishes of Colorado. Univ. Colorado Mus., 11:1-110. BRYANT, FRANCIS T. 1858. Report of Francis T. Bryant to Col. J. J. Abert, Chief, Corps Top. Engs., USA. _In_ Executive Documents of the Senate of the U. S., First Session, 35th Congress, and Special Session of 1858. 3:455-481. CHURCHILL, EDWARD P., and WILLIAM H. OVER. 1933. Fishes of South Dakota. South Dakota Dept. Game and Fish. 1-87. CLEARY, ROBERT E. 1956. The distribution of the fishes of Iowa. _In_ Iowa fish and fishing, by James R. Harlan and Everett B. Speaker. 3rd edition. Iowa Cons. Comm. 267-324. CLEMENS, W. A., A. MACDONALD, H. MCALLISTER, A. MANSFIELD and D. RAWSON. 1947. The fishes of Saskatchewan. _In_ Report of the Royal Commission on the fisheries of the province of Saskatchewan. 1-131. COCKERELL, THEODORA D. A. 1927. Zoology of Colorado. Univ. Colorado, Boulder. 1-262. COPE, E. D. 1864. Partial catalogue of the cold-blooded Vertebrata of Michigan. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, part 1:276-285. 1865. Partial catalogue of the cold-blooded Vertebrata of Michigan. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, part 2:78-88. 1879. A contribution to the zoology of Montana. Amer. Nat., 13:432-441. COPE, E. D., and H. C. YARROW. 1875. Report upon the collections of fishes made in portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, during the years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874. _In_ Report upon geographical and geological explorations and surveys, west of the one hundredth meridian, in charge of First Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler. Volume V, Zoology. 635-703. CRAGIN, F. W. 1885. Preliminary list of Kansas fishes. Bull. Washburn Lab. Nat. Hist., 1(3): 105-111. CROSS, FRANK B., WALTER W. DALQUEST and LEO LEWIS. 1955. First records from Texas of _Hybopsis gracilis_ and _Notropis girardi_, with comments on geographic variation of the latter. Texas Jour. Sci., 7(2):222-226. CUVIER, M. LE BON and M. A. VALENCIENNES. 1848. Histoire naturelle des poissons. Libraire de la Société Géologique de France, Paris, 21:1-536. DYMOND, J. R. 1947. A list of the freshwater fish of Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, with keys. Royal Ontario Mus. Zool., Toronto, 1:1-36. EDDY, SAMUEL. 1957. How to know the freshwater fishes. Wm. C. Brown Co., Dubuque, Iowa. 1-253. EIGENMANN, CARL H. 1895. Results of explorations in western Canada and the northwestern United States. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 14:101-132. ELLIS, MAX M. 1914. Fishes of Colorado. Univ. Colorado Studies, 11(1):1-136. EVERMANN, BARTON W., and ULYSSES O. COX. 1896. Report upon the fishes of the Missouri River drainage. Govnt. Printing Office, Washington. 325-429. EVERMANN, BARTON WARREN, and EDMUND LEE GOLDSBOROUGH. 1907. A check list of the freshwater fishes of Canada. Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington. 20:89-120. FORBES, STEPHEN ALFRED, and ROBERT EARL RICHARDSON. 1920. The fishes of Illinois. Illinois Nat. Hist. Survey. 1-357. FRYE, J. C., and A. B. LEONARD. 1952. Pleistocene geology of Kansas. Kansas Geol. Survey. 99:1-230. GILBERT, CHAS. H. 1885. Second series of notes on the fishes of Kansas. Bull. Washburn Lab. Nat. Hist., 1(3):97-99. GILL, THEODORE. 1876. Report on ichthyology. _In_ report of explorations across the Great Basin of the territory of Utah in 1859, by Captain J. H. Simpson. Appendix L. 385-431. GERARD, CHARLES. 1856. Researches upon the cyprinoid fishes inhabitating the fresh waters of the United States of America, west of the Mississippi Valley, from specimens in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 8:165-213. 1858. Fishes. _In_ Explorations and surveys for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. War Dept., Washington. 1-368. GRAHAM, I. D. 1885. Preliminary list of Kansas fishes. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 9:69-78. HANKINSON, THOMAS L. 1929. Fishes of North Dakota. Papers of the Michigan Acad. Sci., Arts and Letters., 10:439-460. HARLAN, JAMES R., and EVERETT B. SPEAKER. 1951. Iowa fish and fishing. Iowa Cons. Comm. 1st edition. 1-237. 1956. Iowa fish and fishing. Iowa Cons. Comm. 3rd edition. 1-377. HARRISON, HARRY M., and EVERETT B. SPEAKER. 1954. An annotated list of the fishes in the streams tributary to the Missouri River in Iowa. Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci., 61:511-523. HART, J. S. 1952. Geographic variations of some physiological and morphological characters in certain freshwater fishes. Pub. Ontario Fish. Res. Lab., 72:1-79. HINKS, DAVID. 1943. The fishes of Manitoba. Dept. Mines and Nat. Res., Province of Manitoba. 1-102. HUBBS, CARL L. 1922. Variations in the number of vertebrae and other meristic characters of fishes correlated with the temperature of water during development. Amer. Nat., 61:360-372. 1926. The structural consequences of modifications of the developmental rate in fishes, considered in reference to certain problems of evolution. Amer. Nat., 60:57-81. 1927. The related effects of a parasite on a fish. Jour. Parasitology, 14(2):75-84. 1941. Increased number and delayed development of scales in abnormal suckers. Papers Michigan Acad. Sci., Arts and Letters, 26(1940):229-239. 1951. _Notropis amnis_, a new cyprinid fish of the Mississippi fauna, with two subspecies. Occ. Papers Mus. Zool., Univ. Michigan. 532:1-30. HUBBS, CARL L., and KARL F. LAGLER. 1958. Fishes of the Great Lakes region. Cranbrook Inst. Sci., 26:1-213. HUBBS, CARL L., and A. I. ORTENBURGER. 1929a. Further notes on the fishes of Oklahoma, with descriptions of new species of Cyprinidae. Publ. Univ. Oklahoma Biol. Sur., 1(2):17-44. 1929b. Fishes collected in Oklahoma and Arkansas in 1927. Publ. Univ. Oklahoma Biol. Sur., 1(3):45-112. JORDAN, DAVID STARR. 1885. A catalogue of the fishes known to inhabit the waters of North America, north of the Tropic of Cancer. Annual report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1884. Govnt. Printing Office, Washington. 1-185. 1929. Manual of the vertebrate animals of the northeastern United States, inclusive of marine species. World Book Company, N. Y. 1-446. JORDAN, DAVID STARR, and BARTON WARREN EVERMANN. 1896. The fishes of North and Middle America: a descriptive catalogue of the species of fish-like vertebrates found in the waters of North America, north of the Isthmus of Panama. Part 1. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., 47:1-1240. JORDAN, DAVID STARR, BARTON WARREN EVERMANN, and HOWARD WALTON CLARK. 1930. Check list of the fishes and fish-like vertebrates of North America north of the northern boundary of Venezuela and Colombia. Report of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries for the fiscal year 1928, with appendices. Part 2. Govnt. Printing Office, Washington. 1-670. JORDAN, DAVID STARR, and CHARLES H. GILBERT. 1882. Synopsis of the fishes of North America. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., 16:1-1018. JORDAN, DAVID STARR, and SETH E. MEEK. 1886. List of fishes collected in Iowa and Missouri in August, 1884, with descriptions of three new species. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 8:1-17. KELEHER, J. J. 1956. The northern limits of distribution in Manitoba for cyprinid fishes. Canadian Jour. Zool., 34(4):263-266. KELEHER, J. J., and B. KOOYMAN. 1957. Supplement to Hinks' "The fishes of Manitoba." Dept. Mines and Nat. Res., Province of Manitoba. 103-117. KOSTER, WILLIAM J. 1957. Guide to the fishes of New Mexico. Univ. New Mexico Press, in cooperation with the New Mexico Dept. of Game and Fish, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 1-116. LINDSEY, C. C. 1956. Distribution and taxonomy of fishes in the Mackenzie drainage of British Columbia. Jour. Fish. Res. Bd. Canada. 13(6):759-789. 1957. Possible effects of water diversions on fish distribution in British Columbia. Jour. Fish. Res. Bd. Canada. 14(4):651-668. MARTIN, W. R. 1949. The mechanics of environmental control of body form in fishes. Pub. Ontario Fish. Res. Lab., 70:1-91. MEEK, SETH E. 1892. A report upon fishes of Iowa, based upon observations and collections made during 1889, 1890, and 1891. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 10:217-248. 1895. Notes on the fishes of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 14:133-138. MILLER, R. B., and M. J. PAETZ. 1953. Preliminary biological surveys of Alberta watersheds. 1950-1952. Govmt. Province of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. 2:1-114. MOORE, GEORGE A. 1950. The cutaneous sense organs of barbeled minnows adapted to life in the muddy waters of the Great Plains region. Trans. Amer. Micro. Soc., 69(1):69-95. 1957. Fishes. _In_ Vertebrates of the United States, by W. F. Blair, A. P. Blair, P. Brodkorb, F. R. Cagle and G. A. Moore. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, New York, 30-210. O'DONNEL, D. JOHN. 1935. Annotated list of the fishes of Illinois. Illinois Nat. Hist. Sur. Bull., 20(5):473-500. ORTENBURGER, A. I., and CARL L. HUBBS. 1927. A report on the fishes of Oklahoma, with descriptions of new genera and species. Oklahoma Acad. Sci., 6(1926):123-141. PERSONIUS, ROBERT G., and SAMUEL EDDY. 1955. Fishes of the Little Missouri River. Copeia. 1:41-43. RAWSON, D. S. 1951. Studies of the fish of Great Slave Lake. Jour. Fish. Res. Bd. Canada. 8(4):207-240. RICHARDSON, JOHN. 1836. Fauna Boreali-Americana. Part 3, the fish. Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, London. 1-327. SCHULTZ, LEONARD P. 1927. Temperature-controlled variation in the golden shiner, _Notemigonus crysoleucas_. Proc. Michigan Acad. Sci., Arts and Letters. 6:417-432. SCOTT, W. B. 1958. A checklist of the freshwater fishes of Canada and Alaska. Royal Ontario Mus., 1-30. SHOEMAKER, HURST H., QUENTIN H. PICKERING and LEONARD DURHAM. 1951. The occurrence of the flathead chub, _Platygobio gracilis_, in Tennessee. Jour. Tennessee Acad. Sci., 24(1):84. SIMON, JAMES R. 1946. Wyoming fishes. Wyoming Game and Fish Dept., 1-129. SLASTENENKO, E. P. 1958. The distribution of freshwater fishes in the provinces and main water basins of Canada. Bull. Shevchenko Sci. Soc., 1(6):1-11. SMITH, C. LAVETT. 1958. Additional Pleistocene fishes from Kansas and Oklahoma. Copeia. 3:176-180. SUCKLEY, GEORGE. 1860. Report upon the fishes collected on the Pacific Railroad Survey. Pacific Railroad Report. 12(3):307-368. T�NING, A. VEDEL. 1952. Experimental study of meristic characters in fishes. Biol. Rev. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 27(2):169-193. THOMPSON, ERNEST SETON. 1898. A list of fishes known to occur in Manitoba. Forest and Stream. 51(11):214. UNDERHILL, JAMES C. 1959. Fishes of the Vermillion River, South Dakota. Proc. South Dakota Acad. Sci., 38:96-102. VLADYKOV, VADIM D. 1934. Environmental and taxonomic characters of fishes. Trans. Royal Canadian Inst., 20(43):99-140. WALTERS, VLADIMIR. 1955. Fishes of western Arctic America and eastern Arctic Siberia. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 106(5):255-368. WEISEL, GEORGE F. 1955. Variation in the number of fin rays of two cyprinid fishes correlated with natural water temperatures. Ecology. 36(1):1-6. WYNNE-EDWARDS, V. C. 1952. Freshwater vertebrates of the Arctic and Subarctic. Bull. Fish. Res. Bd. Canada. 94:1-28. _Transmitted November 8, 1960._ 28-5871 [Transcriber's Note: The following changes have been made to the original text: Table of Contents: page number of "Food" and "Spawning Season" changed from 339 to 338 Page 327: "abbreviated AU" changed to "abbreviated UA" Page 344: "Societe Geologique" changed to "Société Géologique"] 
37742	----	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 11, No. 7, pp. 401-442, 2 plates, 4 figs. in text, 5 tabl. May 8, 1959 Fishes of the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas BY W. L. MINCKLEY UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1959 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Robert W. Wilson Volume 11, No. 7, pp. 401-442, 2 plates, 4 figs. in text, 5 tables Published May 8, 1959 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas A CONTRIBUTION FROM THE STATE BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF KANSAS PRINTED IN THE STATE PRINTING PLANT TOPEKA, KANSAS 1959 [Union Label] 27-7080 Fishes of the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas BY W. L. MINCKLEY CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 403 Acknowledgments 404 Tuttle Creek Dam and Reservoir 404 Big Blue River Basin 404 Geology of the basin 405 Climate, population, and land-use 406 Physical features of streams 407 Previous records of fishes 410 Methods and materials 410 Collecting stations 412 Annotated list of species 414 Hybrid combinations 431 Relative abundance and discussion of species 431 Creel census 435 Recommendations 437 Summary 438 Literature cited 438 INTRODUCTION The Big Blue River in northeastern Kansas will soon be impounded by the Tuttle Creek Dam, located about five miles north of Manhattan, Kansas. Since the inception of this project by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers much argument has arisen as to the values of the dam and reservoir as opposed to the values of farmland and cultural establishments to be inundated (Schoewe, 1953; Monfort, 1956; and Van Orman, 1956). Also, there has been some concern about the possible effects of impoundment on the fish-resources of the area, which supports "a catfish fishery that is notable throughout most of the State of Kansas and in some neighboring states (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1953:9)." The objectives of my study, conducted from March 30, 1957, to August 9, 1958, were to record the species of fish present and their relative abundance in the stream system, and to obtain a measure of angler success prior to closure of the dam. These data may be used as a basis for future studies on the fish and fishing in the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Messrs. J. E. Deacon, D. A. Distler, Wallace Ferrel, D. L. Hoyt, F. E. Maendele, C. O. Minckley, B. C. Nelson, and J. C. Tash for assistance in the field and for valuable suggestions. Dr. J. B. Elder, Kansas State College, arranged for loan of specimens, and Mr. B. C. Nelson supplied data on _Notropis deliciosus_ (Girard) in Kansas, and on specimens in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. I thank the many landowners who allowed me access to streams in the Big Blue River Basin. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District, also allowed access in the reservoir area, and furnished information and some photographs. Mr. J. C. Tash did chemical determinations on my water samples. Dr. Frank B. Cross guided me in this study and in preparation of this report. Drs. E. Raymond Hall and K. B. Armitage offered valuable suggestions on the manuscript. Equipment and funds for my study were furnished by the State Biological Survey of Kansas, and the Kansas Forestry, Fish and Game Commission granted necessary permits. TUTTLE CREEK DAM AND RESERVOIR The data on Tuttle Creek Dam and Reservoir that follow were furnished by Mr. Donald D. Poole, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District. The dam, an earth-fill structure, will be 7,500 feet in length, with a maximum height of 157 feet above the valley floor. Release of water will be from beneath the west end of the dam, through two tunnels 20 feet in diameter that have a capacity of 45,000 cubic feet per second; however, releases exceeding 25,000 c. f. s. are not planned. The gated spillway is located at the east end of the dam. Freeboard will be 23 feet at the top of flood-control pool. The reservoir will have a maximum pool of 2,280,000 acre-feet capacity, a 53,500-acre surface area, and 368 miles of shoreline. The present operational plan provides for a conservation pool having a surface area of 15,700 acres, a shoreline of 112 miles, and a length of 20 miles. BIG BLUE RIVER BASIN Big Blue River and its tributaries, a sub-basin of the Kansas River System, drain approximately 9,600 square miles, of which 2,484 miles are in Kansas (Colby, _et al._, 1956:44). The headwaters of the Big Blue River are in central Hamilton County, Nebraska, near the Platte River (Fig. 1). The stream flows generally south and east for 283 miles to its confluence with the Kansas River near Manhattan, Kansas. Little Blue River, the largest tributary to the Big Blue, rises in eastern Kearney and western Adams counties, Nebraska, and flows southeast for 208 miles to join the Big Blue near Blue Rapids, Kansas (Nebraska State Planning Board, 1936:628). The Big Blue River Basin varies in width from 129 miles in the northwest, to approximately ten miles near the mouth (Colby, _et al._, 1956:44). GEOLOGY OF THE BASIN In Kansas, outcrops of Pennsylvanian and Cretaceous age occur along the extreme eastern and western sides of the Big Blue River Basin, respectively, whereas Permian beds (overlain by Pleistocene deposits) occur throughout most of the remainder of the watershed (see Moore and Landes, 1937). The Big Blue and Little Blue rivers and their tributaries have deeply incised the Permian beds of the Flint Hills in Kansas, exposing limestones and shales of the Admire, Council Grove, Chase, and Sumner groups (Wolfcampian and Leonardian series) (Walters, 1954:41-44). Pleistocene deposits in the Big Blue Basin in Kansas consist of alluvium, glacial till, and glacial outwash from the Kansan glacial stage, overlain by loess deposits of Wisconsin and Recent stages (Frye and Leonard, 1952: pl. 1). [Illustration: FIG. 1. Big Blue River Basin, Kansas and Nebraska.] The Big Blue River was formed "in part on the till plain surface and in part by integration of spillway channels," in the latter portion of the Kansan glaciation (Frye and Leonard, 1952:192). This stream, and the Republican River to the west, carried waters from the areas that are now the Platte, Niobrara, and upper Missouri River basins (Lugn, 1935:153). Drainage was southward, through Oklahoma, until establishment of the east-flowing Kansas River (Frye and Leonard, 1952:189-190). As Kansan ice receded the Blue and Republican rivers retained what is now the Platte River Basin. The lower Platte River developed and the surface drainage became distinct in the Iowan (Tazwellian) portion of the Wisconsin glacial stage (Lugn, 1935:152-153). However, according to Lugn (1935:203) the Platte River Basin contributes about 300,000 acre-feet of water per year to the Big Blue and Republican rivers by percolation through sands and gravels underlying the uplands that now separate the basins. CLIMATE, POPULATION, AND LAND-USE Climate of the Big Blue River Basin is of the subhumid continental type, with an average annual precipitation of 22 inches in the northwest and 30 inches in the southeast. The mean annual evaporation from water surfaces exceeds annual precipitation by approximately 30 inches (Colby, _et al._, 1956:32-33). The average annual temperature for the basin is 53° F. (Flora, 1948:148). According to Kincer (1941:704-705) the average temperature in July, the warmest month, is 78° F., and the coolest month, January, averages 28° F. Periods of extreme cold and heat are sometimes of long duration. Length of the growing season varies from less than 160 days in the northwest to 180 days in the southeast (Kincer, _loc. cit._). The human population of the Big Blue Basin varies from about 90 persons per square mile in one Nebraska county in the northwest and one Kansas county in the southeast, to as few as six persons per square mile in some northeastern counties. The population is most dense along the eastern border of the basin, decreasing toward the west. This decrease in population is correlated with the decrease in average annual precipitation from east to west (Colby, _et al._, 1956:80). The principal land-use in the Big Blue Watershed is tilled crops, with wheat, sorghums, and corn being most important. Beef cattle are important in some portions of the basin. Colby, _et al._ (1956:24) reported that in 1954 as much as 55 per cent of the land in some counties near the mouth of the Big Blue River was in pasture. Only one Nebraska county had less than 15 per cent in pastureland. PHYSICAL FEATURES OF STREAMS Streams of the Big Blue River Basin are of three kinds: turbid, sandy-bottomed streams, usually 150 to 300 feet in width; relatively clear, mud-bottomed streams, ten to 60 feet in width; and clear, deeply incised, gravel-bottomed streams, usually five to 30 feet in width. SAND-BOTTOMED STREAMS.--The Big Blue and Little Blue rivers represent this kind of stream. The bottoms of these rivers consist almost entirely of fine sand; nevertheless, their channels are primarily deep and fairly uniform in width, rather than broad, shallow, and braided as in the larger Kansas and Arkansas rivers in Kansas (Plate 11, Fig. 1). In the Big Blue River, gravel occurs rarely on riffles, and gravel-rubble bottoms are found below dams (Plate 11, Fig. 2). The Big Blue flows over a larger proportion of gravelly bottom than does the Little Blue. Big Blue River rises at about 1,800 feet above mean sea level and joins the Kansas River at an elevation of 1,000 feet above m. s. l. The average gradient is 2.8 feet per mile. Little Blue River, originating at 2,200 feet, has an average gradient of 5.3 feet per mile, entering the Big Blue at 1,100 feet above mean sea level (Nebraska State Planning Board, 1936:628, 637). The Little Blue is the shallower stream, possibly because of the greater amount of sandy glacial deposits in its watershed and the swift flow that may cause lateral cutting, increased movement, and "drifting" of the sandy bottom. For approximately a 50-year period, stream-flow in the Big Blue River at its point of entry into Kansas (Barnston, Nebraska) averaged 603 cubic feet per second, with maximum and minimum instantaneous flows of 57,700 c. f. s. and one c. f. s. The Little Blue River at Waterville, Kansas, averaged a daily discharge of 601 c. f. s. (maximum 50,400, minimum 28). Below the confluence of the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers, at Randolph, Kansas, the average daily discharge was 1,690 c.f.s. (maximum 98,000, minimum 31) (Kansas Water Resources Fact-finding and Research Committee, 1955:27). The turbidity of the Big Blue River, as determined by use of a Jackson turbidimeter, varied from 27 parts per million in winter (January 10, 1958) to as high as 14,000 p.p.m. (July 12, 1958). The Little Blue River has similar turbidities, with high readings being frequent. In the summer of 1957, pH ranged from 7.2 to 8.4 in the Big Blue River Basin--values that correspond closely with those of Canfield and Wiebe (1931:3) who made 25 determinations ranging from 7.3 to 8.3 in the streams of the Nebraskan portion of this basin in July, 1930. Surface temperatures at various stations varied from 38° F. on January 10, 1958, to 90° F. in backwater-areas on July 19, 1957. The average surface temperature at mid-day in July and August, 1957, was approximately 86.5° F. Chemical determinations were made on water-samples from my Station 4-S on the Big Blue River, and Station 50-S on the Little Blue (Table 1). These samples were taken from the surface in strong current. Determinations were made by methods described in _Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Sewage_, 10th edition, 1955. TABLE 1.--CHEMICAL DETERMINATIONS IN MILLIGRAMS PER LITER AT FIVE STATIONS IN THE BIG BLUE RIVER BASIN, KANSAS, 1958. TABLE LEGEND: Column A: Phenolphthalein alkalinity Column B: Methyl-orange alkalinity Column C: Chlorides Column D: Sulphates Column E: Nitrates Column F: Nitrites Column G: Ammonia Column H: Phosphate ==========+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+===== STATION | | | | | | | | AND | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H DATE | | | | | | | | ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- 4-S | | | | | | | | August 9 | 0.0 | 154 | 16 | 28 | 3.5 |.083 |.250 |.225 | | | | | | | | 50-S | | | | | | | | August 9 | 0.0 | 125 | 24 | 20 | 2.5 |.669 |.427 |.240 | | | | | | | | 35-M | | | | | | | | August 9 | 0.0 | 366 | 15 | 108 | 9.4 |.220 |.750 |.080 | | | | | | | | 11-G | | | | | | | | July 8 | 0.0 | 272 | 15 | 60 | 4.5 |.060 |.625 |.140 | | | | | | | | 18-G | | | | | | | | July 22 | 0.0 | 183 | 10 | 60 | 1.6 |.938 |.293 |.240 ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- The banks of both the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers support narrow riparian forests comprised primarily of elm, _Ulmus americanus_, cottonwood, _Populus deltoides_, sycamore, _Platanus occidentalis_, and willow, _Salix_ spp. Maple, _Acer_ sp., oak, _Quercus_ spp., and ash, _Fraxinus_ sp. occur where the rivers flow near steep, rocky hillsides. Many of the hills are virgin bluestem prairies (_Andropogon_ spp.), but the floodplains are heavily cultivated. MUD-BOTTOMED STREAMS.--Streams of this kind are present in the watershed of the Black Vermillion River that enters Big Blue River from the east. The area east of the Big Blue River and north of the Black Vermillion River is till plains, where relief seldom exceeds 100 feet (Walters, 1954:12). Streams in this portion of the basin, and streams entering the Little Blue River from the west (Mill Creek and Horseshoe Creek systems), tend to have V-shaped channels, fewer riffles than the Little Blue and Big Blue rivers and in the gravelly streams (to be described later), and have bottoms of mud or clay, with few rocks (Plate 12, Fig. 1). However, in the extreme headwaters of most western tributaries of the Little Blue River (in Washington and Republic counties) sandy bottoms predominate. The Black Vermillion River flows on a broad floodplain and is a mud-bottomed, sluggish stream, with an average gradient of approximately one foot per mile. Fringe-forests of elm, cottonwood, sycamore, and willow persist along most of these stream-courses. Notwithstanding the mud bottoms, the water in this kind of stream in the Big Blue Basin remains clearer than that of the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers. Heavy algal blooms were noted in the Black Vermillion River and Mill Creek, Washington County, in 1957 and 1958. Temperatures at Stations 45-M and 46-M on Mill Creek, Washington County, averaged 85.5° F. on July 31, 1957. Chemical characteristics of a water-sample from Station 35-M, Black Vermillion River, are in Table 1. GRAVEL-BOTTOMED STREAMS.--Most streams of this kind are tributary to the Big Blue River; however, streams entering Black Vermillion River from the south are also of this type (Plate 12, Fig. 2). The streams are "characteristically a series of large pools (to 100 feet in length and more than two feet in depth) connected by short riffles and smaller pools" (Minckley and Cross, in press). The average gradients are high: Carnahan Creek, 33 feet per mile; Mill Creek, Riley County, 21 feet; Clear Creek, 16 feet per mile. Stream-flow is usually less than five cubic feet per second. In summer, these streams may become intermittent, but springs and subsurface percolation maintain pool-levels (Minckley and Cross, _loc. cit._). The average temperatures of these small streams (79.5° to 81.0° F. in July and August, 1957) were lower than temperatures in stream-types previously described. Turbidities were usually less than 25 p.p.m. The chemical properties of water-samples from two of these streams (Stations 11-G and 18-G) are listed in Table 1. PREVIOUS RECORDS OF FISHES The earliest records of fishes from the Big Blue River Basin are those of Cragin (1885) and Graham (1885) in independently published lists of the fishes of Kansas. Meek (1895) recorded fishes collected in 1891 "from both branches of the Blue River, a few miles west of Crete, Nebraska." Evermann and Cox (1896) reported five collections from the Nebraskan part of the basin. Their collections were made in October, 1892, and August, 1893, and the stations were: in 1892, Big Blue River at Crete; in 1893, Big Blue River at Seward, Lincoln Creek at Seward and York, and Beaver Creek at York. Canfield and Wiebe (1931) obtained fish from 18 localities in Nebraska in July, 1930; however, their major concern was determination of water quality. Their stations were: Big Blue River at Stromsburg, Polk Co.; Surprise and Ulysses, Butler Co.; Staplehurst, Seward, and Milford, Seward Co.; Crete and Wilber, Saline Co.; Beatrice, Blue Springs, and Barnston, Gage Co.; Little Blue River at Fairbury, Jefferson Co.; Hebron, Thayer Co.; Sandy Creek at Alexandria, Thayer Co.; West Fork of Big Blue River at Stockham, Hamilton Co.; McCool Junction, York Co.; Beaver Crossing, Seward Co.; and Beaver Creek at York, York Co. Breukelman (1940) and Jennings (1942) listed fishes from the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History and the Kansas State College Museum, respectively, including some specimens collected from the Big Blue River System in Kansas. Because records in these two papers pertain to collections that were widely spaced in the basin and in time, the specific localities are not given herein. One of Jennings' (_loc. cit.)_ records, _Scaphirhynchus platorynchus_ (Rafinesque), was cited by Bailey and Cross (1954:191). More recently, Minckley and Cross (in press) recorded several localities, and cited some papers mentioned above, in a publication dealing with _Notropis topeka_ (Gilbert) in Kansas. Information on the fishes of the Nebraskan portion of the Big Blue River Basin was compiled, and additional localities were reported, in a doctoral thesis by Dr. Raymond E. Johnson, entitled The Distribution of Nebraska Fishes, 1942, at the University of Michigan. METHODS AND MATERIALS _Collection of Fishes_ The gear and techniques used are listed below: ENTRAPMENT DEVICES.--Hoop and fyke nets and wire traps were used for 288 trap/net hours in 1957. The nets were not baited, and were set parallel to the current, with the mouths downstream. Hoop nets were 1½ to three feet in diameter at the first hoop, with a pot-mesh of one inch; fyke nets were three feet at the first hoop, pot-mesh of one inch; wire traps, with an opening at each end, were 2½ feet in diameter and covered with one-inch-mesh, galvanized chicken wire. GILL NETS.--Experimental gill nets were set on three occasions in areas with little current. These nets were 125 feet in length, with 3/4 to two inch bar-mesh in 25-foot sections. SEINES.--Seining was used more than other methods. An attempt was made to seine all habitats at each station. In swift water, seine-hauls were usually made downstream, but in quiet areas seining was done randomly. Haul-seines six to 60 feet in length, three to eight feet in depth, and with meshes of 1/8 to 1/2 inch were used. For collection of riffle-fishes, the seine was planted below a selected area and the bottom was kicked violently by one member of the party, while one or two persons held the seine, raising it when the area had been thoroughly disturbed. Seining on riffles was done with a four-foot by four-foot bobbinet seine. ROTENONE.--Rotenone was used in pools of smaller streams, mouths of creeks, borrow-pits, and cut-off areas. Both powdered and emulsifiable rotenone were used. The rotenone was mixed with water and applied by hand, or into the backwash of an outboard motor. ELECTRIC SHOCKER.--The electrical unit used in this study generated 115 volts and 600 to 700 watts, alternating current. The shocking unit consisted of two booms, each with two electrodes, mounted on and operated from a slowly moving boat. Fish were recovered in scape nets, or in many cases were identified as they lay stunned and were not collected. _Estimation of Relative Abundance_ Data on relative abundance of fishes were obtained by counts of seine hauls at 29 of the 59 stations, counts of rotenoned fish at seven stations, and results with the electric shocker at nine stations. Counts were usually made in the field; however, in some collections all fish were preserved and counted in the laboratory. Some fish (or "swirls" presumed to be fish) observed while shocking were not identified and are not included in the calculations. However, all fish positively identified while shocking are included. _Age and Growth of Fishes_ Fish from selected size-groups were aged in this study. Scales for age-determinations were removed from positions recommended by Lagler (1952:108). Scales were placed in water between glass slides and were read on a standard scale-projection device. Pectoral spines of catfish were removed from one or both sides, sectioned, and read by methods described by Marzolf (1955:243-244). Calculation of length at the last annulus for both scale-fish and catfish was made by direct proportion. All measurements are of total length to the nearest tenth of an inch unless specified otherwise. _Creel Census_ From April 6 to May 28, 1957, a creel census was taken below Turtle Creek Dam. From June 16 to July 24, 1958, I periodically visited the main points of access to the Big Blue River, beginning approximately eight miles downstream from Tuttle Creek Dam and ending six miles upstream from the maximal extension of the reservoir at capacity level. Access-points consisted of 11 bridges, two power dams, and three areas where county roads approached the river. Eleven eight-hour days were spent in the 1957 census and 22 checks in 15 days were made in 1958. An equal number of morning (6:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon) and afternoon (12:00 noon to 8:30 p.m.) checks were made. Fishermen contacted were asked the following questions: home address (or residence at the time of the fishing trip); time they started fishing; kind of fish sought; number and kinds of fish in possession; and baits used. Also, the number of poles and type of fishing (from the bank, from boat, _etc._) were recorded. Fishes caught were examined to confirm identifications. About 80 per cent of all fishermen seen were contacted. Fish per man-hour, as used in this report, refers to the average number of fish of all species caught by one fisherman in one hour. Fisherman-day is the average time spent fishing in one day by one person. Because some fishermen used more than one pole, the data are also expressed as catch per pole-hour. COLLECTING STATIONS In the list that follows, stations are numbered consecutively from the mouth of the Big Blue River, listing stations on each tributary as it is ascended. The letters following station-numbers indicate the general type of stream: S = sandy; M = muddy; and G = gravelly. The Big Blue River is the boundary between Riley and Pottawatomie counties, Kansas, along part of its length. Stations in this area have been designated Riley County. The legal description of each station is followed by the date(s) of collection, and each station is plotted in Figure 2. [Illustration: FIG. 2. Collection stations in the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas, 1957 and 1958.] [Illustration: PLATE 11 FIG. 1. Big Blue River at Station 3-S. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photograph No. 563697. FIG. 2. Big Blue River at Oketo, Marshall County, Kansas. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, photograph No. 67516.] [Illustration: PLATE 12 FIG. 1. Black Vermillion River, approximately one mile upstream from its mouth. Photograph by Robert G. Webb. FIG. 2. Carnahan Creek at Station 11-G. Photograph by Robert G. Webb.] 1-S: Pottawatomie Co., mouth of Big Blue River, Sec. 16, T. 10S, R. 8E, June 20, 1958. 2-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 4, T. 10S, R. 8E, June 6, 12, and 14, 1957. 3-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River, E ½, Sec. 30, T. 9S, R. 8E, Mar. 30, Apr. 6, July 15, 16, 17, Aug. 14, and Dec. 26, 1957; Apr. 26, June 20, and Aug. 5, 1958. 4-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River at Rocky Ford Dam, W ½, Sec. 30, T. 9S, R. 8E, Aug. 14, 1957; and Aug. 5, 1958. 5-G: Pottawatomie Co., McIntire Creek, Sec. 12, T. 9S, R. 7E, July 14, 1958. 6-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River and adjacent borrow-pit, Sec. 24, T. 9S, R. 7E, July 18 and 19, 1957; and July 11, 1958. 7-G: Riley Co., Tuttle Creek, Sec. 10, T. 9S, R. 7E, Aug. 5, 1958. 8-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 10, T. 9S, R. 7E, Aug. 14, 1957. 9-G: Riley Co., Mill Creek, Sec. 4, T. 9S, R. 7E, July 20 and 25, 1958. 10-G: Riley Co., Mill Creek, Sec. 2, T. 9S, R. 6E, Aug. 13, 1957. 11-G: Pottawatomie Co., Carnahan Creek, Sec. 22, 27, and 34, T. 8S, R. 7E, Aug. 1, 1957; and July 8, 1958. 12-G: Pottawatomie Co., unnamed tributary to Carnahan Creek, Sec. 15, T. 8S, R. 7E, Mar. 19, 1956 (collection made before my formal study was begun). 13-G: Pottawatomie Co., Carnahan Creek, Sec. 36, T. 7S, R. 7E, Aug. 13, 1957. 14-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 18, T. 8S, R. 7E, Mar. 22, 1958. 15-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 7, T. 8S, R. 7E, Apr. 3, and June 12, 1958. 16-G: Riley Co., unnamed creek, Sec. 1, T. 8S, R. 6E, July 10, and Aug. 5, 1958. 17-G: Riley Co., unnamed creek, Sec. 10, T. 8S, R. 6E, June 26, 1958. 18-G: Riley Co., Fancy Creek, Sec. 14, T. 7S, R. 6E, July 29, 1957. 19-G: Riley Co., Walnut Creek, Sec. 20, T. 7S, R. 6E, June 26, 1958. 20-G: Riley Co., Fancy Creek, Sec. 2, T. 7S, R. 5E, Mar. 13, 1957; and June 26, 1958. 21-G: Riley Co., Schoolhouse Branch, Sec. 35, T. 6S, R. 5E, July 22, 1958. 22-G: Riley Co., Fancy Creek, Sec. 33, T. 6S, R. 5E, June 1, 1957. 23-G: Riley Co., West Branch Fancy Creek, Sec. 32 and 33, T. 6S, R. 5E, June 1 and 3, 1957. 24-G: Clay Co., West Branch Fancy Creek, Sec. 32 and 33, T. 6S, R. 4E, July 22, 1958. 25-S: Riley Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 5, T. 7S, R. 7E, Aug. 7, 1958. 26-G: Riley Co., Swede Creek, Sec. 21, T. 6S, R. 7E, Mar. 22, 1958. 27-G: Pottawatomie Co., unnamed creek, Sec. 14, T. 6S, R. 7E, Sept. 10, 1957. 28-G: Pottawatomie Co., Bluff Creek, Sec. 6, T. 6S, R. 8E, Oct. 6, 1957. 29-G: Pottawatomie Co., Bluff Creek, Sec. 15, T. 6S, R. 8E, June 29, 1958. 30-M: Marshall Co., Black Vermillion River, Sec. 9, T. 5S, R. 8E, Mar. 5, 1958. 31-G: Pottawatomie Co., Clear Creek, Sec. 3, T. 6S, R. 9E, July 14, 1958. 32-G: Pottawatomie Co., unnamed creek, Sec. 14, T. 6S, R. 9E, July 14, 1958. 33-M: Marshall Co., Robidoux Creek, Sec. 20, T. 2S, R. 9E, July 23, 1958. 34-M: Marshall Co., Little Timber Creek, Sec. 10, T. 4S, R. 9E, Oct. 6, 1957. 35-M: Marshall Co., Black Vermillion River, Sec. 15, T. 4S, R. 9E, Aug. 9, 1958. 36-M: Marshall Co., unnamed creek, Sec. 8, T. 4S, R. 9E, Oct. 6, 1957. 37-M: Marshall Co., Black Vermillion River, Sec. 11, T. 4S, R. 10E, Oct. 6, 1957. 38-S: Marshall Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 18, T. 5S, R. 8E, Aug. 8, 1958. 39-S: Marshall Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 20, T. 4S, R. 7E, May 29, 1958. 40-M: Washington Co., Coon Creek, Sec. 27, T. 4S, R. 4E, July 22, 1958. 41-S: Marshall Co., Little Blue River, Sec. 9, 16, and 17, T. 4S, R. 6E, June 27, 1958. 42-S: Washington Co., Little Blue River, Sec. 21, T. 3S, R. 5E, Aug. 8, 1958. 43-S: Washington Co., Little Blue River, Sec. 5 and 8, T. 3S, R. 5E, July 30, 1957. 44-S: Washington Co., Little Blue River, Sec. 36, T. 1S, R. 4E, July 31, 1957. 45-M: Washington Co., Mill Creek, Sec. 35 and 36, T. 1S, R. 4E, July 31, 1957. 46-M: Washington Co., Mill Creek, Sec. 4, T. 2S, R. 4E, July 31, 1957. 47-M: Washington Co., Spring Creek, Sec. 11 and 12, T. 2S, R. 3E, June 19, 1958. 48-M: Washington Co., Mill Creek, Sec. 28, T. 2S, R. 2E, June 19, 1958. 49-M: Republic Co., Mill Creek, Sec. 8 and 17, T. 2S, R. 1W, July 23, 1958. 50-S: Washington Co., Little Blue River, Sec. 5, T. 1S, R. 4E, Aug. 9, 1958. 51-M: Republic Co., Rose Creek, Sec. 20, T. 1S, R. 2W, July 23, 1958. 52-S: Marshall Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 6, T. 4S, R. 7E, Aug. 6, 1958. 53-S: Marshall Co., Big Blue River, Sec. 18, T. 3S, R. 7E, July 29 and 30, 1957; May 28, and Aug. 6, 1958. 54-G: Marshall Co., Hop Creek, Sec. 13 and 18, T. 3S, R. 7E, May 28, 1958. 55-M: Marshall Co., Spring Creek, Sec. 29, T. 2S, R. 8E, July 9, 1958. 56-S: Marshall Co., Big Blue River at Marysville Dam, Sec. 20, T. 2S, R. 7E, June 16, 1958. 57-M: Marshall Co., Horseshoe Creek, Sec. 6, T. 2S, R. 7E, July 1, 1958. 58-G: Marshall Co., unnamed creek, Sec. 2, T. 1S, R. 7E, July 1, 1958. 59-G: Marshall Co., Mission Creek, Sec. 3, T. 1S, R. 8E, Nov. 30, 1957. ANNOTATED LIST OF SPECIES Forty-eight species were obtained in this survey and five others have been recorded in literature or are deposited in museums: KSC = Kansas State College Museum; and UMMZ = University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Specimens, unless designated otherwise, are in the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History (KU). In this list, the scientific name of each species is followed by the common name, citations of previous records, and the stations where the species was obtained. I follow Bailey (1956:328-329) in treating _Lepisosteus osseus_ (Linnaeus), _Catostomus commersonnii_ (Lacépède), _Semotilus atromaculatus_ (Mitchill), _Notropis lutrensis_ (Baird and Girard), _Pimephales promelas_ Rafinesque, _Ictalurus melas_ (Rafinesque), _Ictalurus punctatus_ (Rafinesque), and _Lepomis macrochirus_ Rafinesque, in binomial form only. =Scaphirhynchus platorynchus= (Rafinesque), shovelnose sturgeon: Jennings (1942:364) as _Scaphirhynchus platorhynchus_ (Rafinesque); Bailey and Cross (1954:191). Stations 3-S and 4-S. Shovelnose sturgeon were found only in the lower portion of the Big Blue River. On April 20, 1957, many were seen in fishermen's creels at Stations 3-S and 4-S. One male and two females that I examined on that date were ripe or nearly so; eggs seemed well developed and milt flowed freely from the male. After April, 1957, none was collected or observed until April 26, 1958, when one specimen was obtained while shocking. Forbes and Richardson (1920:27) reported that shovelnose sturgeon spawn in Illinois between April and June, and Eddy and Surber (1947:80) reported spawning in May and early June in Wisconsin and Minnesota. =Lepisosteus platostomus= Rafinesque, shortnose gar: Jennings (1942:364). Stations 3-S and 4-S. I saw shortnose gar at various times in 1956 and 1957 at Rocky Ford Dam on the Big Blue River (Station 4-S). One was seen while shocking at Station 3-S on December 26, 1957. =Lepisosteus osseus= (Linnaeus), longnose gar: Jennings (1942:364) as _Lepisosteus osseus oxyurus_ Rafinesque. Stations 1-S, 2-S, 3-S, 4-S, 6-S, 8-S, 9-G, 15-S, 18-G, 25-S, 41-S, 44-S, 52-S, and 53-S. Longnose gar were abundant in the mainstream of the Big Blue River but usually evaded capture. This species, and the shortnose gar, resided in the larger rivers, with _L. osseus_ being taken in only two creeks near their mouths. In periods of high water, gar moved into the flooded creeks, but returned to the river as stream-levels subsided. Young-of-the-year _L. osseus_, averaging 21.5 mm. in total length (range 13 to 30 mm.), were taken on June 14, 1957, and larger young (estimated 60 to 70 mm. total length) were taken on June 27, 1958. =Dorosoma cepedianum= (LeSueur), gizzard shad: Jennings (1942:364). Stations 1-S, 3-S, 4-S, 6-S, 8-S, 44-S, 45-M, and 53-S. Most gizzard shad were young-of-the-year, taken on July 16 and 17, 1957, at Stations 3-S and 4-S. Twenty specimens from Station 6-S that were in their second summer of life were from 3.8 to 5.9 inches total length at the last annulus (average 4.3). This species was usually found in quiet water and was most abundant near the mouth of the Big Blue River. =Hiodon alosoides= (Rafinesque), goldeye. Stations 3-S, 4-S, and 53-S. I caught five specimens of _H. alosoides_ from the Big Blue River, and another specimen, obtained by Dr. R. B. Moorman in 1954, is at Kansas State College (KSC 4984). One goldeye that I caught on April 20, 1956, prior to the beginning of my study, was a ripe female measuring 15.5 inches total length. The fish was beginning its seventh summer of life. =Cycleptus elongatus= LeSueur, blue sucker. The blue sucker is included on the basis of a single specimen (KSC 2917) collected by I. D. Graham and labeled "Blue River." No other data are with the specimen; however, most fishes deposited at Kansas State College by Graham are dated "1885" or "1886" and were caught near "Manhattan" (Riley County). =Ictiobus cyprinella= (Valenciennes), bigmouth buffalo. Stations 3-S, 6-S, and 30-M. Bigmouth buffalo were rare, and were taken only in quiet parts of larger streams, and in the borrow-pit at Station 6-S. =Ictiobus niger= (Rafinesque), black buffalo. Stations 3-S, 41-S, and 53-S. Only four individuals of _I. niger_ were taken. All were large adults (more than 20 inches in total length), and all were shocked in the deeper, swifter areas, where the channel narrowed. =Ictiobus bubalus= (Rafinesque), smallmouth buffalo. Stations 1-S, 3-S, 6-S, 7-G, 18-G, 38-S, 41-S, 43-S, 46-M, and 53-S. This species was found in relatively quiet waters in the main channel, in cut-off areas, and in creek-mouths. The ages and total lengths of 30 individuals obtained at Station 6-S were (average followed by number of fish in parentheses): I, 2.4 (11); II, 4.4 (14); and III, 6.6 (5). Canfield and Wiebe (1931:6-7, 10) recorded "buffalo-fish" and "buffalo" from the Big Blue Basin in Nebraska; however, no specific designation was given. =Carpiodes forbesi= Hubbs, plains carpsucker. Station 3-S. This represents the first record known to me of the plains carpsucker from Kansas. The specimen (KU 4180), 430 mm. in standard length, has the following characters: lower lip without a median, nipple-like projection; dorsal fin-rays, 25; lateral-line scales, 38; diameter of orbit into distance from anterior nostril to tip of snout, 1.1; body-depth into standard length, 3.3; and head-length into standard length, 3.9. The specimen was taken while shocking a wide, shallow channel, over sand bottom. =Carpiodes carpio carpio= (Rafinesque), river carpsucker: Jennings (1942:364). Stations 1-S, 2-S, 3-S, 4-S, 5-G, 6-S, 7-G, 8-S, 9-G, 11-G, 14-S, 15-S, 18-G, 19-G, 23-G, 25-S, 27-G, 28-G, 30-M, 38-S, 39-S, 41-S, 42-S, 43-S, 44-S, 45-M, 50-S, 52-S, and 53-S. The river carpsucker occurred at most stations on the larger streams, and in many of the smaller tributaries. In smaller streams _C. c. carpio_ frequented the largest pools, in or near the floodplains of larger streams. A marked preference for still water, soft, silty bottoms, and areas with drift or other cover was apparent; however, the species also occurred in open waters with moderate to swift currents. The sizes attained by the river carpsucker at different ages were (averages followed by number of fish in parentheses): I, 1.9 (10); II, 3.9 (5); III, 5.3 (8); IV, 7.7 (5); V, 11.9 (2); VI, 11.6 (7); VII, 12.8 (6); VIII, 13.1 (1); IX, 14.9 (2); X, 15.8 (8); and XI, 17.6 (1). These averages are significantly less than those reported by Buchholz (1957:594) for the river carpsucker in the Des Moines River, Iowa. Examination of the gonads of river carpsucker in summer, 1957, indicated that spawning occurred in late July. Young-of-the-year, averaging 21 mm. in total length, first appeared in my collections on July 30, 1957. =Carpiodes velifer= (Rafinesque), highfin carpsucker: Meek (1895:135); Evermann and Cox (1896:389). The highfin carpsucker was not taken in my survey. Meek (1895:135) reported "this small sucker [_C. velifer_] ... common in Blue River at Crete," characterizing the specimens as having "Dorsal rays, 24 to 30; scales in the lateral-line, 36 to 41; head 3½ to 4; and depth 2½ to 3." The ranges in the number of dorsal rays and the number of scales in the lateral-line are higher than usual in _C. velifer_, or in _C. c. carpio_, which is now common in the Big Blue River Basin. Both species normally have 33 to 37 lateral-line scales and 27 or fewer dorsal rays (Bailey, 1956:352-353; Moore, 1957:79; and Trautman, 1957:81-82). The other characters listed by Meek would fit the young and some adults of either species, or possibly a composite including _C. forbesi_. Graham (1885:72) and Cragin (1885:107) reported _Ictiobus velifer_ (= _Carpiodes velifer_) from "Eureka Lake," Riley County, Kansas. This lake, which no longer exists, was in the Kansas River Valley, about ten miles upstream from the mouth of the Big Blue River. Other, more recent records from the Kansas River Basin, in the vicinity of the Big Blue River, are: Maple Leaf Lake, Riley Co., Oct. 4, 1925; Deep Creek, Riley Co., no date; Wildcat Creek, Riley Co., Sept. 7, 1923; and Wildcat Creek, Riley Co., Sept. 29, 1925 (UMMZ 122187-90). Most of the collections were made by Minna E. Jewell (Nelson, personal communication). =Moxostoma aureolum= (LeSueur), northern redhorse: Cragin (1885:108) as _Moxostoma macrolepidotum_ LeSueur; Meek (1895:136) as _Moxostoma macrolepidotum duquesnei_ (LeSueur); Evermann and Cox (1896:394-395); and Jennings (1942:364) as _Moxostoma erythrurum_ (Rafinesque). Stations 41-S, 43-S, 44-S, and 53-S. I collected three northern redhorse from the Big Blue River Basin, and another specimen was seined in the mouth of Mill Creek, Riley County (my present Station 9-G) by the Kansas State College class in fisheries management in 1954 (KSC 5068). I reidentify as _M. aureolum_ the two specimens recorded by Jennings (_loc. cit._) as _M. erythrurum_. The subspecific status of _M. aureolum_ in the Kansas River Basin is to be the subject of another paper. =Catostomus commersonnii= (Lacépède), white sucker: Canfield and Wiebe (1931:8) as "common suckers"; and Breukelman (1940:380). Stations 7-G, 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 16-G, 18-G, 19-G, 23-G, 29-G, 31-G, 53-S, 57-M, and 58-G. The white sucker occurred primarily in upland streams of the Flint Hills, with one occurrence in muddy habitat, and one in the main stream of the Big Blue River. Young _C. commersonnii_ were often taken in riffles, but adults were in the larger, deeper pools. The ages and total lengths at the last annulus for 12 white suckers were: I, 2.8 (4); II, 3.9 (6); III, 8.2 (1); and IV, 9.2 (1). =Cyprinus carpio= Linnaeus, carp: Canfield and Wiebe (1931:5-8, 10) as "carp." Stations 1-S, 2-S, 3-S, 4-S, 6-S, 7-G, 8-S, 15-S, 16-G, 18-G, 23-G, 24-G, 25-S, 27-G, 30-M, 35-M, 38-S, 41-S, 42-S, 43-S, 44-S, 45-M, 52-S, 53-S, and 56-S. Carp occurred throughout the basin. The habitat of this species closely approximated that of the river carpsucker; however, carp were more often taken in moderate to swift water than were _C. c. carpio_. The ages and average lengths at the last annulus for 40 carp from the Big Blue River Basin were: I, 2.3 (4); II, 4.7 (10); III, 7.0 (10); IV, 9.0 (3); V, 11.3 (4); VI, 18.6 (1); VII, 18.9 (3); VIII, no fish; IX, 20.6 (3); X, 19.1 (2); XI, 21.1 (1); XII, 22.0 (1); and XIII, 24.1 (2). =Carassius auratus= (Linnaeus), goldfish. Station 4-S. I saw goldfish seined from Station 4-S by anglers obtaining bait on April 20, 1957. Goldfish were commonly used for bait at Stations 4-S and 54-S. =Semotilus atromaculatus= (Mitchill), creek chub: Evermann and Cox (1896:399); and Jennings (1942:364) as _Semotilus atromaculatus atromaculatus_ (Mitchill). Stations 5-G, 7-G, 10-G, 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 16-G, 17-G, 18-G, 23-G, 24-G, 27-G, 28-G, 29-G, 31-G, 32-G, 33-M, 34-M, 36-M, 37-M, 40-M, 46-M, 47-M, 48-M, 49-M, 50-S, 53-S, 54-G, 55-M, 56-S, 57-M, 58-G, and 59-G. Creek chubs were found in all habitats in the Big Blue River Basin, but were abundant only in the headwaters of muddy streams and in clear upland creeks. =Chrosomus erythrogaster= (Rafinesque), southern redbelly dace: Jennings (1942:365). Stations 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 16-G, 27-G, 29-G, and 53-S. This colorful species occupied the headwaters of the clear, spring-fed creeks where it was abundant. Only one specimen was taken in muddy or sandy habitat (at the mouth of a small creek at Station 53-S), where it may have been washed by floods just prior to my collecting. =Hybopsis storeriana= (Kirtland), silver chub. Station 3-S. One specimen of _H. storeriana_ (KU 3810) was seined in swift water near a sandbar on April 6, 1957, and another was taken at the same locality on April 26, 1958. =Hybopsis aestivalis= (Girard), speckled chub: Meek (1895:137); and Evermann and Cox (1896:409), both as _Hybopsis hyostomus_ Gilbert. Stations 3-S, 4-S, 14-S, 25-S, 38-S, 39-S, 50-S, and 56-S. This species was restricted to wide, swift parts of the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers, and was found over clean, sometimes shifting, sand bottoms. On May 29, 1958, three males in breeding condition were collected and on June 16, 1958, a large series of both male and female _H. aestivalis_, all with well-developed gonads, was collected. The water temperature was 77.0°F. Hubbs and Ortenburger (1929:25-26) reported that _Extrarius tetranemus_ (Gilbert) (= _Hybopsis aestivalis tetranemus_) spawns in summer especially in early July. Cross (1950:135) reported a single pair of _H. a. tetranemus_ that he considered in breeding condition on June 9, 1948. Breukelman (1940:380) recorded speckled chubs in the Kansas River Basin as _Extrarius_ (= _Hybopsis_) _aestivalis_: _sesquialis_ × _tetranemus_; however, the name _sesquialis_ is a _nomen nudum_, and the status of this species in the Kansas River Basin is yet to be elucidated. =Phenacobius mirabilis= (Girard), plains suckermouth minnow: Meek (1895:136); and Evermann and Cox (1896:408). Stations 2-S, 3-S, 4-S, 5-G, 6-S, 7-G, 8-S, 9-G, 11-G, 16-G, 18-G, 25-S, 26-G, 27-G, 35-M, 38-S, 39-S, 40-M, 42-S, 47-M, 50-S, 52-S, 53-S, 54-G, and 56-S. _Phenacobius mirabilis_ was widespread in the basin, occurring most frequently on riffles over bottoms of clean sand or gravel. Young-of-the-year were usually taken in backwaters. =Notropis percobromus= (Cope), plains shiner. Stations 3-S and 4-S. The plains shiner occurred only in the lower part of the main stream of the Big Blue River. =Notropis rubellus= (Agassiz), rosyface shiner. Station 5-G. One rosyface shiner (KU 4195) was taken. This species was previously reported from only two localities in the Kansas River Basin: in the Mill Creek Watershed, Wabaunsee County, and Blacksmith Creek, Shawnee County as _Notropis rubrifrons_ (Cope) (Gilbert, 1886:208). Mill Creek and Blacksmith Creek are northward-flowing tributaries of the Kansas River that arise in the Flint Hills. Graham (1885:73) also recorded _N. rubellus_ (as _N. rubrifrons_) from the "Kansas and Missouri Rivers"; however, I suspect that his specimens were _Notropis percobromus_, a species not generally recognized in Graham's time (see Hubbs, 1945:16-17). _Notropis rubellus_ is now abundant in the Mill Creek Watershed (Wabaunsee County), but, except for my specimen No. 4195, has not been taken recently in other streams in the Kansas River Basin. =Notropis umbratilis umbratilis= (Girard), redfin shiner. Station 3-S. One specimen of _N. u. umbratilis_ was captured near a sandbar on March 26, 1958. The absence of this species in Flint Hills streams of the Big Blue River Basin is unexplained; redfin shiners occur commonly in southern tributaries of the Kansas River both upstream and downstream from the mouth of the Big Blue River. In Kansas this species is usually associated with the larger pools of clear, upland streams. Canfield and Wiebe (1931:6-8) may have referred to this species in recording "black-fin minnows" from the Nebraskan portion of the Big Blue River Basin. =Notropis cornutus frontalis= (Agassiz), common shiner. Stations 4-S, 5-G, 7-G, 10-G, 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 18-G, 22-G, 26-G, 27-G, 28-G, 29-G, 31-G, 32-G, and 59-G. Common shiners were most abundant in middle sections of the clear, gravelly creeks. =Notropis lutrensis= (Baird and Girard), red shiner: Meek (1895:136); and Evermann and Cox (1896:404-405). All stations excepting 1-S, 17-G, 30-M, and 51-M. Red shiners were the most widespread species taken in my survey, occurring in all habitats, and in all kinds of streams. On two occasions I observed what apparently was spawning behavior of this species. Both times the specimens collected were in the height of breeding condition, stripping in the hand easily, and often without pressure. At the first locality (Station 29-G) no attempt was made to obtain eggs, but by disturbing the bottom at the second (55-M) I found eggs that were thought to be those of red shiners. The eggs were slightly adhesive, clinging to the hand and to the bobbinet seine. On June 29, 1958, at Station 29-G, red shiners appeared to be spawning in an open-water area measuring about 15 by 15 feet, over nests of _Lepomis cyanellus_ Rafinesque and _L. humilis_ (Girard). No interspecific activity was noted between the sunfish and the red shiners. Water temperature at this station was 73.4°F., and the bottom was gravel, sand, and mud. Observations were made from a high cut-bank, by naked eye and by use of 7-X binoculars. The red shiners moved rapidly at the surface of the water, with one male (rarely two or more) following one female. The male followed closely, passing the female and causing her to change direction. At the moment of the female's hesitation, prior to her turn, the male would erect his fins in display, at the side and a little in front of the female. After brief display, usually less than two seconds, the male resumed the chase, swimming behind and around the female in a spiral fashion. After a chase of two to three feet, the female would sometimes allow the male to approach closely on her left side. The male nudged the female on the caudal peduncle and in the anal region, moving alongside with his head near the lower edge of the left operculum of the female, thus placing his genital pore about a head-length behind and below that of the female. At this time spawning must have occurred; however, possibly because of the speed of the chase, I observed no vibration of the fish as described for other species of _Notropis_ at the culmination of spawning (Pfeiffer, 1955:98; Raney, 1947:106; and others). While the spawning act presumably occurred the pair was in forward motion in a straight course, for three to five feet, at the end of which the male moved rapidly away, gyrating to the side and down. The female then swam away at a slower rate. In instances when the female failed to allow the male to move alongside, the male sometimes increased his speed, striking the female, and often causing her to jump from the water. Some conflict between males was observed, usually when two or more followed one female. The males would leave the female, swerve to one side, and stop, facing each other or side by side. At this moment the fins were greatly elevated in display. There was usually a rush on the part of one male, resulting in the flight of the other, and the aggressive male would pursue for about two feet. Many times the pursued male jumped from the water. At Station 55-M, on July 9, 1958, activity similar to that described above was observed in a small pool near a mass of debris. At this station I watched from the bank, three feet from the spawning shiners. Water temperature was not recorded. The minnows performed the same types of chase and display, all in open water, as described for Station 29-G, However, at Station 55-M, much activity of males occurred near the small deposit of debris. It seemed that conflict was taking place, with males behaving as described above, and milling violently about. Examination of the area revealed nests of _L. cyanellus_ near the debris, and some of the activity by the shiners may have been raids on nests of the sunfish. However, females nearing the group of males were immediately chased by one to four individual males, with one usually continuing pursuit after a short chase by the group. The male again moved into position at the lower left edge of the operculum of the female as at Station 29-G. Another kind of behavior was observed also, in which the female sometimes stopped. The male approached, erecting his fins and arching his body to the left. The female also assumed this arch to the left, and the pair moved in a tight, counter-clockwise circle, with the male on the inside. After a short period in this position, the male moved aside in display, and gyrated to the side and down. Females at both stations moved about slowly, usually remaining in the immediate vicinity of activity by males, and returning to the area even when pursued and deserted some distance away. =Notropis deliciosus= (Girard), sand shiner: Meek (1895:136); Evermann and Cox (1896:402), both as _Notropis blennius_ (Girard); and Jennings (1942:365) as _Notropis deliciosus missuriensis_ (Cope). All stations excepting 1-S, 10-G, 12-G, 17-G, 20-G, 21-G, 22-G, 24-G, 29-G, 30-M, 31-G, 32-G, 33-M, 35-M, 51-M, 55-M, 57-M, 58-G, and 59-G. Nelson (personal communication) has studied the sand shiner in Kansas, and has found that the Big Blue River is an area of intergradation between the southwestern subspecies (_deliciosus_) and the plains subspecies (_missuriensis_). _Notropis d. deliciosus_ prefers cool, rocky habitat, and occurs in small streams of the Flint Hills, whereas _N. d. missuriensis_ occupies the sandy, turbid Big Blue and Little Blue rivers. Intergrades occur most frequently in the Big Blue River, but are found in all habitats. =Notropis topeka= (Gilbert), Topeka shiner: Meek (1895:136); Evermann and Cox (1896:403); and Minckley and Cross (in press). Stations 10-G, 11-G, 12-G, 19-G, 31-G, and 32-G. This species was common locally in the upland streams. Female Topeka shiners stripped easily at Station 11-G on July 8, 1958, and adult _N. topeka_ in high breeding condition were collected at Station 31-G on July 14, 1958. The water temperature at both stations was 77.5°F. Evermann and Cox (1896:403-404) recorded female Topeka shiners "nearly ripe" on June 29, 1893. =Notropis buchanani= Meek, ghost shiner. Stations 3-S and 4-S. Only two specimens of _N. buchanani_ were taken, both on August 14, 1957. These specimens (KU 3833), a female with well-developed ova, and a tuberculate male, were near a sandbar in the main channel. To my knowledge, this is the first published record of the ghost shiner from the Kansas River Basin. Mr. James Booth, State Biological Survey, collected _N. buchanani_ from two stations on Mill Creek, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, 1953. =Hybognathus nuchalis= Agassiz, silvery minnow. Stations 2-S, 3-S, 4-S, 7-G, 8-S, and 16-G. This species was taken sporadically, but sometimes abundantly, in the Big Blue River. At Stations 7-G and 16-G a few young-of-the-year were found. TABLE 2. COMPARISONS OF THREE SERIES OF _HYBOGNATHUS_, 50 SPECIMENS EACH, FROM DIFFERENT STREAM SYSTEMS. TABLE LEGEND: Column A: [=X] = MEAN;, Column B: [sigma] = ONE STANDARD DEVIATION; Column C: 2 [sigma]_{m} = TWO STANDARD ERRORS. RANGES ARE IN PARENTHESES. STANDARD LENGTHS OF SPECIMENS ARE: WALNUT RIVER, KANSAS, 60.0 TO 72.7 mm., [=X] = 67.1; BIG BLUE RIVER, 43.3 TO 63.3 mm., [=X] = 52.0; AND CHIPPEWA RIVER, WISCONSIN, 57.6 TO 74.4 mm., [=X] = 65.9. ================+=================+=================+================== | Walnut River, | | Chippewa River, | Kansas | | Wisconsin COUNT OR | _H. n. placita_,| Big Blue River, | _H. n. nuchalis_, PROPORTIONAL | KU 3869 | Kansas KU 3812 | KU 2012 MEASUREMENT +-------+----+----+-------+----+----+-------+-----+---- | A | B | C | A | B | C | A | B | C ----------------+-------+----+----+-------+----+----+-------+-----+---- Lateral-line | 38.9 | 1.1| 0.4| 37.2 | 1.1| 0.4| 37.3 | 1.0 | 0.2 scales |(37-41)| | |(35-39)| | |(35-39)| | | | | | | | | | | Predorsal | 16.8 | 0.9| 0.7| 15.9 | 0.8| 0.2| 15.1 | 0.5 | 0.1 scale-rows |(15-19)| | |(14-17)| | |(14-17)| | | | | | | | | | | Scale-rows below| 15.6 | 1.2| 0.3| 14.9 | 1.0| 0.3| 12.9 | 0.7 | 0.2 lateral-line |(13-18)| | |(12-16)| | |(12-15)| | | | | | | | | | | Scale-rows | 16.2 | 1.1| 0.3| 15.8 | 0.8| 0.2| 13.8 | 0.6 | 0.2 around caudal |(15-19)| | |(14-18)| | |(12-15)| | peduncle | | | | | | | | | ----------------+-------+----+----+-------+----+----+-------+-----+---- TABLE 2.--Concluded. ============+===================+==================+=================== | Walnut River, | | Chippewa River, | Kansas | | Wisconsin COUNT OR | _H. n. placita_, | Big Blue River, | _H. n. nuchalis_, PROPORTIONAL| KU 3869 | Kansas KU 3812 | KU 2012 MEASUREMENT +-------+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-------+-----+----- | A | B | C | A | B | C | A | B | C ------------+-------+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-------+-----+----- Orbit ÷ | .051 |.0035|.0010| .059 |.0047|.0013| .068 |.0044|.0013 standard |(044- | | |(047- | | |(059- | | length | 61)| | | 71)| | | 77)| | | | | | | | | | | Gape-width ÷|.066 |.0046|.0013| .064 |.0044|.0013| .056 |.0038|.0011 standard |(055- | | |(055- | | |(046- | | length | 75)| | | 74)| | | 64)| | | | | | | | | | | Orbit ÷ | .776 |.0083|.0024| .907 |.0080|.0023| 1.223 |.0119|.0034 gape-width |(647- | | |(712- | | |(953- | | | 945)| | |1.067)| | | 1.566)| | ------------+-------+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-------+-----+----- Bailey (1956:333) does not consider the southwestern _Hybognathus placita_ (Girard) specifically distinct from the northeastern _H. nuchalis_, but little evidence of intergradation has been published. In Table 2, I have compared measurements and counts of 50 specimens of _Hybognathus_ from the Big Blue River, 50 _H. n. placita_ from the Walnut River, Kansas (Arkansas River Basin), and 50 _H. n. nuchalis_ from Wisconsin. Measurements and counts were made by methods described by Hubbs and Lagler (1947:8-15) and measurements are expressed as thousandths of standard length. _Hybognathus_ from the Big Blue River tend to have fewer, larger scales than _H. n. placita_ from the Walnut River, Kansas, but more and smaller scales than _H. n. nuchalis_ from Wisconsin. In specimens from the Blue River, the size of the orbit divided by standard length, and the width of gape divided by standard length and width of orbit, are also intermediate between the Walnut River and Wisconsin specimens, but tend toward the former. Specimens from the Big Blue River resemble _H. n. placita_ from the Walnut River in body shape, robustness, and in the embedding of scales on the nape. =Pimephales notatus= (Rafinesque), bluntnose minnow: Meek (1895:136); and Evermann and Cox (1896:399). Stations 2-S, 3-S, 5-G, 6-S, 8-S, 9-G, 10-G, 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 16-G, 19-G, 27-G, 29-G, 53-S, 54-G, and 58-G. The bluntnose minnow preferred the clearer creeks, with gravel or gravel-silt bottoms, but occurred rarely in the mainstream of the Big Blue River. Males and females in high breeding condition were taken on July 14, 1958. The temperature of the water was 75.5° F. =Pimephales promelas= Rafinesque, fathead minnow: Meek (1895: 136); and Evermann and Cox (1896:397-398). All stations excepting 1-S, 4-S, 12-G, 30-M, 43-S, 44-S, and 56-S. Small muddy streams were preferred by _P. promelas_; however, the fathead minnow was taken in all habitats, and in association with most other species. Canfield and Wiebe (1931:6-7) may have recorded _P. promelas_ from the Big Blue River Basin, Nebraska, as "blackhead minnows." =Campostoma anomalum plumbeum= (Girard), stoneroller. All stations excepting 1-S, 2-S, 3-S, 14-S, 15-S, 21-G, 22-G, 28-G, 30-M, 33-M, 34-M, 35-M, 36-M, 37-M, 38-S, 41-S, 44-S, 45-M, 51-M, 52-S, and 55-M. Stonerollers were usually taken in riffles with gravel-rubble bottoms. Those individuals collected in areas with mud or sand bottoms were almost invariably in the current, or in the edge of currents. Specimens from the Big Blue River Basin have an average of 47.4 scale-rows around the body (range 42-54). =Ictalurus melas= (Rafinesque), black bullhead: Evermann and Cox (1896:387) as _Ameiurus melas_ (Rafinesque); and Canfield and Wiebe (1931:5-7, 10) as "bullheads." Stations 2-S, 6-S, 7-G, 11-G, 16-G, 20-G, 22-G, 23-G, 24-G, 28-G, 35-M, 40-M, 51-M, 53-S, 55-M, 56-S, 57-M, and 58-G. Black bullhead occurred in all habitats, but were less commonly taken in the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers than in other streams. =Ictalurus natalis= (LeSueur), yellow bullhead. Stations 7-G, 9-G, 10-G, 11-G, 17-G, 18-G, 19-G, 34-M, 35-M, 36-M, 37-M, 40-M, 47-M, 48-M, 53-S, and 55-M. The yellow bullhead inhabited the muddy-bottomed streams and the upland, gravelly creeks, usually occurring in the headwaters. I obtained only one _I. natalis_ in the sandy Big Blue River. =Ictalurus punctatus= (Rafinesque), channel catfish: Cragin (1885:107); Meek (1895:135); Evermann and Cox (1896:386); and Canfield and Wiebe (1931:6-7, 10) as "channel catfish." Stations 1-S, 2-S, 3-S, 4-S, 5-G, 6-S, 7-G, 8-S, 9-G, 11-G, 14-S, 15-S, 16-G, 18-G, 25-S, 27-G, 30-M, 35-M, 38-S, 39-S, 41-S, 42-S, 43-S, 44-S, 46-M, 50-S, 51-M, 52-S, 53-S, and 56-S. Channel catfish were most common in the larger, sandy streams, but occurred in other kinds of streams. The ages and calculated total lengths at the last annulus for 40 channel catfish were: I, no fish; II, 7.3 (16); III, 10.6 (5); IV, 12.3 (5); V, 13.3 (6); VI, 15.5 (4); VII, 18.0 (3); and VIII, 21.9 (1). These lengths are slightly lower than averages reported by Finnell and Jenkins (1954:5) in Oklahoma impoundments. The length-frequency distribution of 438 channel catfish, collected by rotenone on August 5 and 7, 1958, indicated that two age-groups were represented. Without examination of spines, I assigned 265 fish to age-group O (1.3 to 2.9 inches, average 2.5) and 173 fish to age-group I (3.1 to 5.8 inches, average 4.5). The average total length of age group I (4.5 inches) is only slightly higher than the total length at the first annulus reported as average for Oklahoma (4.0 inches, Finnell and Jenkins, _loc. cit._). It seems unlikely that my yearling fish taken in August, 1958, would have reached the length at the second annulus recorded in my study of spines (7.3 inches) by the end of the 1958 growing season. From 1952 to 1956, severe drought was prevalent in Kansas, probably causing streams to flow less than at any previously recorded time (Minckley and Cross, in press). This drought must have resulted in reduced populations of fishes in the streams. The channel catfish hatched in 1956 were therefore subjected to low competition for food and space when normal flow was resumed in 1957, and grew rapidly, reaching an average total length of 7.3 inches at the second annulus, while channel catfish that were members of the large 1957 and 1958 hatches suffered more competition and grew more slowly. =Noturus flavus= Rafinesque, stonecat: Jennings (1942:365). Stations 3-S, 4-S, 6-S, 16-G, 25-S, 28-G, 38-S, 41-S, 42-S, 43-S, 52-S, 53-S, and 56-S. _Noturus flavus_ frequented riffles and swift currents along sandbars in the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers. Cross (1954:311) reported that "the shale-strewn riffles of the South Fork [of the Cottonwood River, Kansas] provide ideal habitat for the stonecat." In my study-area, this species was found not only on rubble-bottomed riffles, but occurred along both stationary and shifting sandbars where no cover was apparent. =Pylodictis olivaris= (Rafinesque), flathead catfish: Canfield and Wiebe (1931:7) as "yellow catfish." Stations 3-S, 4-S, 6-S, 8-S, 15-S, 25-S, 38-S, 41-S, 43-S, 44-S, 53-S, and 56-S. Flathead catfish were found only in the larger rivers. The species was taken rarely by seine, but was readily obtained by electric shocker. Data on the age and growth and food-habits of this species are to be the subject of another paper. =Anguilla bostoniensis= (LeSueur), American eel: Jennings (1942:365). American eels are now rare in Kansas, and none was taken in my survey. The specimen reported by Jennings (_loc. cit._) is at Kansas State College (KSC 2916), and was taken by I. D. Graham from the Big Blue River, Riley County, 1885. =Fundulus kansae= Garman, plains killifish. Station 42-S. The plains killifish was collected by me only at Station 42-S. Specimens were collected from my Station 4-S by the Kansas State College class in fisheries management in 1954 (KSC 4985). My specimens were 11 to 13 mm. in total length. =Roccus chrysops= (Rafinesque), white bass. Station 3-S. That the white bass is indigenous to Kansas is evidenced by records of Graham (1885:77) and Cragin (1885:111); however, since that time, and prior to the introduction of this species into reservoirs in the State, _R. chrysops_ has rarely been recorded in Kansas. I collected young white bass at Station 3-S in both 1957 and 1958, and I collected them also in an oxbow of the Kansas River four miles west of Manhattan, Riley County, Kansas, in the mouth of McDowell's Creek, Riley County, and in Deep Creek, Wabaunsee County, and I saw other specimens from an oxbow of the Kansas River on the Fort Riley Military Reservation, Riley County, Kansas. The apparent increase in abundance of white bass in the Kansas River Basin must be attributable to introductions in reservoirs, with subsequent escape and establishment in the streams. =Micropterus salmoides salmoides= (Lacépède), largemouth bass. Stations 6-S, 11-G, 43-S, and 45-M. Four largemouth bass were taken. This species has been widely stocked in farm-ponds and other impoundments in Kansas. =Lepomis cyanellus= Rafinesque, green sunfish: Breukelman (1940:382); and Canfield and Wiebe (1931:5, 7-8, 10) as "green sunfish." All stations excepting 1-S, 2-S, 4-S, 8-S, 9-G, 15-S, 22-G, 25-S, 30-M, 32-G, 34-M, 38-S, 39-S, 41-S, 42-S, 43-S, 44-S, 45-M, 46-M, 47-M, 50-S, and 52-S. Green sunfish occurred primarily in the muddy streams. The ages and total lengths at the last annulus for 25 specimens are as follows: I, 1.1 (9); II, 2.2 (4); III, 3.1 (7); IV, 5.4 (4); and V, 6.0 (1). Male green sunfish were seen on nests on June 29, July 1, and July 9, 1958. =Lepomis humilis= (Girard), orangespotted sunfish: Meek (1895:137); Evermann and Cox (1896:418); Canfield and Wiebe (1931:6) as "orange spots"; and Breukelman (1940:382). All stations excepting 1-S, 9-G, 13-G, 15-G, 17-G, 21-G, 26-G, 34-M, 36-M, 38-M, 43-M, 44-S, 47-M, 50-S, and 52-S. _Lepomis humilis_ was most common over sand-silt bottoms. Only two age-groups were found; their calculated total lengths were I, 1.7 (15); and II, 2.4 (10). Orangespotted sunfish were seen nesting on the same dates as _Lepomis cyanellus_. =Lepomis macrochirus= Rafinesque, bluegill. Stations 7-G, 13-G, 16-G, 24-G, and 59-G. This species has been widely stocked in Kansas. Only young-of-the-year and sub-adults were taken, and these were rare. =Pomoxis annularis= Rafinesque, white crappie: Canfield and Wiebe (1931:5-8, 10) as "white crappie." Stations 3-S, 6-S, 8-S, 12-G, 42-S, and 53-S. White crappie were rare, except in a borrow-pit at Station 6-S. Ages and calculated total lengths at the last annulus for 50 specimens from 6-S are as follows: I, 3.6 (22); II, 5.0 (14); III, 7.1 (5); IV, 8.3 (7); and V, 10.7 (2). =Pomoxis nigromaculatus= (LeSueur), black crappie. Station 6-S. One black crappie (KU 4174) was taken. Canfield and Wiebe (1931:10) noted: "The Black Crappie has been planted here [Big Blue River Basin in Nebraska] by the State, but, apparently, is not propagating itself." =Stizostedion canadense= (Smith), sauger. Station 56-S. Mr. Larry Stallbaumer, of Marysville, Kansas, obtained a sauger (KU 4179) while angling on May 25, 1958. =Stizostedion vitreum= (Mitchill), walleye. Though I failed to obtain the walleye in my survey, Dr. Raymond E. Johnson (personal communication) reported that the species occurred in the Nebraskan portion of the Big Blue River in recent years. Canfield and Wiebe (1931:6, 10) reported that "yellow pike are taken at Crete [Nebraska]," but may have referred to either the walleye or the sauger. =Perca flavescens= (Mitchill), yellow perch: Canfield and Wiebe (1931:5-6, 10) as "ring perch" and "yellow perch." This fish was not taken in my survey. Canfield and Wiebe (_loc. cit_.) reported that the yellow perch "had been planted by the State [Nebraska]." =Etheostoma nigrum nigrum= Rafinesque, johnny darter: Jennings (1942:365) as _Boleosoma nigrum nigrum_ (Rafinesque). Stations 10-G, 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 16-G, 29-G, 40-M, 53-S, and 54-G. The larger pools of gravelly streams were preferred by johnny darters, but one specimen was taken from the main stream of the Big Blue River, and the species was abundant in one stream over hard, sand-silt bottom. =Etheostoma spectabile pulchellum= (Girard), orangethroat darter: Jennings (1942:365) as _Poecilichthys spectabilis pulchellus_ (Girard). Stations 5-G, 7-G, 10-G, 11-G, 12-G, 13-G, 16-G, 17-G, 18-G, 21-G, 23-G, 27-G, 28-G, 29-G, 33-M, 40-M, 49-M, 53-S, 54-G, and 59-G. The orangethroat darter was less restricted in habitat than the johnny darter, occurring in all stream-types, but most often in the riffles of gravelly streams. Most specimens from muddy or sandy streams were small. =Aplodinotus grunniens= Rafinesque, freshwater drum. Stations 3-S, 4-S, 6-S, 7-G, 8-S, 15-S, 38-S, 39-S, 53-S, and 56-S. The ages and calculated total lengths at the last annulus for 42 freshwater drum from the Big Blue River were: I, 3.0 (10); II, 5.7 (6); III, 9.4 (7); IV, 12.1 (13); V, 14.0 (3); VI, 15.1 (2); and VII, 16.3 (1). HYBRID COMBINATIONS I obtained two hybrid fishes in my study-area. One specimen of _Notropis cornutus frontalis_ × _Chrosomus erythrogaster_ was taken at Station 29-G. This combination was recorded by Trautman (1957:114) in Ohio. The other hybrid was _Lepomis cyanellus_ × _Lepomis humilis_, captured at Station 24-G. This combination was first recorded by Hubbs and Ortenburger (1929:42). Hubbs and Bailey (1952:144) recorded another hybrid combination from my area of study: _Campostoma anomalum plumbeum_ × _Chrosomus erythrogaster_, UMMZ 103132, from a "spring-fed creek on 'Doc' Wagner's farm, Riley County, Kansas; September 21, 1927; L. O. Nolf [collector]." RELATIVE ABUNDANCE AND DISCUSSION OF SPECIES The relative abundance of different species was estimated by combining counts of individual fishes taken in 290 seine-hauls, 26 hours and 15 minutes of shocking, and seven samples obtained with rotenone. At some stations all seine-hauls were counted. At other stations the seine-hauls in which complete counts were recorded had been selected randomly in advance; that is to say, prior to collecting at each station. I selected those hauls to be counted from a table of random numbers (Snedecor, 1956:10-13). I did not use the frequency-of-occurrence method as proposed by Starrett (1950:114), in which the species taken and not the total number of individuals are recorded for all seine-hauls. However, the frequency of occurrence of each species is indicated by the number of stations at which it was found, and those stations are listed in the previous accounts. Table 3 shows the percentage of the total number of fish that each species comprised in three kinds of streams: sandy (Big Blue and Little Blue rivers), muddy, and gravelly streams. The habitat preferences of some species affect their abundance in different stream-types. _Notropis lutrensis_ and _P. mirabilis_ seemed almost ubiquitous. _Notropis deliciosus_ also occurred in all kinds of streams (rarely in muddy streams); however, this species was represented by the sand-loving _N. d. missuriensis_ in the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers, and _N. d. deliciosus_ in the clear, gravelly, upland creeks (Nelson, personal communication). Because of its widespread occurrence, and for purposes of later discussion, I refer to this minnow also as an ubiquitous species in the Big Blue River Basin. _Carpiodes carpio_, _Cyprinus carpio_, _I. punctatus_, _I. melas_, and _L. humilis_ were widespread, but each was absent or rare in one of the kinds of streams (Table 3). _Carpiodes carpio_, _Cyprinus carpio_, and _I. punctatus_ occurred most frequently in the sandy streams, whereas _L. humilis_ was most common in muddy streams. The high per cent of _I. melas_ in collections from the Big Blue River is a direct result of one large population that was taken with rotenone in a borrow-pit at Station 6-S. In my opinion, this species actually was most abundant in the muddy streams. TABLE 3. RELATIVE ABUNDANCE OF FISHES IN PER CENT OF THE TOTAL NUMBER TAKEN, BIG BLUE RIVER BASIN, KANSAS. TRACE (TR.) IS USED FOR VALUES LESS THAN .05 PER CENT, AND DASHES SIGNIFY THAT THE SPECIES DID NOT OCCUR IN THE COUNTED COLLECTIONS ALTHOUGH IT MAY HAVE OCCURRED IN UNCOUNTED COLLECTIONS FROM THE SAME STREAM-TYPE. THREE SPECIES, _C. AURATUS_, _N. BUCHANANI_, AND _S. CANADENSE_, WERE NOT TAKEN IN COUNTED COLLECTIONS. ====================+=================+=========+========== | Sandy streams | | +--------+--------+ Muddy | Gravelly SPECIES | Big | Little | streams | streams | Blue | Blue | | | River | River | | --------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------- _N. lutrensis_ | 43.5 | 55.9 | 27.6 | 56.0 _I. punctatus_ | 14.0 | 7.0 | 1.2 | 4.2 _Carpiodes carpio_ | 11.9 | 2.0 | 5.0 | 0.5 _N. deliciosus_ | 8.2 | 28.2 | 3.1 | 11.1 _I. melas_ | 2.5 | -- | 1.3 | 0.5 _Cyprinus carpio_ | 2.3 | 1.9 | 2.7 | 0.2 _P. olivaris_ | 1.8 | 0.8 | -- | -- _L. humilis_ | 1.7 | -- | 9.0 | 5.1 _I. bubalus_ | 1.4 | 0.1 | -- | Tr. _P. mirabilis_ | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 1.3 _H. nuchalis_ | 1.2 | -- | -- | Tr. _P. promelas_ | 0.8 | 1.0 | 28.7 | 4.0 _H. aestivalis_ | 0.7 | 0.2 | -- | -- _A. grunniens_ | 0.5 | -- | -- | 0.2 _L. osseus_ | 0.5 | 1.0 | -- | -- _C. anomalum_ | 0.4 | 0.2 | 2.7 | 4.6 _C. commersonnii_ | 0.4 | -- | -- | 0.7 _D. cepedianum_ | 0.4 | Tr. | 0.1 | -- _N. percobromus_ | 0.3 | -- | -- | -- _P. annularis_ | 0.3 | Tr. | -- | -- _N. flavus_ | 0.2 | 0.4 | -- | Tr. _S. atromaculatus_ | 0.2 | 0.1 | 12.2 | 1.7 _M. aureolum_ | 0.1 | 0.2 | -- | -- _I. cyprinella_ | 0.1 | -- | 0.1 | -- _P. notatus_ | 0.1 | -- | -- | 2.2 _I. niger_ | 0.1 | 0.1 | -- | -- _H. alosoides_ | 0.1 | -- | -- | -- _E. spectabile_ | 0.1 | -- | 1.4 | 1.6 _R. chrysops_ | 0.1 | -- | -- | -- _L. cyanellus_ | 0.1 | -- | 3.5 | Tr. _H. storeriana_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _L. platostomus_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _M. salmoides_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _P. nigromaculatus_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _I. natalis_ | Tr. | -- | 1.0 | Tr. _N. umbratilis_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _C. forbesi_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _S. platorynchus_ | Tr. | -- | -- | -- _F. kansae_ | -- | Tr. | -- | -- _E. nigrum_ | Tr. | -- | 0.1 | 0.2 _N. rubellus_ | -- | -- | -- | Tr. _N. topeka_ | -- | -- | -- | 1.0 _N. cornutus_ | -- | -- | -- | 1.0 _C. erythrogaster_ | -- | -- | -- | 1.0 _L. macrochirus_ | -- | -- | -- | 1.0 --------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------- Some fish were almost restricted to the sandy streams, apparently because of preference for larger waters, or sandy stream-bottoms: _P. olivaris_, _I. bubalus_, _H. nuchalis_, _H. aestivalis_, _A. grunniens_, _L. osseus_, _D. cepedianum_, _N. percobromus_, _P. annularis_, _N. flavus_, _M. aureolum_, _I. niger_, _H. alosiodes_, and _R. chrysops_. Other species that were taken only in the larger rivers, and that are sometimes associated with streams even larger (or more sandy) than the Big Blue River are _H. storeriana_, _L. platostomus_, _M. salmoides_, _P. nigromaculatus_, _C. forbesi_, _S. platorynchus_, _F. kansae_, _N. buchanani_, _S. canadense_, and _C. auratus_. _Ictiobus cyprinella_ also occurred more frequently in the larger streams. The muddy-bottomed streams supported populations composed primarily of _P. promelas_, _N. lutrensis_, and _S. atromaculatus_. No species was restricted to this habitat, but the following were characteristic there: _P. promelas_, _S. atromaculatus_, _L. humilis_, _L. cyanellus_, and _I. natalis_. _Carpiodes carpio_, _Cyprinus carpio_, _C. anomalum_, _E. spectabile_, and _E. nigrum_ were locally common in muddy streams, but the first two were most frequent in larger, sandy streams, and the last three in gravelly streams. In gravel-bottomed, upland streams, _N. cornutus_, _N. rubellus_, _N. topeka_, and _C. erythrogaster_ characteristically occurred; with the exception of _N. rubellus_ (only one specimen taken), all were common at some stations. Other species in gravelly creeks were _N. lutrensis_, _C. anomalum_, _C. commersonnii_, _P. notatus_, _L. macrochirus_, _E. spectabile_, and _E. nigrum_. Although the one specimen of _N. umbratilis_ taken in this survey was from the Big Blue River, this species is more characteristic of the clearer creeks in Kansas. In order to illustrate the composition of the fauna in some specific streams in the Big Blue River Basin, I segregated the fishes into ecological groups, as in the above discussion: ubiquitous types; species of larger, sandy streams; fishes of muddy streams; and fishes of clear, gravelly creeks. The total number of species taken in each of the streams was divided into the number of species from that stream that were in each of these units, to give a percentage. The resultant data are presented graphically in Figure 3. [Illustration: FIG. 3. Composition of the fauna of the entire Big Blue River Basin, and of seven streams or stream systems in that basin. "Mill Creek, Wash. Co." refers to all streams in the Mill Creek System, Washington and Republic counties. "Bl. Vermillion R. System" includes all streams in that watershed excepting Clear Creek and one of its tributaries (Stations 31-G and 32-G).] [Illustration: FIG. 4. Composition of the fauna of the Big Blue River, and of five collecting-sites on Carnahan Creek, Pottawatomie County. Lowermost sites are at the left of the figure.] Figure 3 gives a generalized picture of the faunal composition in different kinds of streams. However, the fauna of a small tributary becomes more distinct from the fauna of the larger stream into which the small stream flows as one moves toward the headwaters (Metcalf, 1957:92, 95-100). Figure 4 illustrates this in Carnahan Creek. Station 11-G included four sampling-sites, which were approximately one, two, three, and four miles upstream from the mouth of Carnahan Creek. Station 13-G (one collection) was about four miles upstream from the closest sampling-site of Station 11-G. Applying the same methods as for Figure 3, my findings show a gradual decline in the per cent of the fauna represented by the "large-river-fishes," and an increase in the segment classified as "upland-fishes," from downstream to upstream. CREEL CENSUS Fifty-three fishermen were interviewed in the 1957 creel census period, and 152 in 1958. Only those fishermen using pole and line were interviewed. In the area censused, much additional fishing is done with set-lines, that are checked periodically by the owners. In the 1958 census, 22 checks along approximately 80 miles of river were made, and seven of these trips were made without seeing one fisherman. The average fishing pressure for the entire area was estimated at one fisherman per 7.9 miles of stream, or one fisherman per 15.7 miles of shoreline. Seven species of fish were identified from fishermen's creels in 1957 and 1958. These, in order of abundance were: channel catfish; carp; freshwater drum; flathead catfish; shovelnose sturgeon; smallmouth buffalo; and river carpsucker. Shovelnose sturgeon occurred in fishermen's creels only in April, 1957, and freshwater drum occurred more frequently in the spring-census of 1957 than in the summer of 1958. Sixty-two of the fishermen interviewed in 1958 were fishing for "anything they could catch," 68 were fishing specifically for catfish, and 22 sought species other than catfish. The order of preference was as follows: channel catfish, 21.1 per cent; flathead catfish, 15.1 per cent; unspecified catfish, 12.5 per cent; carp, 9.2 per cent; freshwater drum, 1.3 per cent; and unspecified, 40.8 per cent. The kinds of fish desired by those fishermen checked in 1957 were not ascertained. Of all fishermen checked in 1957 and 1958, 165 were men, 17 were women, and 24 were children. Ninety-three per cent were fishing from the bank, five per cent were fishing from bridges, and two per cent were wading. All but two per cent of those checked were fishing "tightline"; the remainder fished with a cork. The ten baits most commonly used, in order of frequency, were worms, doughballs, minnows, liver, beef-spleen, chicken-entrails, coagulated blood, crayfish, shrimp, and corn. For purposes of later comparison the data on angler success (Table 4) have been divided according to areas: Area I, below Tuttle Creek Dam; Area II, in the Tuttle Creek Reservoir area; and Area III, above the reservoir. Areas I and III received the most fishing pressure, especially Station 4-S (in Area I), and Station 56-S (in Area III). In Area I, the success ranged from 0.91 fish per fisherman-day in 1957 to 0.26 fish per fisherman-day in 1958. The 1957 census was made in April and May, when fishing in warm-water streams is considered better than in July (Harrison, 1956:203). The 1958 census was from late June through July, and stream-flow in this period was continuously above normal. Therefore, fewer people fished the river, and catches were irregular. Catches in 1958 ranged from 0.26 fish per fisherman-day in Area I to 0.44 fish per fisherman-day in Area III. In 1951, in the Republican River of Kansas and Nebraska, the average fisherman-day yielded 0.36 fish, 0.09 fish per man-hour, and 0.06 fish per pole-hour (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1952:13-14). The average fisherman-day in the Republican River study was 3.0 hours, whereas the average on the Big Blue River was 2.2 hours for all areas in 1958 (Table 4). TABLE 4. ANGLING SUCCESS IN THE BIG BLUE RIVER, KANSAS, 1957 AND 1958. ================================================================= AREA, YEAR, |Average |Number |Number |Number AND NUMBER |length of |fish per |fish per|fish per OF FISHERMEN |fisherman-day|fisherman-day|man-hour|pole-hour[A] ---------------+-------------+-------------+--------+------------ Area I, 1957 | 2.7 hours | 0.91 | 0.33 | 0.23 53 fishermen | | | | Area I, 1958 | 2.5 hours | 0.26 | 0.10 | 0.07 84 fishermen | | | | Area II, 1958 | 1.7 hours | 0.37 | 0.22 | 0.14 27 fishermen | | | | Area III, 1958 | 2.4 hours | 0.44 | 0.16 | 0.11 41 fishermen | | | | All areas, 1958| 2.2 hours | 0.33 | 0.14 | 0.09 152 fishermen| | | | [A] Fishermen used an average of 1.44 poles. In the Big Blue River 47.7 per cent of all fishermen were successful in Area I in 1957, while only 13.1 per cent were successful in the same area in 1958 (Table 5). In the Republican River, 24 per cent of the fishing parties were successful (1.64 persons per party) (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, _loc. cit._). The average distance that each fisherman had traveled to fish in the Big Blue River was 15.7 miles. Seventy-nine per cent of the persons contacted lived within 25 miles of the spots where they fished. In the study on the Republican River, 77 per cent of the parties interviewed came less than 25 miles to fish. TABLE 5. PER CENT OF TOTAL FISHERMEN SUCCESSFUL, AND DISTANCES TRAVELLED TO FISH, BIG BLUE RIVER BASIN, KANSAS, 1957 AND 1958. ALL DISTANCES WERE MEASURED IN AIRLINE MILES. ============================+=======+=======+=======+=======+====== | 1957 | 1958 | 1958 | 1958 | 1958 | Area | Area | Area | Area | All | I | I | II | III | areas ----------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------ Per cent of | 47.1 | 13.1 | 18.5 | 19.5 | 15.8 fishermen successful | | | | | | | | | | Distances traveled to fish | 0-121 | 1-197 | 0-124 | 0-60 | 0-197 (averages in parentheses) |(15.6) |(20.5) |(13.5) |(7.4) |(15.7) ----------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- RECOMMENDATIONS My primary recommendation is for continued study of the Tuttle Creek Reservoir, and the Big Blue River above and below the reservoir, to trace changes in the fish population that result from impoundment. Probably the fishes that inhabit the backwaters, creek-mouths, and borrow-pits in the Big Blue River Basin (gars, shad, carpsucker, buffalo, carp, sunfishes, and white bass) will increase in abundance as soon as Tuttle Creek Reservoir is formed. Also, as in eastern Oklahoma reservoirs (see Finnell, _et al_., 1956:61-73), populations of channel and flathead catfish should increase. Because of the presence of brood-stock of the major sport-fishes of Kansas (channel and flathead catfish, bullhead, bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass, and white bass), stocking of these species would be an economic waste: exception might be made for the white bass. It may be above Tuttle Creek Dam, but was not found there. I do recommend immediate introduction of walleye, and possibly northern pike (_Esox lucius_ Linnaeus), the latter species having been successfully stocked in Harlan County Reservoir, Nebraska, in recent years (Mr. Donald D. Poole, personal communication). These two species probably are native to Kansas, but may have been extirpated as agricultural development progressed. Reservoirs may again provide habitats suitable for these species in the State. If Tuttle Creek Reservoir follows the pattern found in most Oklahoma reservoirs, large populations of "coarse fish"--fishes that are, however, commercially desirable--will develop (Finnell, _et al._, _loc. cit._). To utilize this resource, and possibly to help control "coarse fish" populations for the betterment of sport-fishing, some provision for commercial harvest should be made in the reservoir. SUMMARY 1. The Big Blue River Basin in northeastern Kansas was studied between March 30, 1957, and August 9, 1958. The objectives were to record the species of fish present and their relative abundance in the stream, and to obtain a measure of angling success prior to closure of Tuttle Creek Dam. 2. Fifty-nine stations were sampled one or more times, using seines, hoop and fyke nets, wire traps, experimental gill nets, rotenone, and an electric fish shocker. 3. Forty-eight species of fish were obtained, and five others have been recorded in literature or found in museums. One species, _Carpiodes forbesi_, is recorded from Kansas for the first time. 4. _Notropis lutrensis_ was the most abundant fish in the Big Blue River Basin, followed by _Notropis deliciosus_ and _Ictalurus punctatus_. The most abundant sport-fishes were _I. punctatus_, _I. melas_, and _Pylodictis olivaris_, respectively. 5. The spawning behavior of _Notropis lutrensis_ is described. 6. A creel census at major points of access to the Big Blue River, was taken in 1957 (below Tuttle Creek Dam) and in 1958 (above, in, and below the dam-site). Fishing pressure averaged one fisherman per 15.7 miles of shoreline. The average length of the fisherman-day averaged 2.2 hours, with an average of 0.33 fish per fisherman-day being caught in 1958. The average number of fish per man-hour in 1958 was 0.14 and 15.8 per cent of the fishermen were successful. Distances traveled in order to fish ranged from 0 to 197 miles (airline) and averaged 15.7 miles. 7. The primary recommendation is that studies be continued, to document changes that result from impoundment. Because brood-stock of the major sport-fishes is already present, stocking is unnecessary, except for walleye and northern pike. Also, I recommend commercial harvest of non-game food-fishes. LITERATURE CITED BAILEY, R. M. 1956. A revised list of fishes of Iowa, with keys for identification. _In_ Iowa Fish and Fishing, by J. R. Harlan and E. B. Speaker. Iowa State Cons. Comm., Des Moines, pp. 325-377. ----, and CROSS, F. B. 1954. River sturgeons of the American genus _Scaphirhynchus_: characters, distribution, and synonymy. Pap. Michigan Acad. Sci., Arts, and Letters, 39 (1953): 169-208. BREUKELMAN, J. 1940. A collection of Kansas fish in the State University Museum. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 43: 377-384. BUCHHOLZ, M. 1957. Age and growth of river carpsucker in Des Moines River, Iowa. Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci., 64: 589-600. CANFIELD, H. L., and WIEBE, A. H. 1931. A cursory survey of the Blue River System of Nebraska. U. S. Dept. Comm., Bur. of Fisheries, Econ. Circ. 73: 1-10. COLBY, C., DILLINGHAM, H., ERICKSON, E., JENKS, G., JONES, J., and SINCLAIR, R. 1956. The Kansas Basin, Pilot Study of a Watershed. Univ. of Kansas Press, Lawrence, ix + 103 pp. CRAGIN, F. W. 1885. Preliminary list of Kansas fishes. Bull. Washburn Lab. of Nat. Hist., 1 (3):105-111. CROSS, F. B. 1950. Effects of sewage and of a headwaters impoundment on the fishes of Stillwater Creek in Payne County, Oklahoma. Amer. Midl. Nat., 43 (1):128-145. 1954. Fishes of Cedar Creek and the South Fork of the Cottonwood River, Chase County, Kansas. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 57 (3): 303-314. EDDY, S., and SURBER, T. 1947. Northern Fishes, with Special Reference to the Upper Mississippi Valley. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, xii + 276 pp. EVERMANN, B. W., and COX, U. O. 1896. Report upon the fishes of the Missouri River Basin. Appendix 5. Rept. U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1894. pp. 325-429. FINNELL, J. C., and JENKINS, R. M. 1954. Growth of channel catfish in Oklahoma waters: 1954 revision. Oklahoma Fish Res. Lab. Rept. 41: ii + 1-37. ----, JENKINS, R. M. and HALL, G. E. 1956. The fishery resources of the Little River System, McCurtain County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma Fish. Res. Lab. Rept. 55: ii + 1-82. FLORA, S. D. 1948. Climate of Kansas. Rept. Kansas State Board of Agri., 67 (285): xii + 1-320. FORBES, S. A., and RICHARDSON, R. E. 1920. The Fishes of Illinois. Nat. Hist. Survey of Illinois. Illinois Printing Co., Danville, cxxxi + 357 pp. FRYE, J. C., and LEONARD, A. B. 1952. Pleistocene geology of Kansas. Kansas Geol. Survey, Bull. 99: 1-230. GILBERT, C. H. 1886. Third series of notes on the fishes of Kansas. Bull. Washburn Lab. of Nat. Hist., 1 (6): 207-211. GRAHAM, I. D. 1885. Preliminary list of Kansas fishes. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 9: 69-78. HARRISON, H. M. 1956. Angling for channel catfish. _In_ Iowa Fish and Fishing, by J. R. Harlan and E. B. Speaker. Iowa State Cons. Comm., Des Moines. Pp. 202-212. HUBBS, C. L. 1945. Corrected distributional records for Minnesota fishes. Copeia, 1945 (1):13-22. ----, and ORTENBURGER, A. I. 1929. Further notes on the fishes of Oklahoma with descriptions of new species of Cyprinidae. Pub. Univ. Oklahoma Biol. Survey, 1 (2): 17-43. ----, and LAGLER, K. F. 1947. Fishes of the Great Lakes Region. Cranbrook Inst. of Sci., Bull. 26: xi + 1-186. ----, and BAILEY, R. M. 1952. Identification of _Oxygeneum pulverulentum_ Forbes, from Illinois, as a hybrid cyprinid fish. Pap. Michigan Acad. Sci., Arts, and Letters, 37 (1951): 143-152. JENNINGS, D. 1942. Kansas fish in the Kansas State College Museum at Manhattan. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 45: 363-366. KANSAS WATER RESOURCES FACT-FINDING AND RESEARCH COMMITTEE. 1955. Water in Kansas. A Report to the Kansas State Legislature ... Univ. of Kansas. 1-216 pp. KINCER, J. B. 1941. Climate and weather data for the United States. _In_ Climate and Man, Yearbook of Agri. for 1941. House Doc. 27. pp. 685-699. LAGLER, K. F. 1952. Freshwater Fishery Biology. Wm. C. Brown Co., Dubuque, Iowa. x + 360 pp. LUGN, A. L. 1935. The Pleistocene geology of Nebraska. Nebraska Geol. Survey, Bull. 10, 2nd series: 1-223. MARZOLF, R. C. 1955. Use of pectoral spines and vertebrae for determining age and rate of growth of the channel catfish. Jour. Wildl. Mgmt., 19 (2): 243-249. MEEK, S. E. 1895. Notes on the fishes of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 14 (1894): 133-138. METCALF, A. L. 1957. Fishes of Chautauqua, Cowley and Elk counties, Kansas. Univ. Kansas Publ., Mus. Nat. Hist., 11:345-400. MINCKLEY, W. L., and CROSS, F. B. In press. Habitat, distribution, and abundance of _Notropis topeka_ (Gilbert) in Kansas. Amer. Midl. Nat. MONFORT, E. 1956. A layman looks at water. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 59 (1):118-123. MOORE, G. A. 1957. Fishes. _In_ Vertebrates of the United States, by W. Blair, A. Blair, P. Brodkorb, F. Cagle, and G. Moore. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, N. Y. pp. 31-210. MOORE, R. C., and LANDES, K. K. 1937. Geologic map of Kansas. Scale 1:500,000. Kansas Geol. Survey. NEBRASKA STATE PLANNING BOARD. 1936. Water resources of Nebraska. Mimeo. by Nebraska State Planning Board. Lincoln, xxviii + 695 pp. PFEIFFER, R. A. 1955. Studies on the life history of the rosyface shiner, _Notropis rubellus_. Copeia, 1955 (2):95-104. RANEY, E. C. 1947. Subspecies and breeding behavior of the cyprinid fish _Notropis procne_ (Cope). Copeia, 1947 (2):103-109. SCHOEWE, W. H. 1953. The geography of Kansas, Part III--concluded, hydrogeography. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 56 (2):131-190. SNEDECOR, G. W. 1956. Statistical Methods. Iowa State College Press, Ames. xiii + 534 pp. STARRETT, W. C. 1950. Distribution of the fishes of Boone County, Iowa, with special reference to the minnows and darters. Amer. Midl. Nat., 43 (1): 112-127. TRAUTMAN, M. B. 1957. The Fishes of Ohio. Waverly Press, Inc., Baltimore, Md. xvii + 683 pp. U. S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE. 1952. A one-year creel census and evaluation of the Republican River, Nebraska and Kansas, 1951. Mimeo. by the Staff, Missouri River Basin Studies, Billings, Mont. 29 pp., Appendix. 1953. A preliminary report on fish and wildlife resources in relation to the water development plan for the Tuttle Creek Dam and Reservoir, Big Blue River, Missouri River Basin, Kansas. Mimeo. by the Staff, Missouri River Basin Studies, Billings, Mont. 25 pp. VAN ORMAN, C. R. 1956. Surface water--its control and retention for use. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 59 (1):105-110. WALTERS, K. L. 1954. Geology and ground-water resources of Marshall County, Kansas. Kansas Geol. Survey, Bull. 106:1-116. _Transmitted December 19, 1958._ [] 27-7080 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Institutional libraries interested in publications exchange may obtain this series by addressing the Exchange Librarian, University of Kansas Library, Lawrence, Kansas. Copies for individuals, persons working in a particular field of study, may be obtained by addressing instead the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. There is no provision for sale of this series by the University Library which meets institutional requests, or by the Museum of Natural History which meets the requests of individuals. However, when individuals request copies from the Museum, 25 cents should be included, for each separate number that is 100 pages or more in length, for the purpose of defraying the costs of wrapping and mailing. * An asterisk designates those numbers of which the Museum's supply (not the Library's supply) is exhausted. Numbers published to date, in this series, are as follows: Vol. 1. Nos. 1-26 and index. Pp. 1-638, 1946-1950. *Vol. 2. (Complete) Mammals of Washington. By Walter W. Dalquest. Pp. 1-444, 140 figures in text. April 9, 1948. Vol. 3. *1. The avifauna of Micronesia, its origin, evolution, and distribution. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 1-359, 16 figures in text. June 12, 1951. *2. A quantitative study of the nocturnal migration of birds. By George H. Lowery, Jr. Pp. 361-472, 47 figures in text. June 29, 1951. 3. Phylogeny of the waxwings and allied birds. By M. Dale Arvey. Pp. 473-530, 49 figures in text, 13 tables. October 10, 1951. 4. Birds from the state of Veracruz, Mexico. By George H. Lowery, Jr., and Walter W. Dalquest. Pp. 531-649, 7 figures in text, 2 tables. October 10, 1951. Index. Pp. 651-681. *Vol. 4. (Complete) American weasels. By E. Raymond Hall. Pp. 1-466, 41 plates, 31 figures in text. December 27, 1951. Vol. 5. Nos. 1-37 and index. Pp. 1-676, 1951-1953. *Vol. 6. (Complete) Mammals of Utah, _taxonomy and distribution_. By Stephen D. Durrant. Pp. 1-549, 91 figures in text, 30 tables. August 10, 1952. Vol. 7. *1. Mammals of Kansas. By E. Lendell Cockrum. Pp. 1-303, 73 figures in text, 37 tables. August 25, 1952. 2. Ecology of the opossum on a natural area in northeastern Kansas. By Henry S. Fitch and Lewis L. Sandidge. Pp. 305-338, 5 figures in text. August 24, 1953. 3. The silky pocket mice (Perognathus flavus) of Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 339-347, 1 figure in text. February 15, 1954. 4. North American jumping mice (Genus Zapus). By Philip H. Krutzsch. Pp. 349-472, 47 figures in text, 4 tables. April 21, 1954. 5. Mammals from Southeastern Alaska. By Rollin H. Baker and James S. Findley. Pp. 473-477. April 21, 1954. 6. Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 479-487. April 21, 1954. 7. Subspeciation in the montane meadow mouse. Microtus montanus, in Wyoming and Colorado. By Sydney Anderson. Pp. 489-506, 2 figures in text. July 23, 1954. 8. A new subspecies of bat (Myotis velifer) from southeastern California and Arizona. By Terry A. Vaughan. Pp. 507-512. July 23, 1954. 9. Mammals of the San Gabriel mountains of California. By Terry A. Vaughan. Pp. 513-582, 1 figure in text, 12 tables. November 15, 1954. 10. A new bat (Genus Pipistrellus) from northeastern Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 583-586. November 15, 1954. 11. A new subspecies of pocket mouse from Kansas. By E. Raymond Hall. Pp. 587-590. November 15, 1954. 12. Geographic variation in the pocket gopher, Cratogeomys castanops, in Coahuila, Mexico. By Robert J. Russell and Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 591-608. March 15, 1955. 13. A new cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) from northeastern Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 609-612. April 8, 1955. 14. Taxonomy and distribution of some American shrews. By James S. Findley, Pp. 613-618. June 10, 1955. 15. The pigmy woodrat, Neotoma goldmani, its distribution and systematic position. By Dennis G. Rainey and Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 619-624, 2 figures in text. June 10, 1955. Index. Pp. 625-651. Vol. 8. 1. Life history and ecology of the five-lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 1-156, 26 figs. in text. September 1, 1954. 2. Myology and serology of the Avian Family Fringillidae, a taxonomic study. By William B. Stallcup. Pp. 157-211, 23 figures in text, 4 tables. November 15, 1954. 3. An ecological study of the collared lizard (Crotaphytus collaris). By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 213-274, 10 figures in text. February 10, 1956. 4. A field study of the Kansas ant-eating frog, Gastrophryne olivacea. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 275-306, 9 figures in text. February 10, 1956. 5. Check-list of the birds of Kansas. By Harrison B. Tordoff. Pp. 307-359, 1 figure in text. March 10, 1956. 6. A population study of the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) in northeastern Kansas. By Edwin P. Martin. Pp. 361-416, 19 figures in text. April 2, 1956. 7. Temperature responses in free-living amphibians and reptiles of northeastern Kansas. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 417-476, 10 figures in text, 6 tables. June 1, 1956. 8. Food of the crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos Brehm, in south-central Kansas. By Dwight Platt. Pp. 477-498, 4 tables. June 8, 1956. 9. Ecological observations on the woodrat Neotoma floridana. By Henry S. Fitch and Dennis G. Rainey. Pp. 499-533, 3 figures in text. June 12, 1956. 10. Eastern woodrat, Neotoma floridana; Life history and ecology. By Dennis G. Rainey. Pp. 585-646, 12 plates, 13 figures in text. August 15, 1956. Index. Pp. 647-675. Vol. 9. 1. Speciation of the wandering shrew. By James S. Findley. Pp. 1-68, 18 figures in text. December 10, 1955. 2. Additional records and extensions of ranges of mammals from Utah. By Stephen D. Durrant, M. Raymond Lee, and Richard M. Hansen. Pp. 69-80. December 10, 1955. 3. A new long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis) from northeastern Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker and Howard J. Stains. Pp. 81-84. December 10, 1955. 4. Subspeciation in the meadow mouse, Microtus pennsylvanicus, in Wyoming. By Sydney Anderson. Pp. 85-104, 2 figures in text. May 10, 1956. 5. The condylarth genus Ellipsodon. By Robert W. Wilson. Pp. 105-116, 6 figures in text. May 19, 1956. 6. Additional remains of the multituberculate genus Eucosmodon. By Robert W. Wilson. Pp. 117-123, 10 figures in text. May 19, 1956. 7. Mammals of Coahuila, Mexico. By Rollin H. Baker. Pp. 125-335, 75 figures in text. June 15, 1956. 8. Comments on the taxonomic status of Apodemus peninsulae, with description of a new subspecies from North China. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 337-346, 1 figure in text, 1 table. August 15, 1956. 9. Extensions of known ranges of Mexican bats. By Sydney Anderson. Pp. 347-351. August 15, 1956. 10. A new bat (Genus Leptonycteris) from Coahuila. By Howard J. Stains. Pp. 353-356. January 21, 1957. 11. A new species of pocket gopher (Genus Pappogeomys) from Jalisco, Mexico. By Robert J. Russell. Pp. 357-361. January 21, 1957. 12. Geographic variation in the pocket gopher, Thomomys bottae, in Colorado. By Phillip M. Youngman. Pp. 363-387, 7 figures in text. February 21, 1958. 13. New bog lemming (genus Synaptomys) from Nebraska. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 385-388. May 12, 1958. 14. Pleistocene bats from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. By J. Knox Jones, Jr. Pp. 389-396. December 19, 1958. 15. New subspecies of the rodent Baiomys from Central America. By Robert L. Packard. Pp. 397-404. December 19, 1958. More numbers will appear in volume 9. Vol. 10. 1. Studies of birds killed in nocturnal migration. By Harrison B. Tordoff and Robert M. Mengel. Pp. 1-44, 6 figures in text, 2 tables. September 12, 1956. 2. Comparative breeding behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritima. By Glen E. Woolfenden. Pp. 45-75, 6 plates, 1 figure. December 20, 1956. 3. The forest habitat of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation. By Henry S. Fitch and Ronald R. McGregor. Pp. 77-127, 2 plates, 7 figures in text, 4 tables. December 31, 1956. 4. Aspects of reproduction and development in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster). By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 129-161, 8 figures in text, 4 tables. December 19, 1957. 5. Birds found on the Arctic slope of northern Alaska. By James W. Bee. Pp. 163-211, pls. 9-10, 1 figure in text, March 12, 1958. 6. The wood rats of Colorado: distribution and ecology. By Robert B. Finley, Jr. Pp. 213-552, 34 plates, 8 figures in text, 35 tables. November 7, 1958. More numbers will appear in volume 10. Vol. 11. 1. The systematic status of the colubrid snake, Leptodeira discolor Günther. By William E. Duellman. Pp. 1-9, 4 figs. July 14, 1958. 2. Natural history of the six-lined racerunner, Cnemidophorus sexlineatus. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 11-62, 9 figs., 9 tables. September 19, 1958. 3. Home ranges, territories, and seasonal movements of vertebrates of the Natural History Reservation. By Henry S. Fitch. Pp. 63-326, 6 plates, 24 figures in text, 3 tables. December 12, 1958. 4. A new snake of the genus Geophis from Chihuahua, Mexico. By John M. Legler. Pp. 327-334, January 28, 1959. 5. A new tortoise, genus Gopherus, from north-central Mexico. By John M. Legler. Pp. 335-343, April 24, 1959. 6. Fishes of Chautauqua, Cowley and Elk counties, Kansas. By Artie L. Metcalf. Pp. 345-400, 2 plates, 2 figures in text, 10 tables. May 6, 1959. 7. Fishes of the Big Blue River Basin, Kansas. By W. L. Minckley. Pp. 401-442, 2 plates, 4 figures in text, 5 tables. May 8, 1959. More numbers will appear in volume 11. Transcriber's Notes Except as noted below, the text presented herein is that contained in the original printed version. Minor corrections (such as missing punctuation) may have been corrected. The original version had a list of publications printed inside the cover and inside and on the back cover. The cover page was not retained as it is a copy of the first page and the list inside the cover was moved past the end of the article. Notations The greek letter sigma is represented as [sigma]. And [=X] indicates letter X with a line above it which is a standard notation for mean. Typographical Corrections Page Correction ==== ================================= 408 Phenophthalein => Phenolphthalein Text Emphasis _Text_ : Italics =Text= : Bold and Italics 
56206	----	[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: (starfish)] My Book of Ten Fishes _by_ Rosalie G. Mendel Author of Spark Series, "My Book of Ten Fishes," etc. ILLUSTRATED BY HAZEL FRAZEE Whitman Publishing Co. Racine, Wisconsin. Copyright 1916 WHITMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY BY THE STAR FISH Do you know why I am called a "Star Fish?" It is because I am shaped like a star. I am the star of the sea. My five large, thick arms point in different directions. On the end of each one is a red spot. Those are my eyes. My body is covered with little spine-like prickles. On the under side of my body, near the center, is my mouth. My favorite foods are oysters and clams. When I want my dinner I bend my arms, or rays, to form a cup. I catch food with the hundreds of little suckers that are on the under side of my body. BY THE SALMON Did you ever go fishing? Did you ever catch a Salmon? I doubt it. It takes a mighty sharp fisherman to catch me. I am called "the king of the fresh water fish." I am the most valuable and delicate of all fish. My flavor is excellent and I have few troublesome bones. My home is in the sea. But in the autumn of the year I leave it and travel to the river where I was born. There I deposit eggs in the shallow creeks. The eggs remain there until the next spring. Then they are hatched into baby salmons. [Illustration: (salmon)] These children remain for two years in the river. Then, in the third spring, they seek the cool waters of the sea. Often, on my journey from the sea to my birthplace, I come to roaring waterfalls. To reach the top of these is hard and dangerous. But I am never afraid. I curl my body so that my tail almost reaches my mouth. Then I give an upward spring. Sometimes I fail, but if I do I try again. Did you ever see a picture of a "salmon leap?" BY THE LOBSTER You have eaten lobsters, haven't you? If not, I am sorry for you, because I am considered a very fine-tasting sea food. When a lobster is brought to the dinner table it is a bright red. But when it swims in the ocean, before it is boiled, its shell is very dark, almost black. Mother Nature furnished me with a hard shell made of lime. This protects my soft body from my enemies. This shell fits me as tightly as your Sunday kid glove fits you. When my body grows too large for it, I get ready for a new one. I hide myself from everyone. I stop eating and so get thinner. My body shrinks away from my shell. It splits and comes off. Then a new one at once begins to cover me. At first it is very soft, but it soon gets as hard as my other one. The old shell comes off in one piece. If you saw it lying on the sand you would think it a live lobster. Snap! Snap! See my two pinchers! Look out or I might bite you! Snap! Snap! [Illustration: (lobster)] BY THE SHARK I am a shark! I am called "the tiger of the ocean," because I am so large, strong and terrible. I eat human flesh. [Illustration: (shark)] I guess I am not very good to look at. They say my mouth has a horrible, mean expression. I am about thirty feet long! I have six rows of strong, sharp-pointed teeth--sharper than any knife you ever had. I can raise or lower these as I wish. Most fish, when they drop their eggs, forget all about them. But I love and take care of my young ones. BY THE CRAB People say I am a quarrelsome creature. That is why cross persons are called "crabby." But I won't ever quarrel with you, little one. I am a first cousin of the lobster. I have a soft body protected with a hard shell. When I grow too big I throw it off and then I get a new one, just like Mr. Lobster does. I have five pairs of legs. Poor child, you have only one pair. I walk sideways. In walking I use the legs on one side of my body to push with and those on the other side to pull with. My short tail I carry folded under my body. See my two strong pairs of nippers! With these pinchers I defend myself from my enemies. I wouldn't hurt you, though. Oysters and other small sea animals often attach themselves to my shell and stay there a long time. Men catch us crabs in wicker pots that are sunk deep in the water. In each is placed some bait. Are you a "crabby" little person? I hope not. [Illustration: (crab)] BY THE WHALE "That she blows! Thar she blows!" That is what the sailors cry when they see me spout air and water out of the holes in the top part of my head. Sometimes I spout water 60 or 70 feet high. I am a Right or Greenland whale. I live in the cold north seas. Underneath my skin are layers of fat called "blubber," that keep my body warm. From this blubber men take large quantities of oil. It is very valuable. Some whales give as much as 300 barrels of oil. Just think of that! When I want my dinner I just open my mouth and collect thousands of small fish. I have no real teeth, but in my upper jaw are fringed plates known as "whale-bones." Maybe your mamma has sent you to the store to buy whale-bone for her new dress. My cousin, the sperm whale, lives in the warm part of the ocean. Your nice white candles are made from spermaceti. It is taken from the head of the sperm whale. He also gives you "ambergris," out of which fine perfume is made. The dolphin and the porpoise are smaller whale-like animals. They are playful and affectionate. [Illustration: (whale)] BY THE OYSTER Do you like oysters? I hope so. This is the oyster season. In the summer months, when I am busy laying eggs I am not good to eat. We lay about two million eggs each season. My children are full grown when they are three years old. You are little more than a baby at that age. [Illustration: (oyster)] I am called "fashionable" because I am not cheap like herring. I am considered quite a dainty. I have no head. I have no feet. I have no teeth. But I have a mouth. My house is a hard shell made of two valves joined together by a hinge. Of course you know that pearls come from oysters. Often men risk their lives in diving to the bottom of the ocean to get these precious gems. Sharks are great enemies of the pearl divers. The mother of pearl is the lining of the pearl oyster shell. Have any of you little chaps knives with handles made of mother of pearl? Oh! I am an exciting fish, I am! Good night. Don't dream about me! BY THE SARDINE We are called sardines because we are caught on the coast of a country called Sardinia. [Illustration: (sardines)] We are considered beautiful, graceful little swimmers. Most of us are about three or four inches long. Our color is bright green above and silvery white below. We live in the deep sea and only come to the surface to lay our eggs. Along the coasts where we are caught there are many sardine factories. There they can us. Ask your mother to buy a box of sardines for supper tonight. Then tell her all you know about us. 
41662	----	Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net _THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON_ JIM KJELGAARD DODD, MEAD & COMPANY NEW YORK 1953 Copyright, 1953 By Jim Kjelgaard All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 53-6314_ Printed in the United States of America by Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N. Y. TO David LeClair and Richard Smith _CONTENTS_ _Chapter One_ Storm 1 _Two_ Wreck 16 _Three_ On the Beach 34 _Four_ Trouble for the _Spray_ 54 _Five_ Rescue 73 _Six_ New Venture 89 _Seven_ Partners 109 _Eight_ Action 125 _Nine_ Pirates 144 _Ten_ The Great Fish 160 _Eleven_ Fisherman's Luck 171 _Twelve_ The Pond 184 The characters and situations in this book are wholly fictional and imaginative: they do not portray and are not intended to portray any actual persons or parties. _THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON_ CHAPTER ONE _STORM_ Ramsay Cartou leaned on the rail of the ponderous side-wheeler, the _H. H. Holter_, and watched without interest while a horse-drawn truck brought another load of cattle hides on board. The sweating stevedores who were loading the _Holter_ and the belaboring mate who supervised them began stowing the hides into the hold. The _Holter's_ winch, either ruined by an inexpert operator or about to fall apart anyhow, was broken. All the work had to be done by hand. Ramsay turned to breathe the clean air that swept in from Lake Michigan. It was impossible, anywhere on the _Holter_, to get away from the smell of the hides, but at least he did not have to look at them. Not since he had left the brawling young city of Chicago two days before, to make his way north to the equally lusty young city of Milwaukee, had the sun shone. In those two days, while he waited for repairs to the engine hauling the train in which he was riding, he had seen nothing of the lake. Now, from the mouth of the river where the _Holter_ was anchored, he had a clear view, and it was exciting. The grays of the sky and the grays of the lake were indefinable, with no clear separation. Ramsay shivered slightly. The lake was a cat, he thought, a great sinewy cat, and the whitecaps rolling into the harbor were its sheathed and unsheathed claws. It was an awesome thing, but at the same time a wonderful one. A trembling excitement rose within him. The lake was at once a challenge and a promise--a threat and a mighty lure. He stared, fascinated, and tried to trace the rolling course of the waves as they surged toward the bank. It was impossible to follow just one for, as soon as it swelled, it retreated, to lose itself in the immense lake and renew itself in endless forward surges. Like recklessly charging soldiers, the waves cast themselves up on the bank and, exhausted, fell back. So absorbed was he in the spectacle and so fascinated by the lake, that for a moment he was unaware of the man beside him or of the words he spoke. Then a rough hand grasped his shoulder and, reacting instantly, Ramsay whirled around. "Why ain't you at work with the rest, boy?" "Take your hand off me!" The man who stood beside him was oddly like a rock, a great granite boulder. Two inches taller than Ramsay's six feet, he had a barrel chest and long, powerful arms. A leather jacket, with the sleeves cut off, hung loosely on his upper body, and beneath it he wore a homespun shirt. His black trousers had been fashioned by an exacting tailor but sadly misused. They were torn and patched with anything that might have been at hand. Black hair straggled from beneath his crushed black hat and the hair needed cutting. His eyes, colorless, were oddly inanimate, like two glass balls with no special warmth or feeling. A black beard sprouted from his cheeks and half-hid his face, but the beard did not hide thick, coarse lips. He repeated, "Them hides got to be loaded! Get to work!" "Load them yourself!" "I'll give you a lesson you won't forget, boy!" "Do that!" Ramsay tensed, awaiting the anticipated attack of the bigger, heavier man. He felt almost a grim pleasure. He had learned his fighting the hard way, as anybody brought up on the New York water-front, and with an irresponsible father had to learn it. The man who faced him was heavier by a good sixty pounds, but he was a bull of a man and, probably, he would fight like a bull. Would he know about matadors? The man's eyes were narrowed to pinpoints, and they seemed to spark. Sheer rage made his face livid, while his lips were distorted in a snarl. He drew back, readying himself for the spring that would overwhelm this brash youth who had dared dispute him. Ramsay poised on lithe feet, prepared to side-step. Then fat, fussy little Captain Schultz, skipper of the _Holter_, stepped between them. He wheezed like an over-fat lap-dog, "Vot you doin'?" "I want them hides loaded and the ship under way!" the man who faced Ramsay snarled. "Ach! Dis man payin' passenger!" A deck hand, his eyes downcast, hurried past. The man who had ordered Ramsay to get to work stood still for a moment, glaring. Then, furiously, soundlessly, he turned on his heel and strode up the gangplank to the pier. Ramsay watched him go, and he knew that, even if there had not been unpleasantness between them, he could never like this man. No matter where they met, or how, they would never get along together. Captain Schultz also turned to watch the man depart. Then he gave his attention to Ramsay. "Ach! You should be careful 'pout startin' fights, poy." "So should other people!" Ramsay said, still smarting. "You should, too. Yaah!" And, as though he had settled that once and for all, Captain Schultz waddled away to speak to the mate who was supervising the stevedores. A little uncertainty arose in Ramsay. This--this half-wilderness, half-civilization in which he found himself was a land of strong contradictions. Lake Michigan, with all its fear and all its terror, and all its inspiration, lapped the Wisconsin shores. Yet some man could be so little impressed by the vast lake that he could name a boat for himself. Possibly a man capable of building or owning a ship like the _Holter_ had a right to think of himself. Ramsay turned again to look at the lake, and his mind projected him far away from the worn, slippery decks of the _Holter_. Almost he was unaware of the two silver dollars in his pocket, all the money he had left in the world, and of the uncertain future. At the same time, while his inmost being feasted on the lake, a part of his mind reviewed the events that had brought him here. He had an abrupt, uncomfortable revival of a New York memory. There was a lion, a great, black-maned lion, in the New York zoo. It was well fed and well cared for, its every need attended. But most times the lion had still seemed restless and unhappy, and sometimes it had been a tired thing. Then it was hardly a lion at all but just a weary, living thing. Ramsay had wondered often how that lion felt. He had never decided exactly how it did feel; within himself there were a dozen conflicting opinions. The lion paced its cage, and coming to the end of the very narrow limits granted to it, it turned and went back the other way. Coming to the end of the cage, it turned again. But all it ever found was the place it had already left. Once in a great while the lion had been very alert and very attentive. It was as though, now and again, the great animal could scent a wind of which nothing else was aware. That wind brought him memories of freedom, and happiness and the unhampered jungle life that had been. Ramsay had gone often to see the lion, and though he never understood why, he always felt as though he had something in common with it, and he understood it partially. New York offered an abundance of opportunities, but they were well bound and well defined. There had always been a wild longing, a reckless yearning, within him, and often he thought that the newspapers which carried stories of the undeveloped Midwest were to him what the faint jungle scents had been to the lion. He had devoured every story eagerly. The Midwest was new, the papers had said. Good farm land, if one wanted to be a farmer, could be had for as little as four dollars an acre. It was the land of the future. Again Ramsay jingled the two dollars in his pocket. He had answered the call of the Midwest because he could not help answering it. He had to try and to go and see for himself, but at the same time a caution, inborn in his Scotch mother and transplanted to him, could not be ignored. Before he burned his bridges behind him he had wanted to make sure that there were some ahead, and correspondence with the manager of the Three Points tannery had led to the offer of a job when he came. A dollar and twenty-five cents a day the tannery was offering able-bodied men, and there were too few men. Ramsay looked out upon the lake, and a little thrill of excitement swept through him. Sometimes he had felt doubts about the wisdom of having left New York for the Midwest. He had been sure of a place to sleep and enough to eat as long as he stayed in New York, and again he felt the two dollars in his pocket. Troubled, he looked out on the surging lake, and knew an instant peace. It was worth seeing. It was something few New Yorkers ever saw. The ocean was at their doorstep, and few of them even bothered looking at that; but the ocean was not like this. Lake Michigan was fresh and clean, different, wild and, as the papers had promised, new. Ramsay tasted the wet air, liking it as he did so. He turned at a sudden squealing and clatter on the pier, and saw four men trying to fight a little black horse onto the ship. The horse, not trusting this strange craft and certainly not liking it, lashed out with striking hooves. Dodging, the men finally fought it into a sort of small cage they had prepared. The horse thrust its head over the side and bugled shrilly. Ramsay watched interestedly, distracted for the few minutes the men needed to get the horse into its cage. It reared as though it would climb over the confining bars, then stood quietly. A sensible horse, Ramsay decided, and a good one. Only fools, whether they were animals or men, fought when there was no chance of winning or battered their brains out against a stone wall. Good animals and good men never considered anything hopeless, but they tried to fight with intelligence as well as brawn. Ramsay glanced again at the horse. It was standing quietly but not resignedly. Its head was up. Its ears were alert and its eyes bright. It still did not like the ship, but it had not just given in. Rather, it was waiting a good chance to get away. Ramsay grinned. The next time, he decided, they would have a little more trouble getting that horse onto anything that floated. Then he returned his attention to the loading of the _Holter_. A continuous line of horse-drawn trucks loaded with hides was coming alongside the ship, and the stevedores were laboring mightily to stow the hides away. Obviously whoever owned the _Holter_ intended to load her with every last pound she would carry. He wanted a paying cargo that would pay off to the last cent. Almost imperceptibly the ship settled into the water. The gangplank, that had been almost even with the deck, now tilted downward. Once or twice Ramsay saw the bearded, jacketed man with whom he had quarreled. But the man did not venture onto the _Holter_ again. Rather, he seemed more interested in getting the hides loaded. Ramsay speculated on the scene he was witnessing, and then he found the whys and wherefores, the reasons behind it. This Wisconsin country was still more than half a wilderness. It had its full share of wilderness men, but its fertile farm lands were attracting many Dutch, Swiss and German farmers. Struggling with a half-tamed country, they did anything they could to earn a livelihood, and some of them raised beef cattle. The hides were a by-product and the world markets needed leather. But the leather could not be processed without necessary materials, and the hemlock trees which provided tan bark were being cut at Three Points. It was cheaper, and easier, to transport the hides to Three Points than it was to carry the cumbersome tan bark to Milwaukee or Chicago. From Three Points, harness leather, sole leather and almost every other kind, was shipped by boat to Chicago and from there it was carried to the eastern markets by rail. * * * * * It was not until mid-afternoon that the last of the hides were loaded and the hatches battened down. The side wheel began to turn and the _Holter_ moved cumbersomely down the river into Lake Michigan. Standing in his enclosure, the little horse stamped restlessly and neighed again. He was nervous, but he was not afraid. Ramsay approved. The little black horse didn't like his cage, but he would meet the situation as it existed rather than lose his head or become panic-stricken. Ramsay walked over to the cage and the horse thrust his velvet muzzle against the bars. When the boy rubbed his nose, the horse twitched his ears and looked at him with friendly eyes. Thick smoke belched from the _Holter's_ stack and made a long plume over the lake, behind the plodding side-wheeler. A strong wind was screaming in from the north and lashing the water angrily into leaping waves. The ship nosed into the trough created by the waves and rose again on the opposite side. Ramsay walked to the bow and leaned over the rail, and a mighty excitement rose anew within him. This, it seemed, was what he had wanted to find when he left New York to go roving. The lake, storm-lashed, was a wild and terrible thing. It was a beast, but something with a vast appeal lay behind its fury and its anger. Lake Michigan was the place for a man. It would never be free of challenge if there was anyone who dared to pick up the gauntlet it cast. There was motion beside Ramsay, and the deck hand who had passed while he argued with the bearded man fell in beside him. He glanced at the man. The deck hand was about thirty-six, older than Ramsay by eighteen years, and there was a seasoned, weather-beaten look about him. It was as though he had turned his face to many a raging storm and many a fierce wind. He grinned amiably. "Hi!" "Hi!" Ramsay said. The deck hand chuckled. "Boy, I thought you were in trouble sure when you were ruckusin' with old Devil Chad." "Devil Chad?" "Yeah. The one who told you to help load hides. He'd of cleaned the deck with you." "Maybe he would," Ramsay said. "And then again, maybe he wouldn't." "He would," the deck hand asserted. "He can lick anybody or anything. Owns half the country 'round here, he does, includin' most of the _Holter_. What's more, he aims to keep it. One of the richest men in Wisconsin." "Quite a man," Ramsay said drily. "Yeah, an' quite a fighter. On'y reason he didn't clean your clock was on account Captain Schultz told him you was a payin' passenger. Devil Chad, he gets half the fare every passenger on the _Holter_ pays, he does." Ramsay knew a rising irritation. "What makes you so sure he can't be cut down to size?" "Never has been, never will be," the deck hand asserted. He regarded the surging lake morosely, and then said, "One of these days this old tub is goin' to end up right at the bottom of Michigan, it is. Either that or on the beach. Wish I was some'res else." "Why don't you go somewhere else?" "One of these days I will," the deck hand threatened. "I'll just haul off an' go back to the ocean boats, I will. I was on 'em for fourteen years, an' quit to come here on account I got scar't of storms at sea. Ha! Worstest thing I ever see on the Atlantic ain't nothin' to what this lake can throw at you." "Is it really that bad?" Ramsay asked eagerly. "Bad?" the deck hand said. "Boy, I've seen waves here taller'n a ship. In course nobody ever goes out when it's that bad on account, if they did, nobody'd ever get back." He scanned the horizon. "We're goin' to hit weather afore we ever gets to Three Points. Goin' to hit it sure. Wish this old tub wasn't loaded so heavy, an' with hides at that." A wave struck the bow, crested and broke in foaming spray that cast itself up and over the ship. Ramsay felt it, cool on his face, and he licked eager lips. Lake Michigan was fresh water, not salt like the ocean, and it was as pure as an ice-cold artesian well. It was also, he thought, almost as cold. He looked into the clouded horizon, studying the storm that battered the _Holter_. He smiled to himself. Suddenly he became all eager interest, peering out into the driving waves and focusing his attention on one place. He thought he had seen something there, but because of the angry lake he could not be sure. It might have been just a drifting shadow, or just one more of the dark waves which seemed to fill the lake and to be of all shades. Then, and plainly, he saw it again. It was a boat, a little boat no more than twenty-four feet from bowsprit to stern, and it was carrying almost a full load of sail as it tacked back and forth into the wind. Ramsay had not seen the sails because, when he first spotted the boat, it had been heeled over so far that the sails did not show. Now they were showing and full, and the little boat sailed like a proud swan with its wings spread. Ramsay forgot the _Holter_, the man beside him and everything else save the little boat. The _Holter_ and nothing on it, with the possible exception of the little black horse, was even remotely interesting. But this was. Ramsay breathed a sigh of relief. He should have known. He should have understood from the first that, when any water was as mighty and as exciting as Lake Michigan, there would be some to meet its challenge with daring, grace and spirit. The tiny craft was a mere cockleshell of a boat, a ridiculously small thing with which to venture upon such a water, but Ramsay could not help feeling that it would be much better to sail on the little boat than on the _Holter_. He kept fascinated eyes on it as it tacked back into the wind. Again it heeled over, so far that it was almost hidden in the trough of a vast wave. Saucily, jauntily it bobbed up again. The _Holter_, that workhorse of the water, plodded stolidly on its appointed way. Ramsay continued to watch the little boat, and now they were near enough so that he could see its crew of four. He gasped involuntarily. Working into the wind, the little boat was coming back, and its course took it directly across the _Holter's_ right of way. Ramsay clenched his fingers and bit his lip fiercely. A collision seemed inevitable. Wide-eyed, he watched the little boat. Now he saw its name, not painted on with stencils but written in a fine, free-flowing script, _Spray_, and the carved Valkyrie maiden that was its figurehead. A big gull, obviously its tame one, sat on the very top of the mast and flapped its wings. The _Spray_ had a crew of four, but Ramsay concentrated on just one of them. He was huge, fully as tall as the black beard who had accosted Ramsay and just as heavy, but he was a different kind of man. He balanced on his little boat's swaying deck with all the grace of a dancer, while he clung almost carelessly to a line that ran through a pulley. No inch of the man's shirt and trousers, which were all the clothing he wore, for he was bare-footed, remained dry, and the shaggy blond curls that carpeted his head were dripping. White teeth gleamed as he looked up at the _Holter_ and laughed. Ramsay leaned forward excitedly. He warmed to this man, even as he had been repelled by the black beard the deck hand called Devil Chad. The man on the boat was gay and spirited, and he seemed complete master of everything about him. The deck hand put cupped hands to his mouth and screamed, "Sheer off! Sheer off!" Captain Schultz's voice was heard. "_Dumkopf!_ Go 'way!" Then, just as it seemed that collision could not be avoided, more sail bloomed on the _Spray's_ mast and she danced lightly out of the way. The man with the shaggy curls looked back and waved a taunting hand. Ramsay turned to watch, but the _Spray_ disappeared in a curtain of mist that had draped itself between the _Holter_ and the shore. His eyes shining, the boy turned to the deck hand. "Who was that?" "A crazy Dutch fisherman, named Hans Van Doorst," the deck hand growled. "He'd sail that peanut shell right in to see Old Nick hisself, an' one of these days he will. He ain't even afraid of the White Sturgeon." "What's the White Sturgeon?" The deck hand looked at him queerly. "How long you been here, boy?" "A couple of days." "Well, that accounts for it. You see the White Sturgeon; you start prayin' right after. You'll need to. Nobody except that crazy Van Doorst has ever saw him an' lived to tell about it. Well, got to get to work." The deck hand wandered away. Ramsay turned again to face the storm and let spray blow into his face. He thought of all that had happened since he had, at last, reached Lake Michigan. This Wisconsin country was indeed a land of sharp contrasts. The _Holter_ and the _Spray_. Captain Schultz and the deck hand. Devil Chad and Hans Van Doorst. A tannery and a fisherman. Local superstition about a white sturgeon. Ramsay knew a rising satisfaction. This semi-wilderness, lapped by a vast inland sea, might be a strange land, but nobody could say that it was not an interesting or a strong one. His last lingering doubts were set at rest and for the first time he was entirely satisfied because he had come. A strong country was always the place for strong people. Ramsay raised his head, puzzled by something which, suddenly, seemed to be out of place. For a second he did not know what it was. Then he realized that the crying gulls which had been following the _Holter_ in the hope that scraps or garbage would be tossed to them or else interested in whatever debris the side wheel might churn up, were no longer there. Ramsay knew a second's uneasiness, and he could not explain it. He did not know why he missed the gulls. It was just that they and their crying had seemed a part of the lake. Now that they were gone, the lake was incomplete. The boy braced himself against a sudden, vicious burst of wind. Even a land-lubber could tell that the storm's fury was increasing. A sharp patter of rain sliced like a shower of cold knives across the _Holter's_ deck, and Ramsay ducked his head. He raised it again, grinning sheepishly as he did so, then gripped the rail to steady himself. He watched with much interest as the storm raged even more strongly. It was driving directly out of the northwest, and it seemed to be perpetually re-born in the dark clouds that had possession of the sky. A howling wind accompanied it, and more shrapnel-bursts of rain. The waves rose to prodigious heights. Dipping into them, the _Holter_ seemed no more than a leaf on this tossing sea. Turning, Ramsay saw the helmsman clinging almost fiercely to his wheel, as though he would somehow soften the storm's rage by doing that. In his cage the little black horse nickered uncertainly. Then there came something that was instantly apparent, even above the screaming wind. The rough rhythm of the _Holter's_ throbbing engines seemed to halt. The ship shivered mightily, as though in pain. The engines stopped. CHAPTER TWO _WRECK_ Shorn of her power, the _Holter_ still followed her helmsman's course. But it became a listless, sluggish course. The ship was like a suddenly freed slave that does not know what to do with his own freedom. For six years she had plodded Lake Michigan, always with the biggest possible paying load and always working at top speed. Many times she had groaned and protested, but she had been forced to obey the dictates of the engine that turned her side wheel. Now the engine, the tyrant, was dead from misuse of its own power. But without it the _Holter_ had neither mind nor will of her own. She smashed head-on into a mountainous wave that set her decks awash. For another moment or two she held her course, carried by her own momentum. Then, slowly and unwillingly, as though afraid to do such a thing and not trusting herself to do it, she swung broadside to the waves. A muffled shout floated out of the engine room. Fat little Captain Schultz, a slicker covering his round body and anxiety written on his face, was peering down an opened hatch. Sluicing rain pelted the slicker and bounded off. Ramsay's eyes found the deck hand. Eyes wide and mouth agape, he was standing near the wheelhouse. Naked terror was written on his face as he stared at something out in the lake. Ramsay followed his gaze. To the starboard, the right side of the _Holter_, the lake seemed strangely calm. It was as though the wind and the storm did not strike with outrageous strength there, and oddly as if that part of the water might be commanded by some inexplicable force. Unable to tear his gaze away, expecting to see something special, Ramsay kept his eyes riveted on the calm water. He saw a ripple, but not one born of storm and wind. There was something here that had nothing to do with the driving wind, or the cold rain, or even the tremendous waves. The deck hand covered his eyes with his hand. At that instant, a great white apparition swam up through the water. It was a ghost, a creature of nightmares, a terrible thing seen only in terror-ridden moments. Ramsay controlled an impulse to shout or to flee. The thing came up to within inches of the surface and wallowed there like a greasy fat hog. Whitish-gray, rather than pure white, it flipped an enormous tail while it sported near the surface. The thing, a fish, seemed fully nine feet long and possibly it carried a hundred pounds of weight for every foot. It bore no scales but seemed to be clothed in an overlapping series of armored plates. Its snout, pointed somewhat like a pig's, was tipped with barbels, or feelers. Dull eyes showed. Again Ramsay controlled his fear. The thing, sober judgment told him, was nothing more or less than a great sturgeon, the mightiest fish of these inland waters. The fact that it was white, rather than the conventional gray-green or olive-green, was of no significance whatever. All living creatures, from elephants down to mice, occasionally produced an albino. It was not beyond reason that there could be an albino sturgeon. Ramsay watched while it swam, and some semblance of cool control returned to his fevered imagination. This was no grotesque monster from another world. Telling himself again that it was nothing more or less than an unusual fish, he watched it sink back into the churning depths from which it had arisen. He put a shaking hand on the _Holter's_ rail. It was a fish and nothing else. None but superstitious people believed in superstition. Then the deck hand's terrified shriek rose above the keening wind. "It's him! We seen it! The White Sturgeon! _Gar-hhh!_" Mouth agape, the deck hand kept his eyes on that place where the White Sturgeon had disappeared. A great wave washed across the deck, and when it rolled away the deck hand was no longer visible. Ramsay shook his head to clear it and looked again at the place where the deck hand had been standing. Lake Michigan could swallow a man even easier than a pond swallowed a pebble, for there had not been even a ripple to mark the place where the deck hand had disappeared. There was not the slightest possibility of rescuing him. The deck hand had seen the White Sturgeon! A battering ram of a wave crashed into the _Holter's_ starboard side, and Ramsay felt a cold chill travel up and down his spine. Fear laid its icy fingers there, but he shook them off. The fact that the water had been calm when the White Sturgeon made its appearance and was angry now had nothing whatever to do with the fish. Rather, the calm water could be attributed to some quirk, some phenomenon inherent in the storm itself. Probably the White Sturgeon appeared because, for the moment, the lake had been calm. Knowing that, the big fish had nosed its way to the surface. Now that the lake was again storm-deviled, the White Sturgeon was gone. Bracing himself against the wind, Ramsay made his way across the deck to the wheelhouse. He shivered, for the first time aware of the fact that his clothing was rain-drenched and that he was very cold. It was a penetrating, creeping cold that reached the inmost marrow of his bones. When another wave smashed the _Holter_, Ramsay caught hold of the little horse's cage to steady himself. Within the enclosure, nervous but still not terrified, the black horse looked hopefully at him. Ramsay reached the wheelhouse, and came face to face with Captain Schultz. The little captain's slicker had blown open, so that now it was of no use whatever in warding off the rain, but he had not seen fit to close it again. It would do him no good if he did; his clothing was already soaked. Ramsay shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. "What happened?" "The enchin, she kaput. Like that, she kaput." Ramsay revised his opinions of the little Captain. At the pier, Captain Schultz had been only a fat, fussy little man. Facing this dire predicament, he was not terrified and had not given way to panic. He had risen to the emergency. Maybe, Ramsay thought, anyone who sailed Lake Michigan had to be able to rise to any emergency if he would continue to sail. He shouted again, "Will the ship sink?" "Ach, I don't know! If we can't get the enchin to go, she might." "What do we do then?" "Find somet'ing. Find anyt'ing, poy, an' swim. Be sure you find somet'ing that does not sink mit you." "How far are we from land?" "Ach! That I cannot tell you." "Did you see the White Sturgeon?" "Yaah. We still try." Captain Schultz went all the way into the wheelhouse and disappeared into the hold. Dimly, out of the open hatchway, came the sound of ringing hammers. There was a desperate tone in them, as though the men working in the _Holter's_ hold were fully aware of the grave danger they faced. On sudden impulse Ramsay ducked into the wheelhouse and descended into the engine-room. Captain Schultz held an oil lamp to illumine the labors of two men whom, so far, Ramsay had not seen. Presumably they were the _Holter's_ engineer and fireman. Another deck hand and the mate stood by, passing tools requested by the workers. Down here, in the bowels of the _Holter_, the storm seemed a faraway and almost an unreal thing. The howling wind was heard faintly, and if the ship had not been tossing so violently, they might have been in the power-room of any industrial plant. The sweating engineer, his face grease-streaked, turned from his labors to face Ramsay. He spoke with a nasal New England twang. "Was that White Sturgeon really off the ship?" "I--I didn't see anything," Ramsay answered. Captain Schultz flashed him a grateful smile. The workers went on with their toils. Obviously, among Lake Michigan sailors, or anyhow some of them, there was a firm belief in the evil powers of the White Sturgeon. Ramsay looked again at the little Captain's face. It was a concerned, worried face, what one might expect to see in a man who was in danger of losing his ship. At the same time, and even though Captain Schultz remained completely in command, there was about him a certain air that had nothing to do with getting the _Holter's_ engine working again. Ramsay sought for the answer, and finally he found it. A strong man in his own right, Captain Schultz had seen the White Sturgeon and he believed in it. Ramsay climbed the narrow ladder-way leading back to the deck. The _Holter_ was strong, he assured himself. There was little danger that it could be pounded to pieces by any sea. Then he looked at the wild and angry lake and knew the fallacy of his reasoning. The _Holter_ was strong, but the lake was stronger. Waves, the color of steel and with the strength of steel, smashed into the ship and made her shiver. Ramsay heard a shrieking protest as some plank or stay beneath the deck tore loose. The _Holter_ shuddered, like a big horse in pain, and settled so low in the water that waves washed continuously across her deck. There was another shriek, and she settled deeper into the lake. She was a very sluggish craft now, with no control or direction, and Ramsay guessed that the hides in the hold were getting soaked. The ship's nose dipped to meet a wave, and it did not come up again. The imprisoned horse bugled his fright. Captain Schultz, the engineer, the fireman and the deck hand appeared on deck. There was no sign of the mate; perhaps he had already gone over. The engineer and the fireman struggled under the weight of a crude raft which they had knocked together from such timbers as were available. Ramsay looked uncertainly toward them, and the engineer glared back. "Get your own!" he snarled. "Me an' Pete made this, an' me an' Pete are goin' to use it!" They carried their makeshift raft to the settling nose of the ship, laid it down, mounted it, and let the next wave carry them off. Ramsay felt a turning nausea in the pit of his stomach. As the raft went over the rail, the man called Pete was swept from it. Only the engineer stayed on, clinging desperately as he was washed out into the angry lake. In a second or two he had disappeared. Captain Schultz rolled frightened eyes and said to Ramsay, "Get a door, or hatch cover, an' ride that." Suiting his actions to his words, Captain Schultz seized a fire axe that was hanging near and pounded the wheelhouse door from its hinges. He dragged the door to the rail, threw it into the lake, and jumped after it. The deck hand wrestled with a hatch cover, finally pried it loose, and rode that away. Ramsay was left alone on the sinking _Holter_. He tried to keep a clear head, but he could not help an overwhelming fear. This was nothing he had ever faced before and now, facing it, he did not know what to do. Finding anything that would float and riding it away seemed to be the answer. Then the little horse bugled and he knew that he was not alone. Water crept around his feet as he made his way across the deck to the cage. He put his hand on the bar, and as soon as he did that the little horse thrust a soft, warm nose against it. He muzzled Ramsay's hand with almost violent intensity. All his life he had depended upon men for everything. Now, in this peril, men would not desert him. Softly Ramsay stroked the soft muzzle, but only for a second. The _Holter_ was going down fast. Soon, as the gloomy deck hand had forecast, she would be on the bottom of Lake Michigan. There was no time to lose. Ramsay unlatched the door of the cage, opened it, and when he did that the horse walked out. He stayed very near to the boy, fearing to leave, and once or twice bumped Ramsay with his shoulder. Ramsay studied the angry lake, and looked back at the horse. Again he glanced out on the stormy water. There was nothing else in sight. Those who, by one way or another, hoped to reach shore were already lost in swirling sheets of rain. Ramsay bit his lower lip so hard that he drew blood. The men had either jumped, or else had merely ridden over the rail on a wave that set the decks awash, but the horse could not do that. There was real danger of his breaking a leg, or becoming otherwise injured, if he tried. Ramsay turned and caught up the axe with which Captain Schultz had stricken down the door. The black horse crowded with him, afraid to be alone, and the boy had to go around him to get back to the rail. The horse pushed close to him again and Ramsay spoke soothingly, "Easy. Take it easy now." He raised the axe and swung it, and felt its blade bite deeply into the wooden rail. He swung again and again, until he had slashed through it, then moved ten feet to one side, toward the rail's supporting post, and cut it there. The severed section was whisked into the wave-tormented lake as a match stick disappears in a whirlpool. Ramsay threw the axe back onto the _Holter's_ sinking deck and stepped aside. Get something that would float, Captain Schultz had said, and be sure that it would keep him above water. But suddenly he could think of nothing that would float. Wildly he cast about for a hatch cover or a door. There was not one to be seen. The _Holter_ made a sudden list that carried her starboard deck beneath the lake. A wave surged across her. Even the little horse had unsteady legs. Ramsay tried hard to overcome the terror within him. Then, together, he and the little horse were in the lake. He threw wild arms about the animal's neck, and a huge wave overwhelmed them. Gasping, he arose. The lake was wilder and fiercer and colder than he had thought it could be. Every nerve and muscle in his body seemed chilled, so that he was barely able to move. Another wave washed in, over both the little black horse and himself, and for a moment they were deep beneath the churning waters. They broke onto the surface, Ramsay with both hands entwined in the horse's mane, and the horse turned to look at him. There was uncertainty in the animal's eyes, and fright, but no terror. The little horse knew his own power, and the fact that a human being stayed with him gave him confidence in that strength. Ramsay spoke reassuringly. "We're all right. We'll do all right, Black. Let's get out of it." The words were a tonic, the inspiration the horse needed. The next time a wave rolled in, he did not try to fight it. Rather, he rose with it, swimming strongly. He had adjusted himself to many situations, now he met this one without panic. An intelligent beast, he had long ago learned that every crisis must be met with intelligence. Ramsay stayed easily beside him, keeping just enough weight on the swimming animal to hold his own head above water and doing nothing that would interfere with the furious fight the horse was waging to keep from drowning. The lake was indeed cold, colder than any other water the boy had ever known, and he had to exercise every particle of his mind and will just to cling to the horse. The wind blew furiously, and sluicing rain poured down. Then the rain dwindled away and heavy mist settled in. Ramsay knew a moment's panic. It was impossible to see more than a few feet or to tell which way the shore lay. The lake was huge, and should they be heading towards the Michigan shore, they would never get there. Ramsay tried to remember all he had ever known of wind and drift and currents on Lake Michigan, and discovered that he could remember nothing. Any direction at all could be north and he was unable to orient himself, but he controlled the rising panic. It would do no good at all to lose his head. The wind seemed to be dying, and the waves lessening. Ramsay kept his hold on the little horse's mane. He saw a floating object pass and tried to catch it, but when he did so he almost lost his hold on the horse. Kicking hard to catch up, he twined both hands in the horse's mane and tightened them there. Then he felt a rebirth of confidence. Already they had been in the lake for a long, long time and he had been able to hold his own. It was impossible to get much colder, or more numb, than he already was and he could still hang on. Besides, the horse seemed to know where he was going. He swam strongly, and apparently he was swimming straight. At any rate, there was no evidence that he was traveling in circles or choosing an erratic course. Ramsay had been told that animals have an instinct compared to which the most sensitive human's is coarse and blunted and maybe that was true. Maybe the horse did know where it was going. Now that the waves were not rising so high, the horse swam faster. The wind died almost completely, so that the lake's surface was merely ruffled, and Ramsay felt a mounting confidence in his ability to live through this. In the overcast a gull cried, and things had started going wrong with the _Holter_ when the gulls left it. Now they were back. Probably they, too, had known of the approaching storm and had flown to safety off the lake. The swimmers broke out of the mist and Ramsay saw the beach. It was about a hundred yards away, a sand beach behind which a rocky cliff rose. This wore a crest of evergreens, and its face was spotted here and there with smaller trees. A cloud of white gulls screamed into the air as Ramsay and the horse approached. They reached the shallows, and the little horse's back emerged from the water like that of some suddenly appearing sea monster. Ramsay let go his hold on the animal's mane and swam. Then, coming to waist-high water in which he could wade, he splashed toward the beach. The wind had died, but waves still pounded the beach and it was very cold. The near borders of this wild lake, Ramsay decided, probably never warmed up. With an immense body of cold water lapping them, they were perpetually chilled. While the little horse looked gravely on, Ramsay stripped his clothing off, wrung it out, and put the wet garments back on. The horse crowded very close, as though he were afraid to go away. He nibbled Ramsay with his lips. As soon as the boy moved, he moved with him. He stayed very near as Ramsay walked up the beach, a stretch of driftwood-spotted sand that varied from sixty to two hundred feet in width and reached clear back to the rising bluff. A belt of wet sand showed where the lake had crawled up onto the beach and fallen back. The boy stopped suddenly, and the little horse stopped with him. Just ahead, in the belt of wet sand which the highest waves had washed, lay two tumbled figures. The little horse tossed his head uneasily, not liking this at all, and Ramsay felt a cold lump rise in his throat. He advanced at a slow walk and, after some hesitation, the horse trotted to catch up with him. Ramsay stopped again. The two drowned people were Captain Schultz of the _Holter_ and the deck hand who had wished so fervently that he was somewhere else. Ramsay cleared the lump in his throat, and was struck by the notion that at last the deck hand had gone somewhere else. Then the black horse raised his head and nickered, and the boy looked around to see a man on a spotted black-and-white horse riding toward him. He rode at full trot, the reins hanging loosely around his mount's throat, and he wore an outlandish sort of affected cowboy's hat pulled low over his eyes. His features were heavy, and would be flabby when he had aged a few more years. Blue jeans clung tightly around his legs, and straight black hair lay thick on his head. As he rode, he leveled a heavy pistol. "Go on! Beat it!" "But ..." "This is my find! I said beat it!" The pistol roared, and a heavy ball buried itself in the sand at Ramsay's feet. The boy felt a quick anger and a disinclination to obey the order to leave. He took a step toward the horseman, knowing that he would need a few seconds to re-load his pistol. But almost by magic another pistol appeared in the man's hand and he leveled it steadily. "Your last warnin'. Go on!" Ramsay shrugged, and the black horse followed him as he walked on. This was indeed a strange land, where men were willing to fight for the possession of corpses. What did the horseman want with them? The loot they might have in their pockets? Perhaps, but that seemed very unlikely. Captain Schultz was not the type of person who would carry a great deal of money in his pockets, and certainly the deck hand wouldn't have enough to bother about. But obviously the horseman wanted the two bodies. Ramsay walked on up the sand beach. Gulls rose protestingly as he came in sight, and flocks of ducks scudded across the water. A pair of Canada Geese hissed at him as he passed. They were guarding a nest and they were ready to fight for it. Ramsay gave them a wide berth and the horse walked faithfully beside him. The afternoon was half-spent when Ramsay smelled wood smoke. He quickened his pace, but remained cautious. This was a wild land, with no part of it wilder than this lonely Lake Michigan Beach, and there was never any certainty as to just what anyone would find or how he would be received. Nevertheless, if these people were friendly, other humans would be welcome. Ramsay was both hungry and tired to the point of exhaustion. He fingered the two dollars in his pocket. He could pay his way. He rounded a long, forested nose of land where the bluff cut the sand beach to a narrow five feet and looked out on a peaceful bay. The bluff gave way to gently rising, treeless hills. A rail fence hemmed part of them in, and black-and-white cattle grazed inside the fence. A stone house, of Dutch architecture, stood on a knoll that commanded a view of the lake, and a suitable distance from it was a snug wooden barn. A small lake, or large pond, separated from Lake Michigan by a narrow neck of land, glowed like a blue sapphire. Chickens, ducks and geese crowded noisily together in the barnyard, and a man with a wooden pail in his hand came out of the barn door. Ramsay walked forward, as first uncertainly and then very steadily. A man might be afraid, but it was always to his advantage not to let the enemy, if enemy this might be, know he was afraid. The man at the barn door hesitated, and then stood still while the boy approached. Ramsay greeted him pleasantly, "Hello." "Hello." The man was tall and supple, with a frank, open face and intelligent, blue eyes. He was perhaps six years older than Ramsay and he spoke with a Dutch accent. Ramsay said, "I was sailing up to Three Points on the _Holter_. Now she's wrecked and I must walk...." "The _Holter's_ wrecked?" the other broke in. "Yes." "Any drowned people on the beach?" "Two, but a man on a black-and-white horse took them away from me at pistol point." Ramsay knew a rising impatience. "Why the dickens should he do that?" The other grinned faintly. "You get money for watching 'em until they can be brought in and buried proper, and money is not easy to come by. If there's a man already watching these, that would be Joe Mannis. He combs the beach night and day after storms, and he's got as much money as most people. What can I do for you?" "I'd like something to eat before I go on to Three Points." "That we can give you," the farmer said. "Come." When the horse would have followed them to the house, the Dutch farmer looked quizzically at Ramsay. The boy grinned. "He's not mine. He was on the _Holter_ and we swam ashore together. Without him I might not have made it." "Then he is yours," the farmer said. "By right of salvage he is yours. But Marta, she wouldn't like a horse in the house." "It's hardly the place for a horse," Ramsay agreed. "Can we leave him here?" "Yaah." The farmer opened the barnyard gate and Ramsay walked in. The horse followed willingly. Ramsay stepped out and shut the gate. He saw the little horse, its head over the bars, watching him as he walked toward the house. It was a clean house, and a scrubbed and shiny one. Even the big flat stone that served as a back doorstep had almost an antiseptic cleanliness. The house was filled with the odors of freshly baked bread and spice and canned jam and curing hams. Ramsay smiled at the slim, pleasant girl who met them at the door. "Marta," the farmer said, "this man was ship-wrecked and is to be our guest for as long as he wants to stay. He is...?" "Ramsay Cartou," Ramsay supplied. "Yaah! Ramsay Cartou. I am Pieter Van Hooven and this is my wife, Marta." Ramsay made himself comfortable in the neat kitchen while Marta Van Hooven hurried efficiently about, preparing a meal. There was baked whitefish, venison, roasted goose, fluffy mashed potatoes, crisp salad, billowy fresh rolls, delicious cheese and milk. Ramsay ate until he could eat no more, then pushed himself away from the table and smiled graciously at Marta Van Hooven. "That was good!" he said feelingly. "You ate so little." Ramsay grinned, "Not more than enough to feed three good-sized horses. You can really cook." Pieter Van Hooven glowed at this compliment extended to his wife. He filled and lighted a clay pipe, and puffed contentedly. "What are you going to do now?" he asked Ramsay. "I," Ramsay hesitated, "I'd like to pay for the meal." Pieter Van Hooven smiled. "Forget that. You were our guest." "How far is Three Points?" "Six miles. Just stay on the beach." "Reckon I'll go up there then. I've got a job waiting for me at the tannery. By the way, do you have any use for that horse?" "A good horse can always be used on a farm. But I won't take him. I'll keep him, and you can have him any time you want." Pieter Van Hooven looked queerly at Ramsay. "You sure you want to go to Three Points?" "I've got a job there, and I need it." "Then go, but remember that nobody starves in Wisconsin. Marta and me, we got no money but we got everything else. You don't like it in Three Points, you might come back here?" "I'll be glad to," Ramsay said, a little puzzled. "Then do that, my friend." Well-fed and rested, Ramsay walked alone up the sandy beach. Stay on the sand, Pieter Van Hooven had advised him, and he couldn't go wrong. Three Points, the tannery town, was right on the lake. Two hours after he left the Van Hoovens, Ramsay reached the village. Three Points nestled snugly in a gap which, only recently, had been hacked out of the hemlock forest. Many big trees still stood on the edge of town, and some right in the center; and most of the houses were built of hemlock logs. There were a few, evidently belonging to Three Points' wealthier residents, that were massively built and patterned after the New England style of architecture. There was no mistaking the tannery; the smell would have guided one there, even if the mountains of hemlock bark piled all about had not. Ramsay entered the long, low, shed-like building, and a man working at a steaming vat looked up curiously. Ramsay approached him with "Who's the boss man around here?" "I am," an unseen man said. Ramsay whirled to look at the man who had spoken, and he came face to face with Devil Chad. CHAPTER THREE _ON THE BEACH_ Ramsay felt an instant tension and a bristling anger, and he knew now that he should have connected two incidents. The man who had written to him and offered him a job in the Three Points tannery had signed his name 'Devlin Chadbourne.' Devlin Chadbourne--Devil Chad--and Ramsay took a backward step. Never before had he met a man so capable of arousing in him a cordial dislike that was almost an urge to start fighting immediately. "Where's the _Holter_?" Devil Chad demanded. "I sent her back to Milwaukee after Captain Schultz let me off here," Ramsay said sarcastically. "Don't get smart with me, boy." Devil Chad glowered. "You was on the _Holter_ when she sailed." "Where were you?" Ramsay demanded. "I'll ask the questions here!" Devil Chad's thick lips curled in an ugly oblong. "Where's the _Holter_?" "At the bottom of Lake Michigan!" Ramsay flared. "Captain Schultz and one of your deck hands are lying drowned on the beach! I don't know where the others are." Devil Chad's glass balls of eyes glinted. His face twisted into a horrible glare, and every inch of his big frame seemed to shrink and swell with the rage that consumed him. "You mean to tell me," he demanded furiously, "that all them hides was lost?" "Men were lost," Ramsay pointed out. "You mean to tell me," Devil Chad repeated, as though he had not heard Ramsay, "that all them hides was lost?" "Swim out and get 'em," Ramsay invited. "I'll show you the place where I landed, and the _Holter_ can't be more than a couple of miles out in the lake." "What did Schultz do?" Devil Chad demanded. "Drowned." "You're pretty flip, boy," Devil Chad warned, "an' I don't put up with flip people. You tell me what happened." "Your greasy tub was carrying one third more than ever should have been put on her, her equipment was no good, we ran into a storm and the engines quit." "All them hides lost." Devil Chad was overwhelmed by this personal tragedy and could think of nothing else. "Couldn't you of done somethin'?" "It wasn't my ship and they weren't my hides. What are you going to do for the families of the men who were lost?" "Why should I do anything? They knew when they signed on that they was runnin' risks." Devil Chad turned his unreadable eyes squarely on Ramsay. "What do you want here?" "Nothing." "Ain't you the boy who wrote me from New York, an' asked me for a job?" The man at the vat continued working and others stayed at their tasks, but Ramsay was aware of a rippling under-current. There was an uneasiness among the men, and a fear; and in spite of the fact that they kept busy they turned covert eyes on Ramsay and Devil Chad. The boy felt a flashing anger. Who was this man, and what was he, that so many others could live in almost craven fear of him? "If you are," Devil Chad continued, still holding Ramsay in the cage of his eyes, "you can have the job but I hold back twenty-five cents a day until them hides are paid for." "Take your job!" Ramsay exploded, "and go plumb to the bottom of the lake with it!" "I warned you, boy," Devil Chad was talking softly now. "I warned you. I don't put up with flip people, an' now I'm goin' to teach you the lesson that I should of given you on the _Holter_." "Why didn't you sail on the _Holter_?" Ramsay demanded. Devil Chad made no answer. He was in a half-crouch, his huge head bent to his chest and his fists knotted so tightly that the knuckles were whitened. His shaggy hair tumbled forward on his forehead, and his eyes still held no expression. Ramsay raised his voice so all in the building could hear. "You filthy pup! You lily-livered slug! You knew the _Holter_ was going to the bottom some day! Even your deck hand knew it! You sent other men out to die, but didn't risk yourself! You haven't got enough money to hire me to work for you!" Devil Chad was inching forward, his head still bent; and when he had advanced a foot, he sprang. It was the rush of a bull, but not a cumbersome bull. He flung out both arms, intending to crush Ramsay to his chest and break his ribs. It was the only way Devil Chad knew how to fight, but the boy knew other tricks. When the bigger, heavier man launched his charge, Ramsay stood still. He saw those massive stretched arms, and knew their purpose, but he did not move until Devil Chad flung them out for his crushing embrace. Then, and only then, did Ramsay act. He flitted aside, balancing himself on the balls of his feet and whirling even as he evaded the other's lunge. Like a snapping whip his clenched right fist flicked in to deliver a stinging blow to the side of his enemy's head. But the blow did little except spin Devil Chad around and arouse a mighty bellow in the depths of his enormous chest. Ramsay remained poised, alert for the next charge, and an almost grim satisfaction drove other thoughts from his mind. He had not wanted this fight and had not forced it, but within him there was a curious feeling that it was fore-ordained, and now that it was here, he relished it. Devil Chad was not a man. He was an animal who thought as an animal thinks. Other men, other human beings, had lost their lives in his overloaded, unseaworthy ship, and all this brute could think of was the fact that he had lost his cargo. Devil Chad's eyes, even in the heat of battle, remained opaque and strangely without expression. It was only his face, like a rubber mask expertly molded to form an expression of rage, that betrayed his fury. He swung heavily, running forward even as he launched his blow, and Ramsay ducked beneath it. He came up to land a hard left and a right on Devil Chad's jaw. He might as well have struck a granite boulder. Devil Chad did not even flinch and the boy knew a moment's uncertainty. His enemy was a bull, but bulls were felled with pole-axes, not with fists. Ramsay backed lightly away. All about now, knowing that Devil Chad was engrossed in the fight and had no time for them, men had openly stopped work and were staring at the battlers. On the faces of some was written incredulity. Some looked on with delighted interest, and an expectant smile lighted the swarthy features of a little Frenchman who had stopped moving cattle hides to watch Ramsay weave away from Devil Chad. There was no man here who, in some silent way, did not cheer the boy on, but there were none who expected him to win. All knew their master. Devil Chad rushed again, swinging his fists like pistons as he did so, and again Ramsay side-stepped. He landed a fierce blow squarely on the other's nose and was gratified to see a crimson stream of blood spout forth to mingle darkly with his antagonist's black beard and mustache. A cold uncertainty rose within Ramsay. He had fought before, many times, and he had defeated his opponents and had been defeated, but never before had he fought a man just like this one. Devil Chad, apparently, was able to absorb an endless amount of punishment with no effect whatever on himself. He was as tough as one of the trees that grew on the outskirts of Three Points. Ramsay risked a fleeting backward glance to see where he was going, and edged away from the wall. He was breathing hard because of the tremendous physical effort he had exerted, but he was far from exhausted and he knew that, as long as he could keep the battle in the open, he could avoid the other's charges. But the certainty that he could not win this battle solidified. It seemed possible to pound Devil Chad all day long without hurting him at all. "Kill him!" an excited man shouted. Devil Chad paused just long enough to locate and identify this rash employee who dared encourage his enemy, and Ramsay felt a nausea in the pit of his stomach. When the battle ended, no matter who won, at least one man would have some explaining to do and probably a beating to take. The boy kept his eyes on Devil Chad, anticipating the other's next move. Then he tripped over an unseen and unsuspected block of wood and fell backward. Even as he fell he tried to pick himself up and scoot out of the way. But a bludgeon, the toe of Devil Chad's heavy boot, collided soddenly with his ribs and a sickening pain shot through his entire body. He turned, snatching furiously at the boot as it was raised again and still trying to wriggle away. His arm flipped convulsively as Devil Chad kicked him squarely on the wrist, and he felt a creeping numbness that began there and spread to his shoulder. He rolled to escape his tormentor, rolled again, and struggled to his hands and knees. Vaguely, as though he were viewing it in some fantastic dream, he saw the big black boot flying at his head. The boot was a huge thing and so clearly-outlined that Ramsay saw every tiny wrinkle in it. He was aware of the stitching where the ponderous sole joined the upper leather, and he knew that he must get away. But that was a vague and misty thought, one he seemed unable to carry farther. A mighty rage flared within him. No more than a split second elapsed before the boot struck, but it seemed like hours. Ramsay was aware of the fact that his two silver dollars, his last money, rolled out of his pockets and across the tannery's floor. A thousand colored lights danced in his head, and then he was back on the lake. He had loved the lake, he remembered, and there was something wonderfully cool and refreshing about returning to it. A small boat with a crazy Dutch fisherman at her tiller danced out of the lake's gray stretches and sported gracefully before him. On top of the mast was a tame sea gull that clicked his mandibles and fluttered his wings. Ramsay even saw the boat's name written in fine script across her bows. She was the _Spray_. The _Spray_ hove to very close to Ramsay, and her skipper looked at him. He was a tall man, very powerful, and he was blond and easily laughing. There was no grimness about him, only grace and light spirit. Several men had gone sailing on a raft made of cattle hides, he told Ramsay, and they were in great trouble out on the lake. Did Ramsay care to go with him and help bring the unfortunates safely back? The sea gull, of course, would help too. When Ramsay pretended not to hear, the crazy Dutch fisherman obligingly repeated his information. Again Ramsay pretended not to hear; whereupon the Dutch fisherman caught up a wooden bucket, dipped it into the lake and showered him with ice-cold water. He held the bucket waist-high, as though wondering whether more water was necessary, and the twinkle remained in his eyes and the laugh on his lips. It was impossible to be angry with him. Laughing back, Ramsay agreed to go help the foolish men who had sailed away on the cattle hides. Then he awakened, to find a woman bathing his face with cold water. For a moment she was a distorted picture, a hazy vision that advanced toward him and retreated far away. Again Ramsay almost lost himself in the dim world into which Devil Chad's boots had kicked him. The cold cloth on his face brought him back, and he opened his eyes to see the woman very clearly. She was small, with a worn face, so weary from endless toil that the skin was drawn tightly over it. But her eyes were the brownest, the softest and the gentlest Ramsay had ever seen. Black hair was combed smoothly back on her head and caught in a knot at the base of her neck. Again she laid the cold cloth on his face, and the boy closed his eyes at the luxury of such a thing. Then he spoke, "Where am I?" "_Sh-h._ Don't try to talk, M'sieu." The woman, unmistakably French, rose and went into another room. Ramsay looked about him. The room in which he lay was walled with rough, unplaned boards, and the ceiling was made of the same material. Only the floor, scrubbed so carefully that it glowed like a polished diamond, was of smooth boards. Light was admitted by a single small pane of glass, and the light reflected on a crucifix that hung on the far wall. There were a few pictures, yellow with age, a table over which a deer skin was gracefully draped, and a candle-holder with a half-burned candle. Everything was neat and spotlessly clean. The woman came back bearing a hollowed-out gourd. She passed an arm around Ramsay's shoulders--despite her small size she was surprisingly strong--and assisted him to a half-sitting position. She held the gourd to his lips. Ramsay drank deeply, and fell back sputtering. The gourd was partly-filled with cold water and partly with a whisky, so strong and violent that it burned his mouth and lips. He lay blinking, while tears welled in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks. The whisky, doubtless homemade, was strong enough to choke a horse. But, after a half-minute, it made itself felt. A warm glow spread from the roots of Ramsay's hair to the tips of his toes. Some of his many aches and pains lessened. "More?" the woman inquired softly. "Uh ... No--no thank you." She put the gourd on the table and came over to lay a hand on his forehead. It was a calloused and work-hardened hand, but so gentle was she that her caress was scarcely a feather's touch. Ramsay smiled his thanks. "How did I get here?" he asked again. "My man, Pierre LeDou, he brought you. But now you must rest, M'sieu, and try to sleep. Badly have you been hurt." The woman drew an exquisite, hand-sewn lace curtain, an incongruous thing in these rough surroundings, over the window, and semi-gloom reigned in the room. She tiptoed out, closing the door behind her, and Ramsay was left alone with his thoughts. That mighty rage mounted within him again. He had been fighting with Devil Chad, he remembered, and not doing badly until he fell over some unseen object. Then he had been kicked into--into this. Experimentally Ramsay tried to move his legs, and found that he could do so. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and there in the half-light of an unknown room, in a stranger's house, he made a solemn vow. One day, no matter what else happened, he and Devil Chad would meet again. Devil Chad would pay, in full, for every twinge Ramsay suffered. In that moment Ramsay knew that he was not afraid. His burning anger became tempered with pleasant wonder. This was a harsh land, but there was room for tenderness. He was a stranger and had been in Three Points only long enough to get himself kicked into insensibility, but there were those in Three Points who knew compassion and friendship. Otherwise, he would not now be lying in some unknown man's house and being ministered to by that man's wife. Pierre--Ramsay strove to recall the last name and could not. He fell into a quiet slumber. The next time he awakened, the candle on his table was burning and his host--vaguely Ramsay remembered seeing him move hides about the tannery--was standing near. Like his wife, he was small and gentle, with a manner that belied the fierce little black mustache clinging to his upper lip. He was too small and gentle, Ramsay thought, ever to fit into a town such as Three Points. But certainly he was kind and good. He smiled, revealing flashing white teeth, and when he did Ramsay remembered the name, Pierre LeDou. "How do you feel?" he asked briskly. "Better." Ramsay grinned. "He beat you," Pierre LeDou said. "_Sacre!_ But he beat you!" The little man's eyes roved about the room, as though seeking the solution to a problem which he must solve, and Ramsay knew that he, too, hated Devil Chad. "He kicked you!" Pierre LeDou said. "I know, and some day I'll pay him back for that." Interest brightened in the little Frenchman's eyes. "You think so, M'sieu--M'sieu ..." "Cartou," Ramsay said. "Ramsay Cartou. And I will not kill anybody unless I have to. But one day this Devil Chad will pay, ten times over, for everything he did to me." "He is very hard man." Pierre LeDou sighed. "So am I!" Ramsay gritted, and again anger rose within him. "Why should so many people tremble in their boots when he comes around?" Pierre LeDou shrugged eloquently. "The job. A man has to have the job." "I see. And Devil Chad controls 'the job'?" "Not all," Pierre LeDou explained. "He does not walk so freely where the fishermen and farmers are." "I'm beginning to like these fishermen and farmers more and more." "They are nice," Pierre agreed, "but wild. Especially the fishermen. Oh, so wild! Out in the lake they go, afraid of nothing; but those that do not drown return with multitudes of fish." "Do many drown?" "Very many, but you cannot kill a fisherman. They say that the lake sends back two for every one it takes, and maybe that is so. At any rate, when a fisherman drowns, two more always appear. I would go fishing myself were it not that I am afraid. Are you hungry, M'sieu?" "Yes," Ramsay answered frankly. "Then I will get you something to eat." Pierre LeDou disappeared. Ramsay lay back on the bed to think. Now this half-wild, half-tame country into which he had come was assuming a definite pattern. Some, like Pierre LeDou, had been attracted by the endless wealth offered, and had found only a back-breaking job with Devil Chad or his counterpart. Others, and Ramsay thought of Hans Van Doorst and Pieter Van Hooven, were finding wealth. It was not wealth that could be measured in terms of money; probably the crazy Dutch fisherman and Pieter Van Hooven had little money, but just the same it was wealth. Rather than toil meekly for someone else and obey a master's every wish, they had chosen to discover for themselves the true richness of this endlessly rich land and they were discovering it. So some were afraid and some were not; and those who were not seemed to enjoy life at its fullest. And, as usual, there was the arrogant overlord, Devil Chad, who wanted everything for himself and who would take it if he could. He did not care what he did or whom he killed, as long as he got what he wanted. Pierre LeDou came back, bearing a bowl on a wooden platter. Ramsay sniffed hungrily. The bowl was old and cracked, but like everything else in the house it was scrupulously clean, and the odors wafted from it would tempt the appetite of a dying man. Pierre put the bowl and a wooden spoon down where Ramsay could reach them, and Ramsay saw a meat stew in which fluffy dumplings floated. "It is not much," the little Frenchman apologized. "Venison stew with dumplings, and that is all. Would you like some spirits to go with it?" "Uh!" Ramsay remembered the fiery liquor. "No thanks. I would like some water." "I can offer you milk." "That will be fine." Pierre disappeared, and returned with a bowl of milk and a beaker of the strong whisky. He gave the bowl to Ramsay and held the whisky aloft. "Your health, M'sieu," he said. He drained the beaker without even quivering, and Ramsay suppressed a shudder. Dipping the spoon in his venison stew, he tasted it. It was rich, with all the expertness of French cuisine behind it, and delicious. Ramsay took a chunk of venison in his mouth and chewed it with relish. Venison, fish and whatever else they could get out of the country doubtless meant much to the people who lived here. "How long have you worked in the tannery?" he asked Pierre. "Five years," the little Frenchman said. "Five long years. I shall work there much longer if God is kind." "May He always be kind to you!" Ramsay said feelingly. "My thanks to you, M'sieu Ramsay. And now, with your permission, I shall retire. I suggest that you sleep, for you look very weary. Should you want anything you have only to call." Ramsay fell into a restful slumber from which he was awakened by the sound of people stirring. The early morning sun, just rising, caressed the curtained window softly and a sleepy bird twittered outside the window. There was the sound of lifted stove lids and of people stirring. Ramsay dozed off, then sprang guiltily awake and jumped out of bed. He felt good, with only an occasional twinge of pain here and there. Hastily he pulled on his trousers and shirt, laced his shoes and smoothed his rumpled hair with his hand. When he had made himself as presentable as he could, he went into the other room. Though the hour was still early and the sun not yet fairly up, Pierre LeDou had already left for his work in the tannery. His pleasant wife was pouring hot water from a pan on the stove into a big wooden bowl, evidently the receptacle in which dishes were washed. She turned around. "Good morning!" Ramsay said cheerfully. "Good morning, M'sieu." Then she cautioned him. "Should you be out of bed?" "I feel fine." Ramsay grinned. "Strong as a bull and twice as hungry." "Then I will prepare you something to eat. If M'sieu cares to do so, he may wash just outside the door." "Thanks." Ramsay went out the door. To one side, in front of the house, there was a big wooden bowl and two wooden pails filled with water. A well-worn trail threading away from the door obviously led to a well or spring. Hanging on a wooden peg driven into a hole, drilled in the cabin's wall, were a clean towel and washcloth. Even the door's hinges, cleverly carved pins that turned on holes drilled into wooden blocks attached to the cabin's wall, were wood. Evidently, in this country, wood substituted for metal. Ramsay filled the bowl with water, washed himself and went back into the cabin. Pierre LeDou's wife was bending over a skillet from which came the smell of frying fish. Ramsay sniffed hungrily, and licked his lips. She turned the fish, let it cook a little while longer, and put it on the table, along with feather-light biscuits, butter and cold milk. Ramsay ate hungrily, but tried to curb his appetite so he would also eat decently, and as he ate he talked. "Why," he asked Pierre LeDou's wife, "did your husband bring me here?" "You were hurt and needed help," she said simply. In sudden haste Ramsay felt his pocket, and discovered that the two silver dollars were gone. He remembered that he had lost them while he fought with Devil Chad, and a flood of embarrassment almost overwhelmed him. "I--I have no money to pay you," he said awkwardly. For the first time she looked reprovingly at him. "We did not ask for money, M'sieu. One does not." Ramsay knew another awkward moment and a little shame. "It is very good of you," he said. She said, "One does not neglect a fellow human." Ramsay finished eating and pushed his dishes back. Pierre LeDou's wife, who had already finished washing the rest of the dishes, put Ramsay's in the dish water and left them there. She smiled at him. "It would be well if you rested." "I'm not tired. Really I'm not." "You should rest. Badly were you hurt." "Let me sit here a while." "As long as you sit." She went to a cupboard and took from it a big ball of strong linen thread. From the table she caught up a small board. Wrapping the thread twice around the board, she knotted it. Slipping the thread from the board, she hung the loop she had made on a wooden peg and made a new loop. Her hands flew so swiftly that in a few moments she had seventeen of the meshes, all joined together. "What are you doing?" Ramsay inquired interestedly. "Making a gill net," she explained. "It was ordered by Baptiste LeClair, a fisherman, and is to have a four and a half-inch mesh. So we use a mesh board that is exactly two and a quarter inches wide and wrap the thread twice around. Now I have seventeen. See?" "I see." She strung the seventeen meshes on a wooden rod, placed two chairs far enough apart so that the meshes stretched, tied the rod to them and began knitting on the net she had started. "The net is to be seventeen meshes, or seventy-six and one-half inches, wide. Now I lengthen it." Under the boy's interested eyes the gill net grew swiftly, and as it lengthened she wrapped it around the rod. Ramsay watched every move. "How long will it be?" he queried. "One net," she told him, "is about two hundred and fifty feet long. But usually several are tied together to form a box of nets. A box is about fourteen hundred feet." "Isn't that a lot?" She smiled. "A crew of three good men, like Hans Van Doorst or Baptiste LeClair, with a good Mackinaw boat can handle two boxes." "Could you make this net longer if you wished to?" "Oh, yes. It could be many miles long. Two hundred and fifty feet is a good length for one net because, if it is torn by strong water or heavy fish, it may be untied and repaired while the rest may still be used." "What else must you do?" "After the net is two hundred and fifty feet long, I will use fifteen- or sixteen-thread twine through from three to six meshes on the outer edge. This, in turn, will be tied to ninety-thread twine which extends the full length." Ramsay was amazed at the way this quiet little woman reeled off these figures, as though she were reciting a well-learned lesson. But he wanted to know even more. "How do they set such a net?" "The fishermen gather small, flat stones, about three to the pound, and cut a groove around them so that they can be suspended from a rope. These are called sinkers, and are tied to the net about nine feet apart. For floats they use cedar blocks, about two feet long by one-quarter of an inch thick and an inch and a quarter wide. They bore a small hole one inch from the end, then split the block to the bored hole. The floats--and the number they use depends on the depth to which they sink the net--are pushed over the ninety-thread twine." "Let me try!" Ramsay was beginning to feel the effects of idleness and wanted action. "But of course, M'sieu." Ramsay took the mesh board in his hand and, as he had seen her do, wrapped the thread twice around it. But, though it had looked simple when she did it, there was a distinct knack to doing it right. The mesh board slipped from his fingers and the twine unwound. Madame LeDou laughed. "Let me show you." Patiently, carefully, she guided his fingers through the knitting of a mesh, then another and a third and fourth. Ramsay felt a rising elation. He had liked the _Spray_ when he saw her and now he liked this. Fishing, from the making of the nets to setting them, seemed more than ever a craft that was almost an art. He knitted a row of meshes across the gill net, and happily surveyed his work. At the same time he remained aware of the fact that she could knit three times as fast as he. Ramsay thrust his tongue into his cheek and grimly continued at his work. After an hour Madame LeDou said soberly, "You do right well, M'sieu. But should you not rest now?" Ramsay said, "This is fun." "It is well that you enjoy yourself. Would you consider it uncivil if I left you for a while?" "Please do what you must." She left, and Ramsay continued to work on the net. As he did, his skill improved. Though he was still unable to knit as swiftly as Madame LeDou, he could make a good net. And there was a feel, a tension, to the thread. Within itself the thread had life and being. It was supple, strong and would not fail a fisherman who depended upon it. Madame LeDou returned, smiled at him and went unobtrusively about the task of preparing a lunch. So absorbed was he in his net-making that he scarcely tasted the food. All afternoon he worked on the net. Madame LeDou said approvingly, "You make a good net, M'sieu. You have knitted almost four pounds of thread into this one. The most skilled net-makers, those who have had years of experience, cannot knit more than six or seven pounds in one day." Twilight shadows were lengthening when Pierre LeDou returned. The little man, as always, was courteous. But behind his inherited Gallic grace and manners lay a troubled under-current. Pierre spoke in rapid French to his wife, and she turned worried eyes on their guest. Ramsay stopped knitting the net. All afternoon there had been growing upon him an awareness that he could not continue indefinitely to accept the LeDou's hospitality, and now he knew that he must go. The pattern had definite shape, and the reason behind Pierre's uneasiness was not hard to fathom. Devil Chad was the ruler, and Devil Chad must rule. Who harbored his enemy must be his enemy, and Pierre LeDou needed the job in the tannery. Should he lose it, the LeDous could not live. With an air of spontaneity, anxious not to cause his host and hostess any embarrassment, Ramsay rose and smiled. "It has been a most enjoyable stay at your home," he said. "But of course it cannot continue. I have work to find. If you will be kind enough to shelter me again tonight, I will go tomorrow, and I shall never forget the LeDous." CHAPTER FOUR _TROUBLE FOR THE_ SPRAY Early the next morning, when Pierre departed for work, Ramsay bade farewell to Madame LeDou and left their house with his kind host. He did so with a little reluctance, now that all his money was gone and the future loomed more uncertainly than ever. At the same time there was about him a rising eagerness and an unfulfilled expectation. It seemed to him that, since swimming ashore from the sinking _Holter_, he had ceased to be a boy and had become a man. And a man must know that all desirable things had their undesirable aspects. This country was wonderful. If, to stay in it, he must come to grips with other men--men as strong and as cruel as Devil Chad--and with nature too, Ramsay felt himself willing to do that. As soon as the two were fifty yards from the LeDou home he purposely dropped behind Pierre and leaned against a huge hemlock until the little man was out of sight. Pierre had said nothing and Ramsay had not asked, but the latter knew Devil Chad had told the Frenchman that, if he valued his job in the tannery, he must no longer shelter Ramsay. The boy had no wish to further embarrass his host or to jeopardize his job by being seen with him. Therefore he leaned against the tree until Pierre had had time to reach and enter the tannery. Slowly Ramsay left his tree and walked down the same path that Pierre had followed. Badly as he needed a job, it was useless to try to get one in the tannery. He slowed his pace even more as he walked past the building. He had been beaten by Devil Chad, and he might be beaten a second time should they fight again; but he was not afraid to try. His body had been hurt, but not his courage. Almost insolently Ramsay stopped where he could be seen from the tannery's open door, and waited there. He was aware of curious, half-embarrassed glances from men hurrying into the place, and then they avoided looking at him. Finally a man stopped. He spoke to a man who halted beside him. "All right, Jules. Get in an' start to work." He was a straw boss or foreman, Ramsay decided, and his voice betrayed his New England forebears. An older man, with hair completely gray, like all the rest he was wrinkled and weathered. Physically he was lean and tough, but he did not seem belligerent or even unkind. When the last worker had entered the tannery, he turned to Ramsay. "You needn't be afraid, son. Mr. Chadbourne went to Milwaukee last night." "I'm not afraid. I was just wondering if he wouldn't come out for a second start." "Look, son," the other's air was that of an older and wiser person trying to reason with an impetuous boy, "you haven't got a chance. The best thing you can do is get out of town before Mr. Chadbourne comes back." "Maybe I like this town." "You can only cause trouble by staying here." "I've been in trouble before, too." The older man shrugged, as though he had discharged his full responsibility in warning Ramsay, and said, "It's your funeral, my boy. Stay away from the tannery." "You needn't worry." Ramsay strolled on down the dusty street, and in spite of himself he was a little relieved. If Devil Chad had gone to Milwaukee, probably to arrange for another shipload of hides, it was unlikely that he would be back before night at the earliest. Ramsay would not have to fight again today; presumably he was free to do as he pleased without any fear of interruption. He thrust his hands into empty pockets and, to cheer himself up, started to whistle. A fat Indian, dressed in ragged trousers, which some white man had thrown out, and an equally-tattered black coat which he could not button across his immense, naked stomach, grinned at him. Ramsay grinned back and winked. His friends in New York had been awe-stricken at the very thought of venturing into the wild Midwest where, they thought, scalping parties occurred every few hours and no white man was safe from the savages. Ramsay had enjoyed himself by elaborating on the part he would play when such a war party came along. But he had discovered for himself, before he left Chicago, that the Indians in this section of Wisconsin were harmless. When they could they sold bead work and basketry to the settlers and they were not above stealing. But they were not warlike. Ramsay strode past another building, a big one with two separate floors and an attic. Its chimney belched smoke, and from within came the whine of saws and other machinery. In front of the building were stacked a great number of barrels, made of white pine and with hoops formed from the black ash tree. Ramsay hesitated a moment and entered. Three Points was obviously a raw frontier town, but definitely it was not as raw as Ramsay had expected it to be. Obviously there was at least one industrial plant in addition to the tannery. It seemed to be a cooper's shop, engaged in the production of barrels, and it might hold a job for him. He stopped just inside the door, trying to adjust his ears to the scream of a big circular saw that was powered by a steam engine. Beyond were lathes and various other machines, and a great many wooden pails were piled against the far wall. This factory, then, made both barrels and pails. Presently a middle-aged man, with the neatest clothing Ramsay had yet seen in Three Points, came out of an office and walked toward him. He shouted to make himself heard above the screaming saw, "Yes?" "Are you the manager here?" Ramsay shouted back. "Yes." "Need any men?" "What?" Ramsay grinned faintly. The factory, if not bedlam, was close to it. It was incredible that anyone at all could carry on an intelligent, or even an intelligible, conversation inside it. Ramsay shouted, "Let's go outside!" The other followed him out, and far enough from the door so they could hear each other. Ramsay turned to his companion, "My name's Ramsay Cartou and I'm looking for a job. Do you have any to offer?" The manager looked soberly at Ramsay's battered face, then with the toe of his shoe he began tracing a circle in the dirt. He hesitated. Then, "I'm afraid not." Ramsay felt a stirring anger. Definitely there was more work in Three Points than there were men to do it. The town had need of strong workers. For a moment he looked steadily at the manager, who looked away. Then he swallowed and tried a new tack, "What do you do with all the barrels?" "Most of them go to fishermen who use them to ship their catches to Chicago. The pails are shipped by boat to wherever there is a market for them." "And you can't give me a job?" "That's right." "Why?" Ramsay challenged. "We--we have a full crew." "I see. Now will you answer one question?" "Certainly." "Does 'Mister' Chadbourne own this place too?" "He has a financial interest ..." The other stopped short. "See here, young man! I have told you that I cannot offer you a job and that should be sufficient!" "I just wanted to know why," Ramsay said. He turned and walked away from the cooper's shop. His chin was high, and anger seethed within him. Devil Chad, apparently, owned most of Three Points and a lot of other things between that and Milwaukee. If there was an opportunity to earn a dollar, honest or dishonest, Devil Chad was seizing that opportunity. Obviously the manager of the cooper's shop had heard of his fight with Ramsay--in a small community like this everyone would have heard of it--and was afraid to give him a job. Ramsay resumed his tuneless whistling. Plainly he was going to get nowhere in Three Points. But definitely he had no intention of running away with his tail between his legs, like a whipped puppy. He liked this lakeshore country and he intended to stay in it. If he had to fight to do that, then he would fight. Between the rugged trunks of tall hemlock trees he caught a glimpse of the lake, sparkling blue in the sunshine and gently ruffled by a soft south wind. He turned his steps toward it, and now he walked eagerly. The lake was magic, a world in itself which never had been tamed and never would be tamed. He shivered ecstatically. This was what he had come west to find. Devil Chad and his tannery, the town of Three Points, and even Milwaukee paled into nothingness when compared to the lake. He broke from the last trees and saw Lake Michigan clearly. A heavy wooden pier extended out onto it, and a sailing vessel was tied up at one side. Ramsay read her name. She was the _Brilliant_, from Ludington, Michigan, and a line of men were toiling up a gangplank with heavy bags which they were stacking on the pier. On the pier's other side a steamer, a side-wheeler like the _Holter_, was loading leather from Devil Chad's tannery. She was the _Jackson_, a freighter that carried assorted cargoes between Three Points, Milwaukee and Chicago. Ramsay strolled out on the pier and brightened when the cold lake air struck his face. It was impossible to be on the lake, or near it, and feel stolid or dull. It provided its own freshness, and Ramsay thought it also furnished a constant inspiration. He watched the sweating men continue to bring loaded bags up from the sailing vessel and approached near enough to ask a burly deck hand, "What's this cargo?" The man looked surlily at him. "What's it look like?" "Diamonds." Ramsay grinned. "Well, it ain't. It's salt." "What the blazes will anyone do with so much salt?" "Eat it," the deck hand grunted. "People hereabouts like salt." Then he, too, grinned. "Naw, it's for fishermen. They got to have somethin' to salt their catches in." "Oh. I see." Ramsay added this bit of information to the lore he had already gathered. Obviously fishing consisted of more than just catching fish. Actually taking the fish, of course, was the most exciting and romantic part. But the fishermen could not ply their trade at all without women like Madame LeDou who made their nets, a shop like the Three Points' cooper's shop which provided the barrels into which the fish were packed, or vessels like the _Brilliant_ which brought salt that kept the fish from spoiling. Ramsay stayed on the pier until the _Brilliant_ was unloaded, and licked his lips while he watched her crew eating thick sandwiches. They took a whole loaf of bread, sliced it lengthwise, packed the center with meat, cheese, fish and anything else they could lay their hands on, and, according to their taste, washed it down with cold lake water or beakers of whisky. Ramsay looked away. Madame LeDou had provided him with a substantial breakfast, but this was an invigorating country wherein one soon became hungry again. Ramsay patted his empty stomach. Probably Madame LeDou would give him something to eat should he go back there, but he had already posed enough problems for the LeDous. Besides, he did not like the idea of asking for food. He left the pier to walk past the Lake House, Three Points' only hotel. Savory odors of cooking food wafted to his nostrils and made him drool. He walked past the Lake House, then turned to walk back. He trotted up the steps and sat down at a table spread with a white cloth. A hard-eyed woman, wearing a brown dress over which she had tied a neat white apron, came up to him. Ramsay leaned back. He had decided to make his play, and he might as well play it to the end. "What does the menu offer?" he asked almost haughtily. "Whitefish at fifteen cents, venison at fifteen cents, a boiled dinner at ten cents." "What? No steak?" "The steak dinner," the woman said, "costs thirty cents. With it you get potatoes, coffee, salad and apple pie." "Bring it to me," Ramsay said. "And please be prompt. My time is valuable." "As soon as possible," the woman said. Ramsay relaxed in his chair. A half-hour later the waitress brought him a broiled sirloin, so big that it overflowed the platter on which it rested. There were crisp fried potatoes, coffee--a rare beverage in this country--cream, a salad and a huge wedge of apple pie. Ramsay ate hungrily, then the waitress approached him. "Will you pay now?" "It is a lot," said Ramsay, who could not have swallowed another crust, "to pay for such a puny meal." "I told you the price before you ordered." "It doesn't matter," Ramsay waved a languid hand. "Especially since I have no money. What do we do now?" Ramsay stood in the kitchen of the Lake House, and by the light of an oil lamp piled the last of what had been a mountain of dishes, into warm water. There must, he thought, have been thousands of them, but there were only a few more and he dropped one of those. Instantly the woman who had served him popped into the kitchen. "Must you be so clumsy?" "It is the only dish I have broken out of all I have washed," Ramsay said. "Don't you think I have paid off my dinner by this time?" "You knew the price before you ordered." "The way you've had me working since, I earned the whole cow. Haven't I repaid you, with perhaps a bonus of a sandwich for supper?" "Sit down, kid," the woman said gruffly. She brought him a sandwich, huge slices of fluffy homemade bread between which thick slices of beef nestled, and a bowl of milk. Ramsay ate hungrily, and after he had finished his hostess talked to him. "You're the youngster Devil Chad beat up, aren't you?" "I tripped," Ramsay said grimly. "Devil Chad trips 'em all. You're crazy if you think you can get away with anything. Best thing you can do is leave." Ramsay said, "I guess I'm just naturally crazy." The woman shrugged. "I'm tellin' you for your own good, kid. You'll get nowhere in Three Points as long as Chad don't like you. Why not be a smart little boy and beat it back to wherever you came from?" Ramsay said, "That isn't a good idea." "You're a stubborn kid, ain't you?" "Mule-headed," Ramsay agreed. "Even worse than a mule." "Well, if you won't take good advice, there's not much I can do. Would you like to sleep here tonight?" "Nope. I'll be going now, and thanks for the steak." "Well ... Good luck, kid." "Thanks." Ramsay walked out into the darkness and drew his jacket tightly about him. The lake shore was cold by day, much colder by night when there was no sun to warm it. He had brought extra clothing, but all his personal belongings had gone down with the _Holter_. He looked dismally at the dark town--Three Points seemed to go to bed with the setting sun--and wandered forlornly down toward the lake front. Both the sailing vessel from Ludington and the _Jackson_ were gone. A little wind was driving wavelets gently against the shore, and the lap-lap of their rising and falling made pleasant music in the night. Ramsay wandered out on the pier, where the stacked bags of salt were covered with tarpaulins. He looked furtively around. Nobody else was on or even near the pier, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would come. He curled up close to the bags of salt and drew the flowing end of a tarpaulin over his body. He pillowed his head on a protruding bag and snuggled very near to the stack. The pier was hard, but he had slept on hard beds before and the barrier of salt broke the wind's force. The tarpaulin, of heavy duck, made a warm blanket. In spite of the odds he faced, Ramsay felt a wonderful sense of well-being and peace. He went quietly to sleep. When he awakened, soft gray dawn was stealing like a fawn out of the summer sky. Three Points, not yet awake, slumbered in the dim morning. Ramsay crawled out from beneath the tarpaulin and rose to look at the town. Nobody gave up any battles; but nobody knocked his head against a stone wall or strove against hopeless odds. Even the little black horse had not done that. He might just as well see things as they were. Devil Chad ruled Three Points and, with his present resources, Ramsay could not fight Devil Chad. But it was certain that Chad could not rule all of Milwaukee, too, and Milwaukee would need workers. He could go back there, get a job and plan his future after he had it. A sudden inspiration seemed to fall right out of the brightening sky. The Van Hoovens! Pieter Van Hooven had told him to come back should he fail to find what he expected in Three Points, and Pierre LeDou had assured him that Devil Chad did not walk so freely among the farmers and fishermen. Maybe Pieter could give him a job, at least something that would offer security until he was able to get himself oriented; and if he could, Ramsay wanted to stay in this part of the country. It was better than Milwaukee. Briskly he left the pier and struck down the sand beach. Now that he had decided to take this step, he felt lighter and happier. Maybe he would and maybe he would not have liked working in the tannery, even if that had been ruled by some other man than Devil Chad, but he knew that he would like the Van Hoovens and their way of life. He moved fast, staying far enough up on the beach so he need not step in wet sand but near enough the water so he could walk on sun-baked sand over which high water had already rolled. That was packed hard, almost to the consistency of concrete. The sun was well up when he came again to the Van Hooven's pleasant home. Resolutely he walked up and knocked on the back door. A second later it opened, and Marta Van Hooven flashed a warm smile of welcome. "Oh! Come in." Pieter, who had already finished his milking and was now seated at the breakfast table, said, "Hello." "Hello," Ramsay said. "I thought I'd stop in and see you on ..." He fumbled. "On my way back to Milwaukee." Pieter looked seriously at him. "You're not going to work in Three Points?" "No," Ramsay said bluntly. "Mr. Chadbourne and I did not see eye to eye. In fact, three minutes after we met our fists were flying in each other's eyes." "You fought Devil Chad?" "I did, and got well-beaten." Pieter said quietly, "Some day somebody will kill him." "Some day somebody might." "Eat," Pieter invited. He pushed a platter of eggs at the boy and forked a thick slice of home-cured ham onto his plate. Then he placed the dish of yellow butter where Ramsay could help himself and put a plate of feather-light fresh-baked rolls where he was able to reach it. Marta came softly in from the kitchen with a bowl of cold milk. Ramsay ate, primly at first, then gave way to his enormous appetite. Pieter served him another slice of ham. The boy took two more eggs and another roll, which he spread lavishly with butter. Sighing, unable to swallow another crumb, he pushed his plate back. Pieter looked gravely at him. "Do you have to go to Milwaukee?" "No, I just thought I might find a job there." "You can," Pieter assured him. "But if a job is what you want, a job is what I can give you. I can't pay you any money, at least until we have sold our fall crops, because we haven't any. But I can give you all you can eat, a good bed to sleep in, and I have some clothes that will fit you." Ramsay said deliberately, "Devil Chad won't like you for that." "Around here," and there was no air of braggadocio in Pieter's words, "we don't much care what Devil Chad likes." Ramsay looked hard at his host, and then the two young men grinned at each other. "You've got yourself a man," Ramsay said. "What do we do first?" * * * * * Hidden from the house by a jutting shoulder of land, Ramsay stood beside the small lake on Pieter Van Hooven's property and peeled off his clothes. All day long, interrupted in mid-morning by Marta, who brought him a substantial lunch, at noon by a huge and delicious dinner and again in mid-afternoon with a lunch, he had toiled in Pieter Van Hooven's sprouting corn. All day long the sun had beaten down and, though the lake shore was cool enough, a man doing hard physical labor could easily work up a sweat. But it was good. Ramsay had felt the sun's rays penetrate to and warm the very marrow of his bones. In spite of the hard labor he had been doing, few times in his life had he felt as agile and supple and wholly alive as this. He plunged headlong into the lake and came up gasping. The water was cold, though not nearly as cold as the big lake; and after Ramsay's body was adjusted to it, a delicious glow ran through his whole physical being. He dived again, then climbed up on the soft grass to let the lowering sun dry him before he put his clothes on. He dressed slowly, happily, and now all his cares were behind him. This was the place for him, and no longer did he have the slightest doubt that he was going to like everything about it. Fresh and vigorous, the day's toil washed away, he walked slowly down to Lake Michigan and stared across it. Supper in half an hour, Pieter had said when he had advised Ramsay to stop work and have a swim, and no more than half that time had elapsed. The rest could profitably be spent in just looking at this endlessly fascinating water. Ramsay stared across the lake. More than ever it seemed a live creature and one of many moods. Ramsay had seen it roaring-mad, and now he saw it gentle as a lamb. There was scarcely a ripple anywhere. Absorbed in the lake, Ramsay was aware of nothing else until a horse snorted very close to him. When he whirled, he knew that he had seen the same horse and rider before. It was the body-watcher, Joe Mannis, and he was riding the black-and-white horse which he had ridden when he had warned Ramsay away from the drowned Captain Schultz and the deck hand. The huge cowboy hat tilted precariously on his head and the blue jeans, apparently unwashed in a good many months, clung tightly to his legs. Thick black hair escaped from beneath the hat, and he looked Ramsay up and down. "What are you doin' here?" "What's it to you?" "Well, nothin' I expect. Nothin' at all. But just don't bother me again when I'm workin' at my trade." "I won't," Ramsay promised, "unless I have a couple of pistols, too." "Just don't bother me when I'm workin' at my trade," the other repeated, "an' we'll get along fine." "You think so?" Ramsay snapped. Missing the challenge implied in Ramsay's words, Joe Mannis trotted his horse up the sand beach toward Three Points. Ramsay looked without interest at his retreating back. Joe Mannis was an unsavory man, he decided, but unlike Devil Chad, he was a stupid man. Only when backed by his pistols would Joe be much of a threat. Ramsay pushed his drying hair back with his hands and went around to the rear of the Van Hooven house. That was also a custom, it seemed. Formal visitors, if there were any, might enter by the front door; but everyone else went around to the rear. Obviously the visitor who had arrived while Ramsay bathed and stood on the shore, was not formal. He was a tall, gaunt man with a thin face and a hooked nose. Except for a white shirt, the collar of which was adorned by a bright ribbon that could hardly be called a tie, from his stovepipe hat to his shoes he was dressed entirely in black. An outlandish rig, a four-wheeled cart with a fringed top supported on four posts, stood in the yard. Its curtains were rolled up, and the cart seemed to contain everything from wash tubs to pins. Pieter and the stranger were unhitching a gray horse that stood patiently between the cart's shafts. Pieter called the boy over, "Ramsay, this is Mr. Hammersly." Mr. Hammersly, so-called, turned and thrust forth a huge hand. "Tradin' Jack," he amended. "Tradin' Jack Hammersly. You need anythin', I got it. Fairer prices as you'll find in Three Points, Chicago, or Milwaukee. Need a box of candy for that girl of yours, Ramsay?" "I haven't any girl," Ramsay said. "You'll have one," Tradin' Jack declared. "Every young buck like you needs a pert doe. Can't get along without 'em, I always say. Yup, you'll have one. When you get one, remember Tradin' Jack." "I will," Ramsay promised. While Tradin' Jack washed up at the stand beside the back door, Pieter led the gray horse to the barn, stripped it of its harness and loosed it with the little black horse. The two animals touched friendly noses. Pieter returned, and all three went in to the groaning table which Marta had ready. It seemed a natural thing here, Ramsay observed, to expect all passing wayfarers to share whatever there was to be had. Gracefully Tradin' Jack lifted the tails of his long black coat and sat down. "Left Milwaukee day before yesterday," he said. "Stopped off to see the Blounts, down at Blounts' Landin'...." Marta and Pieter Van Hooven gave rapt attention, and even Ramsay found himself interested. Aside from being a trader, it appeared that Tradin' Jack Hammersly was also a walking newspaper. He knew everything about everybody between Three Points and Milwaukee, and between Milwaukee and Kenosha. Endlessly he related tales of new babies, new weddings and new engagements. Tradin' Jack knew that Wilhelm Schmidt's horse had the colic but probably would recover, and that Mrs. Darmstedt, that would be the wife of Pete Darmstedt, had shot a black bear right in her own front yard. There was nothing about the people he did not know and not much that he was unwilling to tell. Finished, he got down to business. "Any eggs for me, Marta?" "Twenty dozen," she said, "all fresh." "Fourteen cents a dozen," Tradin' Jack said promptly. "Yaah," Marta, too, was bargaining now, "I can get that in Three Points." "Take it in trade an' I'll allow you fifteen," Tradin' Jack said. "Got to keep my customers sweet." Before he went to bed Tradin' Jack arranged with Pieter to have a butchered pig ready for him when he returned from Three Points the day after tomorrow. Two and a half cents a pound he would pay, or two and three-quarters if Pieter would take it in trade. He left with the Van Hoovens a tempting array of calico, ribbons, needles, pins, a new axe and hammer, a box of nails and other things which were always useful and always needed. The next morning Ramsay roused himself out of bed at dawn to find Tradin' Jack already gone. He had sensed the storm that was approaching, Pieter said, and, if possible, he wanted to get into Three Points before it struck. Ramsay felt a strange uneasiness and an unrest. Going outside, he saw that yesterday's blue skies had given way to ominous masses of gray clouds. His uneasiness mounted. Something terrible was being brewed within the giant lake, and shortly it would erupt. A strong wind sent high waves leaping up onto the shore. They fell back, only to be replaced with more waves. Ramsay shuddered. If there was terror in this, there was also grandeur. The lake, angered, was a fearful and wonderful spectacle. It was a gargantuan thing which seemed to writhe in an agony which, somehow, was created by itself. A few drops of rain pattered down. The wind blew harder. Pieter and Ramsay went to the barn to repair tools, and neither spoke as they stared through the barn's open door. The waves were raging now, launching endless attacks on the shore and always rolling back. Suddenly Ramsay leaped to his feet and stifled a cry. Far out in the lake's surging gray masses he thought that he had seen something pure white. But he could not be sure. A moment later he saw it again. A sail! Then he was able clearly to identify a little peanut shell of a boat. She was the _Spray_, and she was in serious trouble. CHAPTER FIVE _RESCUE_ A fresh gust of wind sent the waves leaping higher, and for a moment only the furious lake could be seen. Ramsay rose, and Pieter rose beside him; and both went to the barn door. They stood alert, still not speaking and not even certain of what they had seen. Then they saw it again. Beyond any possible doubt it was the _Spray_, and she was working valiantly to get into shore. Ramsay swallowed a lump in his throat. He had first seen the _Spray_ as a dancing bit of gaiety on a lake as stormy as this one, and then she had seemed so sure of herself and so capable. Now she was like a shot-wounded duck which, no longer able to rise in graceful flight, must lie on the water and flutter desperate wings. For another tense moment Ramsay and Pieter stood side by side. By inches the _Spray_ was fighting her way toward shore, but a glance was sufficient to reveal the tremendous odds against her ever making safety. Still, even in this terrible dilemma, there was a spirit about her which the _Holter_ never had and never could have. The two men on the _Spray_--and did not the crazy Dutch fisherman usually carry a crew of four?--seemed to be working calmly and easily. There was, from this distance, no trace of the near-panic that had reigned when the _Holter_ went down. Ramsay knew a moment's intense gratification. This was part of the dream, part of the picture he had engraved in his heart when he first saw the _Spray_ and her skipper. When they challenged the lake, they accepted it in all its aspects. Now they were behaving as all fishermen should behave. Before they could even begin to follow their trade they must make an unbreakable pact with their fortune on the water, be it good or bad. Then the trance was broken. Out on the lake, within sight of Pieter and Ramsay, men were about to die. They must not die if there was any way to help them. As though their eyes were guided by one common impulse, both men looked toward Pieter's small boat. It was a clumsy craft, strongly-built of heavy timbers which Pieter himself had hand-sawed in his spare time. Usually, when Pieter wasn't using the boat, it was pulled high enough on the beach so storm-driven battering rams of waves could not touch it, and so it was now. Side by side, with no need to speak, Pieter and Ramsay left the barn and raced toward the boat. Wind-driven rain soaked their clothing before they had gone ten feet, but they paid no attention to it. Kneeling, one on either side of the fourteen-foot boat, they strove to push it back into the lake. Pieter shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the smashing waves. "Wait!" Ramsay stopped pushing while Pieter took the long oars out of their locks and laid them lengthwise in the boat. The boy nodded approvingly. As things were, it seemed all but impossible to launch the boat. If they launched it and lost an oar in the high seas, they were doomed to disaster, anyhow. "Now!" Pieter shouted. The boat scraped a deep furrow in the wet sand as, with a concerted effort, they pushed it backwards. Not looking at the savage combers, Ramsay gave all his attention to the boat. They would have to work with all possible speed to get it into the lake and the oars in place, because the waves were rising to enormous heights now. He felt the boat's square stern touch water. Then an irresistible giant, a force that would bear no interference, took hold and shoved the little craft almost as far up on the beach as it had been when they tried to launch it. Leaving the boat half-filled with water, the smashing wave washed away from the wet sand. Ramsay stood erect to catch his breath. They had given all their strength to backing the boat into the lake, and as they were about to succeed it had been plucked from their hands as easily as a strong man might snatch a flower from the hands of a baby. He glanced out across the water to assure himself that the _Spray_ was still floating, then looked desperately at Pieter. "Nose first!" Pieter said. "Turn it around!" He shouted to make himself heard, but there was about him an almost maddening calmness as he worked. Ramsay restrained his impatience. They must not lose a second's time; but if they were going to do this at all, it must be done exactly right. Both on one side of the boat, they raised it to let the water spill out. In spite of his drenched clothing and the cold air that blew in from the lake, Ramsay was sweating. Pieter's boat had been built by a farmer, not a fisherman. It was all right on a calm day when Pieter wanted to go fishing, but certainly it had never been built to weather storms. So heavy was the craft that the combined strength of two men was needed to tip the water from it. They let the boat drop heavily back on its side, and the oars fell out. Still calmly, refusing to become excited, Pieter picked them up and placed them in the oar locks. Again Ramsay understood. Both men knew this for a furious storm but both had underestimated its fury. At the best, should they be able to get the boat into the lake, they would have a split second to float her and the oars had to be ready. It was better to take a chance on losing an oar than to have the boat driven back onto the beach. Kneeling, Ramsay felt his muscles stand out like stretched cords as he gave every ounce of strength to turning the boat around. He was sweating again--and short of breath. Only the pressing urgency and the great need for immediate action gave him the strength to continue. Then the craft seemed to move a little easier, and Ramsay glanced around to see Marta working beside them. Noting them from the house, and understanding their mission, she had thrown a shawl about her shoulders and raced out to help. With almost maddening slowness the boat turned until its curved nose faced the lake. Ramsay on one side and Pieter on the other slid it down the wet sand toward the water. The boy bit his lip fiercely to help keep control of himself. Nothing must go amiss here, and a wrong or panic-stricken move could mean disaster. Because this launching demanded machine-like precision, Ramsay fought to control the fire in his brain. Carefully he thought out each exact step. Get the boat into the lake until it floated. Then leap in beside Pieter, grab an oar and time his strokes to Pieter's. Fight their way out to the stricken _Spray_ and rescue those aboard her. It seemed a simple matter, but never before in his whole life had Ramsay faced anything more complex. It couldn't be done, his mind said, while at the same time something else told him that it could and must be done. He glanced around and curiously, as though the picture were registering somewhere other than in his own eyes, he saw Marta Van Hooven. She was standing at the edge of the lake, her dress and shawl sodden-wet and her rain-soaked blond hair clinging like a seal's fur to her head and shoulders. One hand covered her mouth, as though to stifle a cry that was half-born there, and in her eyes were a great pleading and a great prayer as she watched her husband. But the cry did not find life. She uttered no sound. While she did not want Pieter to go, at the same time she knew that he must. Only if help came did anyone left alive on the _Spray_ have even a faint chance of staying alive. Then they were in the lake, and a mighty wave burst like a water-filled bomb about them. It staggered Ramsay and sent him reeling, but it did not unnerve him. Because he had practised in his own imagination what he must do from here on in, he could do it. He felt cold water creeping about his shoes and then up around his knees. The boat which they had been dragging steadied itself as they reached water in which it could float. Through the blinding spray that lashed at them Ramsay looked across at Pieter. He saw him only indistinctly, but it was as though they read each other's thoughts. At exactly the same moment they flung themselves into opposite sides of the rower's seat and each grabbed an oar. The boy bent his back to the man-killing job of rowing. The boat was sluggish, and again half-filled with water. But it floated, and as soon as they were free of the mighty waves that smashed against the beach it floated a little more easily. Ramsay looked back across the steel-gray turmoil to see the Van Hooven farm, and Marta still on the shore. Then he returned all his attention to the task at hand. The lake was an insane thing, bent on destruction. They went into the trough of a wave and rose on the next one. Ramsay risked a fleeting backward glance to see the _Spray_, much nearer the shore and still afloat. Suddenly they were in an almost-calm stretch of water. Ramsay felt cold fear run up and down his spine. He had met this on the sinking _Holter_, and now here it was again. Almost fearfully he glanced sidewise at Pieter, but he could not speak because the screaming wind would have drowned his words as soon as he uttered them. His eyes grew big. Just behind, and again on the right side, an apparition drifted out of the depths. It was a ghost figure, a thing born of nightmares. Ramsay gasped. The White Sturgeon nosed to the surface, drifted lazily for a moment and disappeared back into the watery depths out of which it had come. Ramsay risked a sidewise glance at Pieter, whose face remained undisturbed, and he swallowed the lump in his own throat. Sailors might fear the White Sturgeon, but if Pieter did, he was not showing his fear. The boy told himself again that the sturgeon was a fish, nothing more or less than a great fish which, through some freak of nature, was colored white. But it did seem to appear only when death and destruction stalked the lake. He forced such thoughts from his mind. They were again in storm-lashed water, striving to keep their boat straight and headed toward the _Spray_. Vast waves bore down upon them, plunging the little craft into their cold troughs and then shooting it up as though it were a plaything. From the crest of the waves Ramsay could still see the _Spray_. He worried. Now there seemed to be only one man aboard her. There was a sharp, sickening crack and the sound of splintering wood, that rose above the roar of the wind and the surge of the waves. The boat slewed sideways, and for the first time Pieter Van Hooven's face betrayed emotion. He brought in the stump of oar remaining in his hand and, at the risk of upsetting the little boat, leaned across the seat to snatch Ramsay's oar from its lock. With that in his hand, he made a precarious way to the stern. He thrust the oar over the rear seat, trying to use it as a rudder, and the boy strove to overcome the fear he felt. The White Sturgeon, the sailors' superstition said, always brought disaster. If you see it, the little deck hand had told Ramsay, you can start praying right afterwards. For one terror-filled moment their predictions seemed correct. Twice Ramsay had seen the White Sturgeon; each time he had been in immediate danger of death. Then superstition subsided and reason came back to his aid. Crouching in the back seat, with only one oar, Pieter Van Hooven was doing his best to fight the angry lake. Though he was a farmer, obviously he knew something of seamanship. For a brief moment, just long enough to keep from capsizing, he kept the little boat headed into the onrushing waves. When he turned it, he did so skilfully. Working the oar only with the strength in his hard-muscled arms, he headed back towards shore. A mighty wave smashed the stern, throwing cold water over them and across the tiny craft. Ramsay moved from side to side, doing all he could to help Pieter by shifting his weight to where it was needed most. The boat was three-quarters filled with water. Never made for a heavy sea, now it was an almost dead thing. But so strong were the waves and so powerful the wind, that they were driven at almost motor speed back into the beach. Ramsay had one glimpse of Marta. Pieter lost the little control he had. Turning sidewise, the boat lifted like a matchstick on the crest of a giant wave and spun dizzily down into the trough. It was lifted again, and just before it turned over Ramsay flung himself clear. As he did, he saw Pieter go over with him. He dived as deeply as he could, knowing that the boat would come crashing down and knowing also that it would kill him if it struck him on the head. Far into the lake he went, swimming under water and groping his way. He surfaced to see the craft to one side and a bobbing object, which he thought was the head of Pieter Van Hooven. A second later a tremendous wave deposited him on the sandy beach. He lay gasping, all the breath knocked out of him, and he wished desperately to get out of the path of the waves that were breaking over him. But it seemed impossible to move. His mind urged him to go, but he lacked the physical strength to obey. Then he felt a pair of hands in his armpits, and his body was dragged over the scraping sand. Ramsay looked up to see the frightened face of Marta Van Hooven. "Can you move?" she pleaded. "Gi--give me a minute!" For what seemed an interminable time, but could not have been more than twenty seconds, Ramsay lay still. He turned over so that he lay face down, and lifted himself with his arms. His legs and feet were made of jelly. Vaguely he was aware of Marta and Pieter Van Hooven, one on each side, lifting him to his feet. A second later his strength returned. Keening in from the lake, the wind made him stagger backwards. Reaching mountainous heights, the breaking waves shattered themselves far up on the beach. Ramsay looked across them. About two hundred yards out, the _Spray_ was completely crippled. Trailing from her broken mast, the sail bled water into the angry lake. Down at the bows, the fisherman's boat seemed hung up on a rock or reef. Every second wave that washed in broke completely over her and hid her from view. But the single man remaining on board still worked calmly with the broken half of an oar, to free the _Spray_ from her prison. Ramsay allowed himself another split second. The entire dream was coming true. There were some men who, to the last, could meet the challenge of the lake with grace and spirit. The man on the _Spray_, identified even at this distance as Hans Van Doorst, had not given up. The boy whirled on Pieter Van Hooven. "A coil of rope!" he ejaculated. Without waiting to see whether or not Pieter followed his instructions, he raced for the barn. Snatching a bridle from its wooden peg, he went more slowly toward the corral where the little black horse was confined. This had happened once before and it might happen again. A man's strength was as nothing in the raging lake, but a horse was many times as strong as a man. The black horse had brought him safely in when all the others had drowned. The little horse arched his neck and flicked his ears when his young friend approached and patted him. "Easy," Ramsay said reassuringly. "Take it easy, Black." The little horse rested his head over the boy's shoulder for a moment, then the latter stepped back to slip the bit into Black's mouth, put the bridle over his ears and buckle the throat latch. The horse followed willingly behind him as he pushed the corral's gate aside. He mounted, and Black reared and pranced, just to prove that he could. Ramsay tried not to look at the lake, but he couldn't help looking. When he did, very lonely in the gray waves, he saw the reef- or rock-bound _Spray_. The lone fisherman still could be seen, working to free his craft. Ramsay leaned forward to pat the little horse on the neck. "We can do it," he murmured. "Let's prove it." He took the bridle reins in his hand and trotted Black toward the foaming lake. Pieter, his eyes grave, tossed him a coil of half-inch rope. Ramsay had one glimpse of Marta's anguished face. He slipped the coil of rope over his shoulder and did not look back. As they approached the lake, the horse hesitated, to paw the sand with a front hoof. He looked around to eye the rider on his back, and again Ramsay leaned forward. "All right," he said. "Go on." The horse accepted his words but, more than that, his confidence. Guided by the bridle's touch, he walked willingly into the pounding lake. Another water bomb exploded about them. They submerged, but Black came up swimming strongly. Ramsay kept soft fingers on the bridle reins, not wanting to exert any pressure or do anything else that might divert the horse from the job at hand. Tossing his head, Black sneezed to empty his nose of water that had washed into it. He was timing himself capably and almost perfectly to meet the waves at their place of least resistance, and he rose and fell with them. From the crests Ramsay could see the _Spray_. From the troughs he could see nothing. A lump rose in his throat. The _Spray_ was indeed sadly wounded. Only part of her stern showed above water. Hans Van Doorst still worked with a broken oar to free his boat, and as soon as he came near enough Ramsay knew that he had been right. The Dutch fisherman had been one with the lake when Ramsay first saw him, and he was one with it now. Unafraid, he fought the lake as gracefully as a swordsman. Perched on the broken stump of mast, the sea gull fluttered his wings and clicked his mandibles. Ramsay gauged the situation as precisely as he could. If he could throw his rope over the stranded _Spray_, the little horse might be able to pull it from its anchor and back to shore. Ramsay saw Hans Van Doorst turn to watch him. The fisherman waved a friendly hand. Still guiding Black lightly, imposing no undue strain on the reins or bit, Ramsay steered him across the _Spray's_ sunken prow. He let the reins hang slackly on the horse's neck and took the coil of rope from his shoulder. As precisely as he could, he cast and watched the rope snake through the air. A sick feeling arose in the pit of his stomach and he moaned audibly. He had calculated the distance correctly but he had not allowed for the strength of the wind. The rope missed Hans Van Doorst's outstretched hands by two feet and fell into the angry lake. Of his own volition, Black turned back toward shore. Ramsay saw the squawking sea gull bounce a couple of feet into the air and spread his long wings. Grasping the reins, for the first time the boy used strength as he strove to turn the horse back. He glanced over his shoulder to see what might be done next, and gasped. Hans Van Doorst had gone to the raised stern of his wrecked boat to give himself a running start, and as Ramsay looked, he dived. Leaping as far as possible from the _Spray_ to avoid striking the rock, he hurled himself into the storm-lashed lake, straight at his would-be rescuers. For a few seconds that seemed like hours, he disappeared into the churning depths, but when he surfaced he was squarely behind Ramsay and he used both hands to grasp the horse's tail. Black turned back toward shore. He swam more strongly now because he was going with the wind instead of against it, and his double burden did not seem unduly heavy. Ramsay saw Pieter and Marta Van Hooven, Pieter's hand protectingly over his wife's shoulder, as they waited to see what would happen. The last wave burst around them and they were back on shore. Instantly Ramsay slid from the little horse's back and looked around. A nausea seized him. Hans Van Doorst was no longer in sight. Ramsay had tried and failed. He glanced toward the _Spray_, as though he expected to see the crazy Dutch fisherman still there, and knew only that waves were smashing the boat into kindling wood. Then, as though he had literally risen from the lake, Hans Van Doorst picked himself up from the wreckage of a breaking wave and walked ashore. His tame sea gull fluttered out of the sky to alight on its master's shoulder. The Dutchman reached up to stroke his pet as he looked at Pieter and Ramsay. "None but me and Captain Klaus?" he asked. "None, Hans," Pieter said. For a moment an infinite sadness, a melancholy born thousands of years ago in the first fisherman who had seen his mates lost, pervaded the Dutchman. But it was only for a moment. Pieter and Ramsay walked to his side and offered their assistance. He declined it. "I'll walk," he said. Ramsay felt a great warmth for and a vast sympathy with this man who, while daring all and losing all, could remain so very human. Marta hovered solicitously near as they all went up to the house and wore their dripping clothes into her immaculate kitchen. Hans Van Doorst sat down, tried to fold his arms across his chest, and winced. "You're hurt!" Marta cried. "It is nothing." The Dutch fisherman looked at the three. "It happened out on the lake. We struck something, I do not know what. Perhaps the half-submerged hull of a sunken ship. Then we were in trouble." Marta was stooping beside him, gently unbuttoning his soaking-wet shirt. Hans Van Doorst looked fondly down at her wet and bedraggled hair, and he offered no protest as his upper body was bared. There was a vast, ugly scar on the right side of his chest, and when Marta touched him there his ribs moved. The Dutchman sat very straight in his chair. Though he must have felt pain, he showed none. Ramsay and Pieter stood aside while Marta worked expertly. Ripping one of her snow-white sheets into strips, she wound a bandage tightly around Hans Van Doorst's broken ribs. Ramsay and Pieter looked significantly at each other. Such an injury _might_ have resulted when wind or a heavy wave flung the fisherman against something. Probably it had happened when Hans flung himself forward in an effort to rescue a shipmate. Marta finished her bandaging and stepped back. "You rest now." He grinned at her. "Fishermen have no time for rest." "Do as she says, Hans," Pieter urged. "Come," said Marta. She went to a bedroom, opened the door and waited expectantly. Hans Van Doorst spread eloquent hands. "Who can argue with a woman?" he asked. "Especially a Dutch woman?" He rose, went into the room, and closed the door behind him. Ten minutes later, Marta opened the door a crack and peeked in. She entered, and came out with Hans Van Doorst's clothing. "He sleeps," she announced. "Like a man worn out he sleeps." Ramsay changed his wet clothes for some dry ones Pieter had given him and went out to catch Black. From the house's ridge pole, Captain Klaus, Hans Van Doorst's tame sea gull, squawked at him. Ramsay grinned back, walked up to the little horse, rubbed him down, and put him back in the corral. He did the rest of his chores, and when he went into the house for dinner Hans Van Doorst was seated at the table. "I told him!" Marta scolded. "I told him to stay in bed and I would bring him his food. But can I talk reason to a Dutchman?" "Marta," Hans Van Doorst said softly, "there is fishing to be done." Eager interest glowed in Pieter's eyes. "Are you going again, Hans?" "I am a fisherman." "You are crazy," Marta corrected. "One day you will kill yourself on that lake." Again the sadness, the inborn melancholy, sat like a mask on the Dutch fisherman. But only for a moment. "Marta," he said, "fishermen do not die in bed." CHAPTER SIX _NEW VENTURE_ Ramsay stirred sleepily and raised a restless hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun. Almost the whole night through, until the first waking birds had begun to chatter just outside his window, he had lain restlessly awake. Just thinking of Hans Van Doorst, and fishing, had not permitted him to sleep. Now, with the sun high, he was at last deep in slumber. Ramsay could not know that Pieter had arisen shortly after the first birds and had the milking all finished, or that Hans Van Doorst sat in the kitchen, eating the hearty breakfast which Marta had prepared for him. He knew only that he seemed to be hearing strange sounds. There were throaty chucklings and gurglings and low-pitched laughter, and all of it was punctuated by raucous squawks. Troubled, Ramsay rolled over in bed and covered his head with the quilt. Even that did not shut out the sounds, and finally he came fully awake. Sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired, he sat up in bed. For a moment he could not define the sounds, which seemed to originate very near the roof of the house, and he was puzzled. Then he identified the various noises a sea gull makes. Ramsay slipped out of bed, pushed the double windows open, and looked into a calm morning. There was a rustle of wings overhead and a flutter of feathers. Captain Klaus took strong wing to circle the house. He swung back to alight on the window ledge, and tilted his head sidewise while he regarded Ramsay with bright, intelligent eyes. "_Qu-uark!_" he chattered. Ramsay grinned, but when he put out a hand to touch him Captain Klaus again took flight and sailed down to the now-calm lake. He alighted on the shore, folded his wings across his back, and walked down the beach until he found a storm-killed perch. With the fish in his bill, he flew back to the house's ridge-pole to eat his breakfast while he awaited the reappearance of Hans Van Doorst. A little bit embarrassed, Ramsay dressed hurriedly. The working day in this country began with dawn and ended with dark. Everything that needed doing--and there was much to be done--had to be crowded into such daylight as there was, and there was never enough. Hurrying down the steps leading to the kitchen, he saw Hans Van Doorst at the table. Marta greeted him pleasantly, "Good morning." "Good morning," Ramsay replied. "I overslept! I didn't mean to. Why didn't somebody call me?" "Yaah!" Marta laughed. "Pieter said not to. You earned your sleep, Pieter said. Sit down with Hans and have some breakfast." Hans said, "Men who are not hungry are sick. Sit down." Ramsay sat, and felt a free and easy sense of comradeship, as though he and the Dutch fisherman had something in common. They felt alike and thought alike. Hans Van Doorst had thanked Ramsay with his eyes for rescuing him, but not once had he spoken of it and not once had he mentioned the wreck of the _Spray_. The boy was grateful for that; he knew that he would be embarrassed if his part in yesterday's incident were brought into the limelight. Marta busied herself at the big wood-burning stove, and Ramsay speculated on the difficulties involved in just getting such a stove into this country. Marta laughed. "While I make you the breakfast, you listen to the crazy tales the crazy fisherman tells you." Hans turned his twinkling eyes on Ramsay. "Marta is a good girl," he said. "A good Dutch girl. She thinks all men are crazy." "They all are," Marta said. "Especially you. What you need is a good farm and stay away from that wild lake." "Farms and me wouldn't get along, Marta." Hans laughed. "I told you I'm a fisherman." "Yaah? You lost everything with the _Spray_. How are you going to go fishing again?" Hans spread his two powerful hands. "These are what I had when I started. These are what I have now." "You need money, too. Money for nets, money for ..." The door opened and Pieter came in for breakfast. Hanging his light jacket on a wooden peg in the hallway, he took his seat at the table. "Why does Hans need so much money?" he asked. "He says he's going fishing again." Marta sniffed. "I've been telling him that he should get a farm, and we can put him up until he gets one, and ..." "Are you really going fishing?" Pieter broke in. "That I am. I'm a fisherman. Now look, Pieter, you get up at dawn to milk your cows. No? To be sure, you get all the milk you can drink; but if you're lucky, Tradin' Jack Hammersly gives you maybe half of what your butter's worth. All winter long and all summer long you work for those cows. A fisherman, now, he works for four months, just four. . . ." Pieter said, "It sounds good!" "Pieter!" Marta broke in sharply. "You are _not_ going fishing!" Pieter wriggled uncomfortably. "Well," he said, "I can at least listen to what the man says, can't I?" "One haul of the nets," Hans continued, "and maybe one thousand, maybe two thousand pounds of whitefish. Never less than five hundred. For that you get six cents a pound in the Chicago market. You don't earn that on your farm, and besides, fishing is a lot more fun. A smart Dutchman don't have to tend cows." "_Uaah!_" Pieter breathed. "Pieter!" Marta said. Ramsay listened, dazzled by the prospects of a fisherman's life as compared to any future a farmer might have. Determinedly Marta brought a huge dish of wheat cakes and sausage over and thumped it firmly down on the table. "Eat!" she commanded. The three gave all their attention to the food, and they did not speak while eating. Then Hans pushed his chair back. "If I am going to fish again, I must start," he announced. "First I will go down and see if there is any salvage." "We'll help you!" Pieter exclaimed. "My boat was not badly smashed. A little work and it will be good as new." "Pieter!" Marta said. "You are not going fishing!" "Now I ask you," Pieter said plaintively, "is helping a man pick up his own property, his very own property, is that fishing? Could anyone even think it was fishing? No. Come on." The three left the kitchen and walked down to the lake. Calm after the storm that had raged across it, only little waves were washing in. Ramsay looked out at the rock, as though half expecting to see the _Spray_ still there, and saw nothing. Pieter gave a triumphant little exclamation and waded into shallow water to pick up something that bobbed back and forth. It was the carved Valkyrie maiden that had been the _Spray's_ figurehead. Exquisitely and almost perfectly hand-carved, the wooden statue leaned forward, as though she would embrace the whole lake to her bosom. Hans Van Doorst's eyes were soft as he took it from Pieter. "My sweetheart!" he murmured. Captain Klaus winged down from the ridge pole of the house to alight near them. Clucking softly to himself, happy because Hans was once more with him, he followed the three men down the beach. Ramsay found a coil of rope, then another, and farther on was the _Spray's_ torn sail. Ramsay pointed out onto the lake. "About there is where we saw the White Sturgeon," he said. "I know," Hans Van Doorst murmured. "We saw him a half-dozen times." Ramsay looked at him, puzzled. Then, "The sailors told me he always brings bad luck." "The sailors!" Hans scoffed. "They know nothing about anything except maybe how to stuff themselves with good whitefish that the fishermen bring them! The White Sturgeon noses his way to the top when a storm comes, so he is bad luck? Do not believe it! He is good luck! He comes to the top so that he may show fishermen the way back to shore!" Ramsay grinned appreciatively. This, in spite of the fact that the Dutch fisherman's idea of the White Sturgeon bringing good luck was as superstitious as the sailors' notion that he always brought bad, fitted in. It was what Hans should have said. "How big is that sturgeon?" Ramsay asked. "The Grandfather of all lake fish," Hans Van Doorst asserted solemnly. "Have you not noticed that, like all grandfathers, he is white? In truth, I have never seen a bigger fish anywhere." "Another coil of rope!" Pieter said, pouncing on it. Hans, who had grinned happily with each new find, did not even look around. Ramsay looked at him questioningly. Anything but stolid, the Dutch fisherman had been bubbling over at the prospect of going fishing again. Now he seemed melancholy, immersed within himself, and his whole attention was given to the lake. Ramsay followed his gaze, but saw little. True, a vast number of small aquatic worms had been washed ashore by the pounding waves. There must have been countless millions of them, so many that they formed a living carpet as far up the beach as the waves had washed. The wriggling, writhing mass was now disentangling itself, and the worms that could were crawling back into the lake. A number of sea gulls and a number of land birds were gorging themselves, and new birds arrived by the flock. They scarcely made a dent in the multitude of worms. Ramsay looked again at Hans Van Doorst. "Never, never!" the fisherman breathed. Pieter, too, swung to look curiously at him. "What's the matter, Hans?" "I went on the lake when I was a boy of thirteen," Hans Van Doorst said. "That was fourteen years ago, in 1852. I thought I had seen much, but never have I seen this!" "What?" Ramsay asked impatiently. "Look around you," Hans said. "What do you see?" "Worms." "Not worms! Food for whitefish! With these millions washed up, can you not imagine the vast amount remaining in the water? We are all rich men!" "You think so?" Pieter queried. "There is no doubt of it! The whitefish go where their food is! There must be countless tons of whitefish here at your very door step, and here is where we shall fish!" "Do whitefish eat only worms?" Ramsay asked. "No. They feed on other things, too, notably their own spawn or that of other fish. But enough of this idle talk! I must have a net so we can start fishing at once! Pieter, I would borrow your horse and cart!" "The cart you may have," Pieter said. "The horse belongs to Ramsay." "Go ahead and take him," Ramsay urged. Hans tripped like a dancer to the barn, caught the little horse, and backed him between the shafts of Pieter's two-wheeled cart. Bubbling like a boiling kettle, entirely happy, he started at a fast trot up the sand beach to Three Points. With a startled squawk, Captain Klaus hurried to catch up. The tame sea gull settled affectionately on the rim of the cart's seat. As Ramsay watched him go, he felt a vast envy of the light-hearted fisherman. If ever he could go away like that, he thought, he would have lived life at its fullest. Not until he looked around did he discover that Pieter was watching too, and his eyes were wistful. "There is work to be done!" Marta called. They flushed and walked towards the barnyard, where Marta was tending her poultry. Geese, chickens and ducks swarmed around her and pigeons alighted on her shoulders. She kept her eyes on the men. As Ramsay and Pieter cleaned the cowbarn, both remained strangely silent. Both thought of the Dutch fisherman. Then Pieter, who had promised to have a dressed pig ready for Tradin' Jack Hammersly, started honing a razor edge on his butchering tools. Ramsay picked up a hoe, preparatory to returning to the corn-patch. "You think he'll get a net?" Pieter asked. "I hope so!" Moodily, scarcely seeing or knowing what he was doing, Ramsay chopped at weeds that had stolen a home in the growing corn. The work suddenly lacked any flavor whatever. Millions of worms, whitefish food, washed up on the beach and the bay in front of Pieter's swarming with whitefish! That's what the Dutch fisherman had said. Marta brought his mid-morning lunch, and her eyes were troubled. "Do you think Hans will get what he wants?" she asked. "I don't know. Marta, why don't you want Pieter to go fishing?" "You heard what he said. Last night he said it. Fishermen do not die in bed. Those were his words." "Just talk. The lake's safe enough." "Yaah? Is that why Joe Mannis can make more money than anybody else around here, just watchin' bodies? Aah! I worry about my man!" Ramsay said gently, "Don't worry, Marta." Marta returned to the house and Ramsay continued working. In back of the barn Pieter had his butchered pig strung up on a block and tackle, and the two men looked at each other. Both were waiting for Hans Van Doorst to return. About a half-hour before noon Captain Klaus soared back to his accustomed place on the house's ridge pole. A moment later the little black horse appeared on the beach, and Hans drove to the barn. Ramsay and Pieter, meeting him, stifled their astonishment. When Hans left them, to all outward appearances he had been a normal person. Now blood had dried on his nose and his right eye was puffy and streaked with color. Anger seethed within him. "There is no honor any more!" he said bitterly. "And men are not men!" "What happened?" Ramsay inquired. "What happened? I went to Three Points to get us a pound net! Carefully did I explain to that frog-mouthed Fontan, whose wife knits the best pound nets on Lake Michigan, what I wanted. I know pound nets cost five hundred dollars, but I was very careful to prove that we have untold riches just waiting to be caught! As soon as we made some catches, I said, we would pay him his money, plus a bonus for his trouble. Fontan became abusive." "Then what?" Pieter said. "He hit me twice. Because of these thrice-cursed broken ribs I cannot move as swiftly as I should. Then I hit him once, and the last I saw of him he was lying on one of his wife's pound nets. After that came the constable who, as everybody knows, is merely another one of Devil Chad's playthings, and said he would put me in jail. It was necessary to hit the constable, too." Hans Van Doorst leaned against the side of the barn, glumly lost in his own bitter thoughts. Coming from the house to meet Hans and sensing the men's moodiness, Marta fell silent beside her husband. Ramsay unhitched the little black horse, put him back into the corral, and hung the harness on its wooden pegs. After five minutes, Pieter Van Hooven broke the thick silence. "I do not know whether or not it will be any good, perhaps not. But last year a fisherman came here in a very small boat. He was going to Three Points, he said, to get himself a larger boat and he had to make time. I do not know what happened to him, for he never came back and I have not seen him since. Probably Joe Mannis got him. But before he took his leave he asked me to store for him a box of nets and ..." "A box of nets!" Hans Van Doorst's melancholy left him like a wind-blown puff of feathers. He put an almost passionate arm about Pieter's shoulders. "All is lost! All is gone! Then this--this miracle worker! He talks of a box of nets! Tell me, Pieter! Tell me it is still there!" "It must be, for it was never taken away," Pieter said. "Then let us get it! Let us get and look at it before I faint with excitement!" Pieter and Hans disappeared in the barn, and a moment later they reappeared with a long, deep wooden box between them. Having lain in the barn for a year, the box and its contents were thick with dust and spiders had woven their own gossamer nets everywhere. Hans Van Doorst patted the dust away. He looked with ecstatic eyes, and he unfolded a few feet of the net. Ramsay saw that it was similar to the gill net insofar as it had stones--sinkers--on one side and a place for floats on the other. Made of sixteen-thread twine, the net had a three-inch mesh. "A seine," Hans Van Doorst pronounced, "and a well-made seine, though it was not made in Two Rivers. It was brought here by one of the Ohio fishermen, for that is the way they tie their meshes. Let us see some more. I would say that it is about eight hundred feet long. That is not ample; we still need good pound nets, but with it we may again go fishing. Help me, Pieter." Pieter and Hans dragged the box to a small tree, tied one end of the seine to the tree's trunk, and began to unwind the net toward another little tree. Ramsay saw how shrewdly the Dutch fisherman had guessed. The trees, within a few feet one way or the other, were just about eight hundred feet apart and Hans Van Doorst tied the other end of the seine to the far tree. He stood still, a small happy grin lighting his face, and looked at their discovery. Slowly, with Ramsay, Marta and Pieter trailing him, he started to walk the length of the seine as it lay on the ground. He kept his eyes downward, and as he walked along he talked almost to himself. "A good seine, yes, a good seine, but it has received hard use. Here is almost five feet where it scraped among sharp rocks, and the mesh is worn. Under a heavy load of fish, it will break. That hole was made by a sunken log or other object, for you can see that it is a clean tear. This one was made by a huge fish, probably a sturgeon, for just see how the mesh is mangled where he lunged time after time against it. Now this . . ." Slowly, missing no inch of the seine, he traveled the length of it, and as he traveled he marked every hole and weak spot by telling himself about it. Reaching the end, he stood nervously tapping a finger against his forehead. "My hands are more accustomed to pulling seines than mending them," he told the three. "Still, if we are to make the catch we can make, this seine must be mended. I will try to mend it." "I worked on a net in Three Points!" Ramsay said eagerly. "I stayed for a while with Pierre LeDou, and because there was nothing else to kill time, I helped Madame LeDou knit a gill net! This cannot be too different!" "You!" For a moment Ramsay thought Hans was going to kiss him. "So! Everything works our way! Yaah? You fix the seine!" His face fell. "No. We must have new twine. Now where will I get it?" "I have some," Marta spoke up. "Good linen twine, easily a match for anything in this seine." "And you would give it?" Pieter asked incredulously. Marta shrugged. "You're going fishing, anyway, and I'm going with you. Men always want all the fun." The smile Hans turned on her was rare. "A good Dutch girl," he said. "Thank you, Marta." Pieter and Hans cut tripods--three poles strung together at the top to form a standard--and at necessary intervals raised the seine to them so that it was completely off the ground. Like a huge tennis net, broken only by the tripods, it stretched between the two trees. Ramsay stood beside it with a one and one-half inch meshboard--this mesh was three inches--and a ball of the fine linen twine which Marta had given him. He worked as fast as he could, while at the same time he did not sacrifice efficiency. More than ever fishing seemed to be an art within itself, and if the seine were not perfectly made, then it was better left alone. A slipshod or hasty knot could cost them a hundred pounds of fish, or even the seine itself. As Ramsay went along, he judged for himself which parts needed repairing. Any mesh that seemed to be worn must be replaced; a whole school of fish might follow each other through a single hole. For half an hour Hans stood watching him. Then, satisfied that Ramsay knew what he was about, he went off to cut new floats and place them on top of the seine. A dozen times he went down to study the bay, looking carefully and judging for himself the depth at which they would find the largest schools of whitefish. Coming back, he adjusted the stone sinkers accordingly. Absorbed in his work, Ramsay gave no thought to the passage of time until Marta called him for supper. As soon as he had finished eating, he returned to the net. Darkness deepened and still he worked on. "Ach!" Marta said. "You'll kill yourself working! Can you not come in now?" "Just a little while. Bring me a lantern." Ramsay heard Hans Van Doorst murmur, "A fisherman, that one," and a yellow lantern glowed behind him. It was nothing more than a tallow candle set in a glass case but, Ramsay thought, he really didn't need a stronger light. So sensitive had his fingers become to the feel of the net, and so expert was he in knitting new meshes, that, almost, he would have been able to do it with his eyes closed. He worked on while, held alternately by Hans and Pieter, the lantern moved with him. He forgot the ache in his fingers and the weariness in his body. He knew only that the sooner the net was in good working order, the sooner they could go fishing. The pre-dawn birds were again singing when Ramsay finally bumped against something and, so absorbed had he been in his work, it took him a moment to realize that it was the other tree. He held the mesh board in fingers which, strangely and suddenly, seemed to lack all nerve or feeling. He blinked almost stupidly and stepped back. When he spoke, his words sounded almost silly. "Well," he said, "there it is." "There indeed it is!" Hans chuckled. "And there it will be until, as soon as possible, we get it into the water. Come now and sleep, for with the morning's sun I would have you go with me." Ramsay stumbled to his bedroom, took his shoes off, and without removing any of his other clothing, fell across the bed. Instantly he was submerged in exhausted slumber from which he was awakened by a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Come now," a voice said. Ramsay sat up with a start, to see Hans Van Doorst looking down at him. Again with a guilty feeling, he knew that he had slept far beyond the time when any worker in this country should sleep. Hastily he sprang out of bed. "I'll be right with you!" "Compose yourself," said Hans Van Doorst, who had awakened him. "There is no need for any mad rush. I thought you might wish to help me." "Oh, sure!" Ramsay grinned faintly when he discovered that, except for his shoes, he was fully dressed. He put his shoes on and tied them, went outside to wash at the wash stand, and came in to eat the breakfast Marta had ready. Scarcely noticing what he ate, he gulped it down. "Easy," Marta cautioned. "The stomach complaint you will be giving yourself!" "I must hurry! Hans is waiting for me!" "With men it is always hurry, especially when they go to do what they wish to do anyway. Aah! Only a man would give up a good farm to go fishing!" "Pieter has not given up his farm," Ramsay pointed out. "He will," Marta prophesied. "He will, and he will go fishing with you and that crazy Hans." "Oh, Marta, don't be so sad about things! It ..." She was sunny again. "Go along now. Hans is waiting." Hans had Black hitched to the cart and was waiting outside the door. His wings calmly folded, Captain Klaus sat on the back of the seat. Ramsay climbed up, and Hans slapped the reins over the horse's back. They started up the sand beach--there was a corduroy road but the sand was smoother--toward Three Points. Ramsay grinned impishly as they drove through the town, because he felt the questioning glances of the towns people. Devil Chad controlled all this, and Devil Chad had made it very clear that Ramsay was not wanted in Three Points. Maybe Hans wasn't wanted either but, as Pierre LeDou had pointed out, the fishermen and farmers cared little what anyone else thought. Ramsay looked about, hoping to see Devil Chad, but he was nowhere in sight. A little disappointed, he relaxed beside Hans. They drove through the village and up a rutted little road that wound among gloomy hemlocks. Ramsay saw a doe with a fawn at her side, staring at them. As they drew near the doe raised her white tail over her back and disappeared. Hans grinned at her. "They shoot the mammas with the babies," he said, "just like they do the papas with the horns. There is no more right in that than there is in netting a spawning fish." "You mean because the babies will die?" "Yaah. Then, after there aren't any more deer, people just do not understand it. Some awful disease, they say, carried them off. They do not know that their own lack of sense carried them off. It is the same with fish. Those who seine in the spawning season kill maybe two hundred for every one they take. When there are not any more fish, they will invent a terrible disease that carried them off." Ramsay felt a little alarm. "Do you think there won't be any more?" "The whitefish," Hans pronounced, "cannot last in numbers such as you find them in now. That is because so many of them are being caught. For maybe ten thousand years they are filling the lake until now no fish is more numerous. Yaah, for many years they were a food staple of the Indians. I myself have seen Indians spearing them, or shooting them with bows and arrows. Tribes came from as far as the Mississippi River to fish here. But a net fisherman takes more in one season than a whole tribe of Indians used to, and often the fishermen cannot even take care of what they catch. I have seen whitefish, good eating whitefish, stacked like cordwood along the beach and left to rot there. I have seen them fed to pigs. The best fishing along Lake Erie is already gone, due to such excesses. That is why fishermen from Ohio come here." "Will fishing end?" Ramsay inquired. "That I do not think. Considering it from all angles. Now a fisherman will catch perhaps a thousand whitefish, and maybe a hundred sturgeon, for every trout. Why? Because the whitefish and sturgeon eat trout spawn is part of the reason. When the whitefish and sturgeon are gone, the trout will multiply until they are the big catch. If the trout are taken or die out, there will be something else. No. There will always be fishing here, but it will be better when men learn to fish wisely and not to take anything in the spawning season." "When is that?" Ramsay inquired. "Whitefish and trout both spawn in the fall, from the fifteenth of October until the fifteenth of December. The sturgeon, I think they are a river fish and that they go up the rivers to spawn. If ever the rivers are closed, there will be many fewer sturgeon." The gloomy little road swerved back toward the lake. They broke out of the trees, and Ramsay saw the water again. Built into it, at this point, was a rambling wooden pier. There was a house and a fishing shanty. Tied to a stake in a patch of green grass, a sad-eyed brown cow munched placidly on a five-pound whitefish. Tied to the pier, a saucy twenty-six-foot Mackinaw boat, much like the _Spray_, bobbed up and down. Nearer the beach was another boat, evidently a sadly worn one. Nets of various kinds were strung on reels close to the lake. The house's door opened, and a ferocious little black dog snarled toward them. Showing white teeth, foaming at the mouth, he hurled himself straight at the visitors. Hans laughed and swung down from the cart, and as soon as he did the little black dog leaped about him to wag an almost furious welcome. Hans grinned and knelt to tickle the dog's ears. "Like most Frenchmen, you can do nothing unless you do it violently," he soothed. "Where is your master?" The house's door opened and a man, whom at first Ramsay thought was a boy, flung himself out. Barely five feet tall, he was dressed in breeches, leather leggings with colored fringes and a shirt that seemed to sport every color in the rainbow. He threw himself at Hans. "_Mon ami!_" he screamed. "My friend! It has been so long, so very long since you honored us with a visit! Tell me what has kept you away for so very long?" "Baptiste," Hans said, "meet one of my new partners, Ramsay Cartou. Ramsay, Baptiste LeClaire." Baptiste wrung Ramsay's arm as though it were a pump handle and in spite of his small size, he was very strong. He looked frankly at the boy. "You have," he asked, "bought an interest in the _Spray_?" "The _Spray_ is no more," Hans informed him. "She went back to the lake." "Oh." For a moment Baptiste was very sober. Then both men laughed, as though they shared some huge secret which nobody else could ever understand. Baptiste exploded. "What is it you need, my friend? My boats, my nets, my pier, my life? Name it and it is yours!" "No," Hans said. "What we need is barrels. Good oaken barrels with pliant black ash hoops. We also need salt. We have a net and we have a boat." "That is all you need?" Baptiste seemed disappointed. "That is all." Baptiste turned and in rapid-fire French directed orders at three men who were lingering near. At once they began to take barrels built to hold two hundred pounds of fish from a huge pile near the fishing shanty and to stack them on Baptiste's boat. Ramsay read her name, _Bon Homme_. Baptiste LeClaire turned to his visitors. "Now that you are here," he said, "share the hospitality of my poor home." "With pleasure," Hans agreed. They went into the house to meet Baptiste's wife, a sparkling little black-eyed French woman. Producing the inevitable jug, Baptiste filled three gourds with fiery whisky. Hans and Baptiste drained theirs with one gulp. Ramsay nursed his, both men laughed at him. But the boy could partake of the delicious fish stew which Baptiste's wife prepared. A half-hour after Ramsay and Hans returned to the Van Hooven farm, a white sail bloomed out in the bay. She was the _Bon Homme_, loaded halfway up the mast with barrels and salt. Hans Van Doorst rubbed his hands in undisguised glee. "Now," he chuckled, "we go fishing!" CHAPTER SEVEN _PARTNERS_ Ramsay was puzzled. Hans Van Doorst had arisen even before the first faint streaks of dawn cracked the night sky and without waiting for anyone else to get up, or for breakfast, he had gone out to work. He was not fishing, for he had assured Ramsay that there would be no fishing until all could take part. Furthermore, Hans had said, the fishing would need all of them. One man alone could not take enough fish to make it worthwhile. Still, Hans had gone out before it was properly light enough to see. Ramsay had heard Captain Klaus greet his master from the top of the house. What anyone would be doing out of bed at such an early hour remained a mystery. In the dim morning light, descending the steps to the kitchen, Ramsay continued to wonder why Hans had gone out when he did. He greeted the Van Hoovens, who were already washed up for breakfast, and Marta went to the back door to call, "Hans!" Captain Klaus' hoarse squawk broke the morning stillness, and a second later there was an answering call from Hans. He was down at the beach, doing something there, and presently he came in. Ramsay grinned appreciatively at his appearance, for the Dutch fisherman's cheeks glowed like the rising sun. His eyes sparkled, and a perpetual chuckle seemed to gurgle in his throat. Plainly Hans had been doing some invigorating work, but it was work in which he took a vast pleasure. Anything onerous could not possibly put such a shine upon anyone at all. Hans washed at the basin outside the door. "Ah!" he breathed as he sat down to the huge breakfast Marta had readied. "This looks good!" "I should think a stale crust would look good to anyone who puts in a half-day's work before anyone else stirs," Marta said. "It would!" Hans agreed, helping himself to half a dozen eggs and an equal number of bacon slices. "It would, and many a time I have dined on only a crust! But fare such as this! Fit for the angels! I'm the luckiest fisherman alive, I think!" "Also the most oily-tongued," Marta added. Nonetheless she was pleased. "I suppose, when we are all wealthy from fishing, you will hire a cook for me?" "Not I!" Hans said. "Never I! Hiring anyone but you to do our cooking would be as out of place as hiring Joe Mannis instead of a preacher to do our praying! No, Marta! Not elsewhere in Wisconsin is there one who equals your skill with cookery!" Pieter, who often tried to beguile his wife but seldom succeeded, laughed. Marta blushed. While Hans devoured what he had already taken, then served himself to three more eggs, Ramsay ate almost feverishly. Today was the big day, the time all of them had been waiting for, because today they went fishing. Ramsay finished and waited with ill-concealed impatience while Pieter and Hans mopped their plates with crusts of bread. All three went outside. Squawking and chuckling, as though at some huge joke, Captain Klaus winged down from the rooftop to alight on his master's shoulder. He tilted, flapping his wings to balance himself, and caressed Hans' cheek with his hard, cold bill, even while he kept up a running fire of sea gull chatter. Hans reached up to stroke his pet. Ramsay looked down at the beach, and saw two structures which had not been there yesterday. Hans must have built them this morning. They were windlasses, made of peeled logs, and about eight hundred feet apart. One was the conventional windlass--a drum mounted on two uprights and with a crank that could be turned by hand. The spindle of the other--all these lake men could work miracles with logs or anything else at their command--was set vertically in a stone and log foundation and it had a long, stout shaft protruding from its center. Ramsay looked questioningly at Hans. The Dutch fisherman shrugged. "It is simple," he explained. "We have but one horse. Therefore, we men work the one while the horse turns the other. Marta can lead it." Ramsay was incredulous. "You mean we'll take so many fish that a horse will be needed to drag them in?" Hans' throaty chuckle sounded. "If we do not," he said, "from now on forever you may say that Hans Van Doorst is not a fisherman. Say that he is just a little boy who plays at fishing." With a fisherman's skill, Hans was coiling a rope. He settled it carefully in the bottom of the boat, so that it wouldn't kink or snarl when paid out, and was alert to avoid stepping on or tangling it in anyway. Folded exactly as Hans wanted it, with all the floats on one side and all the sinkers on the other, the net was overhauled on the stern of the boat. Another coil of rope lay on the net, and Hans tied one end of that to the spindle of the horse-powered windlass. Then he looked happily at Pieter and Ramsay. "Now," he said, "I need an oarsman." "I'll row!" Ramsay offered eagerly. "Go ahead." Pieter grinned. So expertly that he scarcely ruffled the water and did not even disturb his net or rope, Hans launched the boat. He waded in up to his knees, paying out more rope as he did so, and held the boat steady until Ramsay waded out beside him and climbed into the rower's seat. Ramsay tried to board cautiously, skilfully, as he had seen Hans do. Obviously a great deal of careful work had gone into folding the net and coiling the rope. Everything had to be done exactly right, and one clumsy or ill-timed move could make a hopeless snarl out of all. Still, Hans seemed confident and sure of himself. Probably, Ramsay thought, he had done this so many times that doing it was almost second nature. The boy looked expectantly at Hans. "Straight into the lake," the Dutch fisherman directed. "Keep a straight right-angle course to the windlass; you can do that by sighting yourself from it. Row as swiftly as you wish." With strong, surging strokes of the oars, Ramsay sent the ponderous boat out into the quiet lake. He watched Hans carefully, trying to note everything he did, and his respect for fishermen grew. The Dutchman sat almost carelessly in the stern, to all outward appearances not even interested in what he was doing. But, as they continued out into the lake, the rope continued to slip smoothly over the stern. There was never a tangle or even a kink. It looked easy, but net-weaving had looked easy too before Ramsay tried it. Beyond any doubt, it took skill and long familiarity with the job to handle six or eight hundred feet of rope in such a fashion and do it perfectly. They came near the end of the rope and Ramsay slowed his strokes a little. The laughing Dutch fisherman turned to him. "Sharp left," he directed. "Stay about this far out in the lake and row a bit more slowly. Now we set the seine." Ramsay followed instructions, watching the beach line to make sure that he stayed the proper distance out, and Hans began sliding the seine over the stern. He did it smoothly, gracefully, as he did everything connected with fishing. Ramsay nodded approvingly to see how well Hans laid his net and how expertly he had guaged the place in which it was to be laid. Instead of curling toward the beach, the seine, obviously controlled by a current that swept into the lake, billowed outward. "Does the lake have different currents?" Ramsay asked interestedly. "That it does. When the wind blows toward shore, of course waves wash up on the shore. But the lake, she moves in a thousand different ways, and the currents that appear on the surface are not always like those that surge beneath the surface. Ah, yes! Many moods has Lake Michigan and," Hans grinned, "not many of them are placid moods." "How could you tell that a current to hold the seine was right here?" "I felt it when I had hold of your horse's tail." Ramsay pondered that information. The current holding the net certainly was not perceptible from the surface. It would not be evident at all, except to one who had a thorough understanding of such things and was able to sense the most minute change in the water that lay about him. Of course, the stones, the sinkers, probably helped hold the seine in place too. Foot by foot, the seine slipped into the lake and a long line of it stretched at an angle toward the boat. Ramsay tried to judge for himself how far the net was going down. He could not because he had had too little experience in fishing, but he was sure the seine rested exactly where Hans wanted it to rest. Without seeming to move, Hans leaned over to pick up the other coil of rope. Smoothly he tied it, and the last few feet of seine slid over the boat's stern to disappear in the lake. Ramsay waited expectantly for directions. They came. "Straight as you can towards the other windlass," Hans said. "Then we are all ready." Again Ramsay turned at a right angle toward the other windlass. Now he began to understand the setting of a seine. There were the two windlasses, the two six-hundred-foot ropes and the seine running parallel to the beach. Now, Ramsay supposed, they would beach the boat, tie this rope to the other windlass, and be ready to haul in the seine. If they did not make a good catch, they could lengthen the ropes and put the seine farther out in the lake. Also, by adding more sinkers or subtracting some, they could raise or lower the seine. Ramsay tried to make some observations about the water in which they were fishing. It was comparatively shallow, though at all places except very near the shore it would float a fair-sized ship. Also, it seemed to have a rather smooth bottom. In addition, though the bay could at times be angry, it was more sheltered than some places. Storms here probably would at no time reach the heights of fury that they reached on the open lake. Because he was anxious to learn as much as he could about fishing, Ramsay asked some questions. "Are whitefish usually found in shallow water?" "Almost always," Hans said. "Though they need not necessarily always be found close to shore. I myself know of reefs where we will be sure of wonderful catches as soon as we get some pound nets, and some of them are a mile or more out." "Then the lake bottom varies?" "Oh, yes! To get an idea of what the bottom of the lake is like, take a look at the land about you. Here you find a hill, or a succession of rolling hills. Here is a stretch of flat prairie. There are deep gulches and bluffs. You will find clay, sand, loam, small stones, boulders. As I've already said, the lake's bottom is almost exactly like the land about it." "What's the deepest part?" "Baptiste LeClaire and I once sounded a place off the Wisconsin peninsula. We touched bottom with a thousand feet of line, and I think that may be the deepest place in Lake Michigan, though I cannot be sure. I have not sounded every place in the lake and, for that matter, neither has anyone else." "Are there deep-water fish?" "The trout ordinarily seeks deep water, though they may be found in shallows in the spring. However, there are not enough trout to be worth a fisherman's while. Some day this may change." "Is there any way to set a net so a fisherman may be sure of a good catch?" "Not once in ten times, if he is just beginning, can a fisherman be certain of a good catch, or of any catch. The tenth time is the exception. I am sure, for instance, that there must be a vast number of whitefish in this bay, because the food for them is here. Otherwise, the fisherman must be taught by experience, or by another fisherman, where to set his nets so that he will make a good catch. Watch it now. We are about to land." The nose of the little boat bumped gently against the sand beach, and Hans stepped out into knee-deep water. Paying no attention to his soaking-wet shoes and trousers, he uncoiled the rope as he walked up the beach and tied it through a hole which he had drilled in the spindle of the hand windlass. More gingerly, not afraid of getting wet but not anxious to do so, Ramsay stepped to the nose of the boat and leaped onto the dry beach. Pieter and Marta joined them, and all turned puzzled glances on Hans; they knew almost nothing about the technique of fishing and must look to him. Ramsay watched the fisherman test the taut rope with his hand, and a little smile of satisfaction flitted across his face. Excited himself, Hans looked at the even more excited people about him. "Relax." He grinned. "The seine is not going anywhere, and we will soon see what we have caught. Ramsay, do you want to harness the horse and bring him down?" "Sure." Ramsay trotted to the barn, anxious to be doing anything that would help relieve the seething tension within him. Everything he had done this morning--indeed, everything he had done since meeting Hans Van Doorst--had been fascination itself. Now, if Hans' predictions were right, and the Dutch fisherman seemed so absolutely sure of himself, they would soon be in the fishing business. Ramsay laid a friendly hand on Black's mane, and the little horse followed willingly into the barn. He stood quietly to be harnessed. Ramsay fastened a singletree to the harness tugs and hooked a strong chain onto it. Partaking of the humans' excitement, Captain Klaus winged low over the beach, crying and squawking as he wheeled and dipped in graceful circles. Ramsay grinned at him. Of all the pets a fisherman might have, surely a sea gull was the most fitting. Ramsay led Black toward the far windlass, the one the horse was to work, because Hans, Pieter and Marta had gathered about it. Captain Klaus came out of the sky to alight on top of the windlass, and the horse scraped a restless front hoof across the sand beach. Ramsay looked inquiringly at Hans, who frowned and stepped back, then turned to the boy. "We need a longer chain," he decided. "Will you get one?" "Sure." Ramsay ran back to the barn and returned with the longest chain Pieter had. Hans hooked it to the windlass shaft, laid it out flat, and then connected it to the chain Ramsay had already brought. The boy nodded understandingly. The rope dipped into the lake, then rose to the windlass spindle. The chain had to be long enough so that the horse, in walking around and around, could step over the rope. Hans turned to Marta. "When I give the word," he said, "lead the horse in a circle around the windlass. Lead him slowly; we do not want the seine to come in too fast. Try to maintain a steady pace, and we will do our best to suit ours to yours. Both ends of the seine must come in evenly." "Yaah!" In spite of her dire forebodings about fishermen, Marta's eyes were shining like stars. "Yaah! I can do it." "Good," Hans said gently. "I know you can. Ramsay, you and Pieter come with me." The three men took their places by the other windlass, and Ramsay tried to suppress a growing excitement. He waited tensely, both hands on the crank; Pieter was on the other side of the windlass. Looking once more at the taut rope stretching into the lake, Hans Van Doorst raised his voice, "All right, Marta!" Grasping the cheek strap of the little horse's bridle, Marta began to lead him slowly around and around. Tense, sweating a little, Ramsay took a fierce grip on the windlass crank and looked at Hans. The Dutch fisherman, his eyes on Marta, timed the turning of the windlass. "Now!" he said. Ramsay strained with every muscle and nerve, and great beads of sweat dripped from his forehead. Hans had built well and with a full appreciation of leverage and tension; nevertheless, the windlass was hard to turn. The seine itself would be responsible for part of that. Dry, one man could carry it. But when lake water penetrated every one of its hundreds of meshes, the seine would surely weigh much more. However, no net of any description could within itself weigh this much. Hans must have guessed correctly. There were endless fish in the bay and the incoming seine must be loaded with them. "Faster!" Hans exclaimed. Ramsay gritted his teeth and turned the windlass faster. He shot a fleeting glance at Marta, who was still leading the horse slowly. Even so, Black was going too fast. The combined strength of three men was no match for the strength of a horse. Hans' bellow split the air, "Marta, stop!" Marta halted the little horse and Ramsay leaned his weight against the windlass' crank so that they would not lose what they had already gained. He gulped in great, refreshing breaths. Hans asked, "Can you hold it?" Ramsay and Pieter nodded, and Hans walked down to talk with Marta. She must lead the horse even more slowly, for the men could not keep up with him. If both ends of the seine were not pulled in evenly, if the net was tilted or bent, the catch could well be lost. Ramsay straightened as Hans came back to take hold of the crank. "All right," he said. Ramsay turned, setting his shoulder to the windlass while his breath came in excited little gasps. The rope, tight as a stretched wire, sloped into the lake. Though it was stoutly built of heavy logs, the windlass trembled on its frame. The crank became harder to turn and the wet rope wrapped like a clinging hair about the spindle. Ramsay gasped. Out in the lake, just beyond the shallow water at the edge of the beach, the seine's floats showed. The seine itself was bent like a bow, its two ends straining toward the windlasses while the center arched into the lake. The gleam of silver in the seine seemed to cast a soft radiance over the lake and the beach, and even a powerful current could not have bowed the seine in such a fashion. Ramsay set his shoulder to the windlass and helped give it two more turns. Down at the other windlass, Marta was watching them. She, too, had learned. The men could not keep up with the horse, so she was adjusting the horse's speed to them. Farther up the seine came, so that some of the sinkers were dragging in the shallows. The floats were bowed over, forming a sort of half-sack, and the center of the seine still arched back into deep water. Ramsay saw a tight little grin appear on Hans Van Doorst's face. Pieter was looking incredulously at the loaded net. "A little more!" Hans pleaded. "Just a little more! Get the center up!" They took two more turns, brought the center of the seine into shallow water, and Hans latched the windlass. With a wild whoop, the Dutch fisherman raced down to the lake and stooped to grasp a hundred-and-fifty-pound sturgeon caught in the net. Hans dragged it up onto the beach, left it there, and returned to get a bigger one. "Nets unload!" he sang out. Ramsay ran forward, heedless of water that surged about his knees. He stumbled, fell headlong, and arose sputtering. But, now that he was soaking-wet anyway, it no longer made any difference. He grabbed a six-pound whitefish in each hand and threw the pair far up the beach. He grinned as he watched Pieter drag another big sturgeon out of the seine, and grabbed two more whitefish. "Yaah! For once men work with a real will!" Ramsay turned around to see Marta, her spray-wet hair plastered close to her head. Her feet were spread almost defiantly apart, and the smile on her lips and the laugh in her eyes were proof of the fact that she was now whole-heartedly with them. Fishermen risked a lot. But who didn't risk when they played for big stakes? Lake Michigan was there, until now an almost untapped source of wealth; and if nobody dared to get this hoard, it would remain forever in the lake. Somebody had to try. In that moment, as never before, Ramsay knew that they were in the fishing business. Only vaguely was he aware of Pieter and Hans working beside him, and he did not know how long it took to get all the fish out of the seine. He knew only that suddenly the net sagged emptily. He took two small whitefish out of it, threw them back into the lake, and watched them swim away; then he looked at Hans Van Doorst. "Let us bring the net up to dry," Hans said. They reeled in the windlasses and stretched the soaking seine between them. Ramsay turned for a look at the beach, and he could not see it because the sand was covered with fish. Hans had been right. The bay in front of the Van Hooven home was a very paradise for fish. Countless sturgeon and whitefish lay on the beach. Ramsay heard Hans say, "Now we go to work." Hans hitched the little horse, brought the cart down to the beach, and began throwing whitefish into it. The bigger, heavier sturgeon, of course, Hans had to lift into the wagon box. When they had a load, he drove to the stacked barrels left by Baptiste LeClaire. Ramsay watched interestedly. A little trickle of water wound into the lake at this point, and Hans had dammed it in such a fashion that a miniature cataract fell over the stones and mud which he had placed in the water course. Beside this were a big, flat wooden dish, evidently also made by Hans, and several sacks of salt. The Dutchman produced three razor-sharp fish knives, more salvage from the _Spray_, and turned to Pieter. "Do you want to bring the rest of the fish up?" "Yaah. I'll do that." Hans caught up a six-pound whitefish and, seeming to use his knife very little, he cut its head off. Leaving the fish unscaled, he sliced it down the backbone to the end of the tail and spilled the viscera out. He washed his fish in the dam's tiny spillway and, filling the wooden dish with salt, he rolled the split whitefish in dry salt. Then he placed it carefully in a two-hundred-pound barrel. Ramsay caught up a fish and a knife and tried to imitate exactly Hans' procedure. But, though he thought he was doing everything precisely as the Dutchman had done it, he was much slower. Hans had two more fish ready and in the barrel before Ramsay was finished with one. Grimly Ramsay worked on. If this was a part of fishing, it was a part he must and would learn. He picked up another fish and, as he worked, he gained skill. As soon as one barrel was filled, Hans threw a couple of hands full of salt on top, fitted a head to it and clamped it down with a black ash hoop. Again Ramsay nodded understandingly. He had supposed that a brine solution in which to pack the fish must be prepared, but evidently none was necessary. Enough water remained on the fish to form their own brine. Packed in such a fashion, they would keep for many months. Pieter brought another load of fish and another, and then set to work with a fish knife to help clean the catch and pack it. The big sturgeon, of course, had to be cut into suitable strips and salted before they were packed. Some of them were filled with roe--caviar--and Pieter carted pails full of that to feed Marta's poultry. The remainder of the waste was loaded into the cart and hauled far away from the scene of the packing. Then Hans scrubbed everything carefully. Fishermen who packed food for human consumption must be very clean. The sun was down and the moon up before they finished, but when they were done they had packed seven barrels--fourteen hundred pounds--of whitefish and three barrels of sturgeon. It was a rich haul. Though they had worked for almost seventeen hours, each of them had earned more money than the average worker in Devil Chad's tannery received in a full month. Ramsay sighed as he cleaned and honed his fish knife, and Hans said, "The moon is bright and right for working, and we need a pier." "A pier?" "Yaah. Else how will a boat put in to pick our catch up? I work for an hour or so." Ramsay, thinking of his comfortable bed, stumbled down to the lake to help Hans put in an hour or two on the pier. CHAPTER EIGHT _ACTION_ Restlessly Ramsay picked up a big whitefish and cleaned it. Salting it, he threw the fish into a barrel and picked up another. A freckle-faced urchin about ten years old stood near, watching him. The youngster was Johnny O'Toole, son of Shamus O'Toole. In the summer Shamus did odd jobs. In winter, when boats could not run, he drove one of the sleds that carried leather from Three Points to Milwaukee and cattle hides from Milwaukee to Three Points. "You goin' to fix a sturgeon?" Johnny demanded. "Sure," Ramsay said absently. "Pretty soon." Ramsay's eyes kept straying out on the lake, past the solid wooden pier which Hans, Pieter and Ramsay, had erected. The past days, it seemed, had been nothing but work. Up with the dawn and out to make another catch of fish. Pack the catch, and spend any time that remained working on the pier. Weeds were sprouting as high as the corn, oats were heading untended and unheeded on their stalks, and the farm was getting only the skimpiest attention. All this because they had decided to gamble on fishing. When the _Jackson_, summoned by Hans, had nosed into their pier, she had taken on board a hundred and twenty barrels--twenty-four thousand pounds of whitefish--and forty thousand pounds of sturgeon. The whitefish, Hans had assured them, would bring not less than five cents a pound in the Chicago market and the sturgeon were worth three cents a pound. When they had their money they would be able to buy a pound net, a pound boat, more salt and barrels, and be ready for fishing on a really big scale. Ramsay's eyes kept darting toward the lake. The _Jackson's_ skipper had said that, depending on how much cargo he had to take on in Chicago and the number of stops between Chicago and Three Points, the ship would be back Tuesday or Wednesday. This was Tuesday, and Ramsay could not control his impatience. "Fix a sturgeon," Johnny pleaded. "Fix a sturgeon now." "I ... All right, Johnny." Ramsay began to dismember a hundred-pound sturgeon, and Johnny O'Toole's eyes danced. He stood anxiously near, trying to remember his manners, but his impatience triumphed. "Gimme his nose, will ya? Can I have his nose?" "Sure, Johnny." Ramsay, who had learned a lot about dressing fish since his first halting attempts, sliced the sturgeon's nose off with one clean stroke of his knife. The nose was round as a ball, and as rubbery, and every one of the numberless freckles on Johnny O'Toole's face danced with delight when Ramsay tossed it to him. Immediately, Johnny began bouncing the sturgeon's nose up and down on the hard-packed ground. He had only to drop it, and the nose bounded higher than his head. This was the rubber ball, and sometimes the only plaything, of children who lived among the commercial fishermen of Lake Michigan. Johnny began throwing the nose against a tree, catching it in his hand as it rebounded to him. Ramsay--Hans and Pieter were down at the lake, strengthening the pier--picked up another sturgeon and filled a barrel. He sprinkled the usual two handfuls of salt on top of the filled barrel, fitted a head to it, and bound it tightly with a black ash hoop. Ramsay looked at the two sturgeon remaining from this morning's catch, and decided that they would just about fill a barrel. He rolled one of their dwindling supply over. "Can I have their noses, too?" Johnny begged. "Can I? Huh?" "Sure, Johnny." "Gee! Thanks!" Johnny O'Toole began to play with his four sturgeon noses, sometimes bouncing all of them at once and sometimes juggling them. Ramsay continued to steal glances at the lake. If everything worked out the way Hans said it would, they would have ... Ramsay dared not think of it, but, even after they paid the skipper of the _Jackson_ for hauling their catch to Chicago, there would be a great deal. "I'd better be goin'," Johnny O'Toole said. "My Pa, he whales me if I stay out after dark. Thanks for the sturgeon noses. I can trade two of 'em to my brother for a knife he's got." "You're welcome, Johnny. Come back when we have some more sturgeon." "I'll do that!" Bouncing one of the sturgeon noses ahead of him, Johnny O'Toole started up the beach toward Three Points. Ramsay watched him go, then cleaned the last of the sturgeon, put them in a barrel and sealed it. As the evening shadows lengthened, he looked again at the bay. The _Jackson_ still had not put in, and he gave up. The ship would not be here until tomorrow. He left the barrels where they were and went toward the house. Tradin' Jack Hammersly's four-wheeled cart was again in the yard, its curtains rolled up to reveal the trader's tempting array of wares. His gray horse was in the corral with the little black, and Tradin' Jack Hammersly's stovepipe hat was decorously placed on the bench outside the door. Ramsay grinned faintly as he washed up. The Trader was an eccentric character, and Ramsay suspected that his eccentricities were planned; they made good advertising. But he was likeable, and now they would get more news. Ramsay went into the house. "Hi, Ramsay," Tradin' Jack greeted him. "How about a pretty ribbon for that girl of yours?" "I still haven't any girl." "Slow," Tradin' Jack asserted. "So much time you have spent around here an' still no girl. Too slow." "I'll get one," Ramsay promised, "but I've been too busy fishing to look the field over." Tradin' Jack nodded sadly. "Yes. I heard it. That's what I did, heard it. So you go fishin'. So what happens? Can a trader trade fish? No. He can't. Fish you sell in Chicago. Fishermen are the ruination of traders." "Not everybody will go fishing," Pieter pointed out. "Enough will stay at farming to keep you supplied. Besides, with all the money the fishermen are going to earn, they can buy a lot more of your goods." "That's so," Tradin' Jack agreed. "That's so, too, but a man's got to take everything into account. If he wants to stay in business, he has to. Got any eggs for me, Marta?" "Yaah! Crate after crate." "I'll take 'em. Take 'em all. Fourteen cents a dozen. Fourteen and a half if you'll take it in trade." His mind on the _Jackson_, which even now should be churning its way toward them, Ramsay only half-listened as Tradin' Jack rattled on about the various events which, combined, went to make up life on the west shore of Lake Michigan. Remembering little of what he had heard, Ramsay went upstairs to bed. Snuggling down into the soft, feather-filled mattress, he tried to stay awake and could not. The work was always too hard and the days too long to forego even one minute's slumber. * * * * * The sun was only half-awake when Ramsay got up, breakfasted and went back to the place where they cleaned their fish. Everything that could be was packed and the grounds were clean, but yesterday they had ripped a ragged gash in the seine and now that needed repair. Ramsay, assisted by Hans, set to work with a ball of linen twine. He lost himself in what he was doing. The important thing, if they wanted fish, was to get the net into the water and use it. Even one half-hour must not be wasted. Ramsay was jerked out of his absorption in the net by two shrill blasts. He sat up, and sprang to his feet as the blasts were repeated. Looking in the direction of the pier, he saw the _Jackson_, her wheel churning up a path of foam, nosing toward the mooring place. Pieter appeared, and Marta. All four raced to the pier, and they reached it before the approaching steamer did. Ramsay and Hans secured mooring lines which a deck hand threw to them, and Captain Williamson of the _Jackson_ came down a short ladder. He was a bustling little man who wore a blue-and-gold uniform which, Ramsay thought, would have graced an admiral in any navy. But he was efficient and he knew the lake. For eleven years he had been running the _Jackson_ between Three Points and Chicago without getting her into or even near trouble. Captain Williamson took a white sheet and a wallet from an inner pocket, and he read from the sheet, "Twenty-four thousand pounds of whitefish you gave me. It brought five cents a pound, or twelve hundred dollars, less a cent a pound for the hauling. Here you are, nine hundred and twenty dollars." From the wallet he extracted a sheaf of bills and handed them to Hans. Ramsay looked questioningly at him. "The sturgeon?" he asked. "Ha!" Captain Williamson snorted. "There's enough sturgeon layin' on the Chicago pier to run the whole city for the next six weeks. Nobody's buying it but, since I hauled, I have to be paid. See you later, gentlemen." Captain Williamson scrambled back up his ladder, which was hauled in after him. Snorting like an overworked draft horse, the _Jackson_ backed away from her mooring, made a wide circle into the lake, and puffed on toward Three Points. Ramsay looked incredulously at the money in Hans' fist, slow to realize that, even if they split it among the four of them, it would be more than half a year's wages for each and they had earned it in less than two weeks. Then he looked at Marta's face and burst out laughing. From the first, Marta had been with them only half-heartedly and only because Pieter could not be swayed from fishing. Now, seeing enough money to buy a farm, and with tangible evidence that fishing paid well, she had swung completely to their side. Pieter and Hans joined in Ramsay's laughter while Marta looked puzzled. She was, as Hans had declared, a good Dutch girl. Definitely she was not avaricious, but no good Dutch girl could fail to be impressed by the sight of so much money. Hans clasped the bills firmly and looked at his partners. "What do you say?" he asked. "What do you mean?" Ramsay inquired. "Pound nets we need, pound boats. Men to help us set them. More salt and more barrels. We owe Baptiste. Or shall we divide what we have and keep on fishing with the seine?" "Will it take so much to buy those things of which you speak?" Marta inquired. "This and more, if we really want to take fish." "Then let's do it!" Marta declared. "Pieter?" Hans inquired. "Fishing beats farming." "Ramsay?" "I came here to fish." "Come with me." Hans hitched the little black horse, and Ramsay climbed up on the cart beside him. Captain Klaus, hurrying frantically from his perch atop the house, alighted on the cart and caressed Hans with his bill. The Dutch fisherman whistled happily as he drove along, and Ramsay grinned. This was the way to get things done; work every second of every day to catch fish and then, without even thinking twice about it, invest everything they had earned in more equipment so they could catch even more fish. Captain Klaus winged off the cart to go and see what some of his wild relatives along the lake shore were doing. Ramsay turned to Hans, "How big is this pound net?" "Ha! You have never seen one?" "Never." "Soon you will. Very soon you will. There are a lot of pieces in each net and, all together, they weigh about six hundred and fifty pounds. It will cost, I think, about thirty cents a pound, or perhaps two hundred dollars for each net. Then we shall need at least one pound boat, and that will cost an additional two hundred dollars. We shall need more rope, perhaps two hundred and fifty pounds, at a cost of about nine cents a pound. Then we shall have to hire men to help us drive spiles for the net. We need more barrels, more salt. The money we have here will provide us with no more than one net." "How many should we have?" "I think that you, I and Pieter could handle three on part time. We could very well use seven or eight if we gave full time to pound nets. However, as soon as we get three in working order--and meanwhile we will continue to seine--we will build a good Mackinaw boat, like the _Spray_, and use gill nets, too." Ramsay whistled. "We're really getting in deep!" "Ah, yes!" Hans said gleefully. "But the fishing, it is a business! It is the only business for a man!" Ramsay pondered thoughtfully. Devil Chad, who lately had seemed remote, was now near and his presence could be felt. Probably, to anyone who knew Devil Chad, it would be impossible to go into Three Points without sensing his nearness. If Devil Chad had set out to control everything, then why hadn't he made an attempt to control fishing? Certainly it was profitable. Ramsay dismissed the thought. Maybe Devil Chad had his hands full and lacked the time to intrude on the fisheries. It still seemed strange that he would lack time to intrude on anything that offered an honest, or even a dishonest, dollar. Captain Klaus came winging back to the cart and perched on the Dutchman's shoulder. Hans turned the little horse down a dim road, one Ramsay had not yet noticed, on the edge of Three Points, and they came out on the borders of a river that emptied into the lake. There was a large shed with a chimney that leaned at a crazy angle and belched a thin trickle of smoke. Hans halted the little horse, who immediately lowered his head to nibble at one of the few patches of green grass growing on this sand beach. Ramsay turned his head to look at the place. Lumber of various sizes and cuts was stacked all about it, and there was a pile of uncut logs left to season. Ramsay saw the gleam of a saw and caught the scent of a wood-fired boiler. Now the saw's shrill roar was stilled and the boiler's fires were banked. Ramsay looked at the dozen boats that were drawn up on the river bank. They were sturdy, fourteen to sixteen feet long, and propelled wholly by oars. At the back of each was sort of a small winch. There were broad seats and long oars. Ramsay turned to face the man who emerged from the shed. He was tall, blond and so big that he was almost fat. But his quick eyes were not those of a dull-witted fat man, and his big hands tapered into slim, expressive, artist's fingers. A ready smile seemed engraved on his thick lips, and his blue eyes lighted readily. "Hans!" he exclaimed. "Hello, Tom," Hans said. "What the dickens! I thought you'd gone off some place!" Hans laughed. "Not me! I wish you to meet one of my new partners, Ramsay Cartou. Ramsay, Tom Nedley. He is an artist with the wood and could make fine violins, but he prefers to pass his time on this river bank, making pound boats for indigent fishermen." "Glad to know you." Tom wrung Ramsay's hand. "What are you up to?" "We have come," Hans announced, "to get a pound boat." "Sure. Take your pick." "We," Hans said grandly, "have the money to pay for it." "Gosh! I heard you lost the _Spray_?" "That we did," Hans conceded, "and three good men with it. But we shall build another boat as good. Can you, by the way, supply me with a good oaken keel and cedar planking?" "Sure. I'll even show you where there's some big cedar stumps that'll do for the ribbing." "I already know," Hans said. "What we wish to have you do now is deliver a good pound boat to Pieter Van Hooven's place. Two hundred dollars?" "Yup. But if you haven't the money ..." "We have it," Hans assured him. He counted out some money and pressed it into Tom Nedley's hands. The big boatmaker looked both embarrassed and pleased. "Gosh! Thanks! Got your spiles driven?" "Nope." "For that you need two boats." "Of that I am aware. But we do not have money to buy two." "I'll get my brother, my cousin and their sons," Tom Nedley offered. "Be down in the mornin'." "For that we will pay you." "Aw, Hans ..." "Take it." Hans grinned. "We are certain to get rich fishing but, if we don't, you will have something." "Aw shucks ..." "Take it!" "We'll be there." "Thanks," Hans said. Mounting the cart, he turned the horse around and at a smart trot drove up into the village. Ramsay sat proudly erect, feeling strength like that of a young bull arise within him. This was the village from which he had been driven in disgrace by Devil Chad, but it was a village he dared return to. Any time he felt like it he would return to Three Points, and let Devil Chad meet him if he dared. Hans stopped the horse in front of a cottage which might have been an exact duplicate of the one occupied by Pierre and Madame LeDou. Letting the horse stand, Hans leaped from the cart and faced Ramsay. "This," he announced loudly, "is the home of Frog-Mouth Fontan, whose good wife is about to sell us a pound net. Frog-Mouth, by the way, is one of Devil Chad's closest friends." As though summoned by the voice, one of the very few tall Frenchmen Ramsay had ever seen appeared at the door. His mouth, the boy noticed, was oddly like that of a frog. As soon as he recognized his visitor, he emitted an enraged bellow and charged. Hans grinned, stepped aside, and swung. But Frog-Mouth Fontan was an expert fighter, too. He dodged, pivoted and dealt two swift blows that set Hans' head to rocking. Then the Dutchman found the range, and sent his pile-driver fist into Frog-Mouth's jaw. He hit again, and a third time. Frog-Mouth Fontan staggered, weaved backwards, and with a silly grin on his face sat down against the cabin. He continued to grin foolishly, staring into the bright sun. A small, dark woman without any teeth appeared at the door. She looked at her husband, then spat at him. "_Cochon!_" she said. "Pig!" She looked at Ramsay and Hans. "What do you want?" "One of your excellent pound nets, Madame Fontan," Hans murmured politely. "Do you have the money to pay for it?" "We have it." "Load the net." Ramsay helped Hans lift the folded net, four pieces of three-and-a-quarter-inch webbing, two pieces of six-and-a-quarter-inch, and seven pieces of eight-and-a-half-inch, onto the cart. The latter sagged beneath almost seven hundred pounds of net, and the little horse looked questioningly around. But he stepped out obediently when Hans slapped the reins over his back, and Captain Klaus squawked over them as they returned to Pieter's farm. * * * * * The next morning Ramsay stared in astonishment at a unique craft coming down the lake. Five men, one of whom was Tom Nedley, manned the outlandish rigging, and it was propelled by two sets of oars. Ramsay strolled down to meet it, and noticed some spiles--poles--about thirty-five feet long, that were piled on the beach. Evidently Hans had cut them, or had them brought down, after he and Ramsay returned home. The craft, and as it drew near, Ramsay saw that it was two sixteen-foot pound boats, bound together by stout planks front and rear, nosed into the pier. The crew disembarked, and Tom Nedley introduced Ramsay to his brother, his cousin and their two strapping sons. Ramsay turned a curious gaze on the boats. They were lashed solidly together by planks that kept them about fifteen feet apart. On top of the planks was raised a sort of scaffolding, connected by a heavy beam whose nether surface was about twenty feet from the water. Suspended from the beam was a four-pulley block with a rope through each pulley, and the ropes supported an iron drop hammer. There was another pulley whose use Ramsay could not even guess. Shouting and scrambling as though this were some sort of picnic especially arranged just for them, Tom Nedley's boisterous crew threw the spiles in the water and floated them out to the boats. They tied them to the stern, then set up a concerted shouting. "Hans! Hey, Hans! Pieter!" Grinning, Hans and Pieter, who had lingered over their breakfast after Ramsay was finished, appeared from the house. Tom Nedley's brother said plaintively, "Twenty minutes of six! Half the day gone already! Don't you fellows ever do anything except sleep?" "Yaah!" Hans scoffed. "Who is so filled with ambition?" He looked at the oarsman who had spoken and leaped lightly into the boat. "Now we will see who is the best man." Ramsay jumped on board just in time to keep from being left behind, and Hans bent his mighty back to the oars. In the second boat the other oarsman tried to match Hans' pace, and the unwieldy craft spurted away like a frightened deer. Trailing behind, the spiles left a path of bubbly ripples. Out of the bay they went and into the open lake. Then they turned south, obviously Hans had some destination in mind. At any rate, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. They stopped rowing on a reef about a mile from shore, and one of the men retrieved a spile. Tom Nedley spoke to Ramsay. "Feel strong?" "Sure thing." "Good. We'll need some strong men around here. Wait until they're set, an' then I'll show you what to do." Hans and another man up-ended the spile and probed toward the lake bottom with it. They hung it on the other pulley and, when it was in place, the end was about three feet below the drop-hammer. Hans fastened it to the pulley, steadied it with his hands and sang out, "Let her go!" Tom Nedley handed a long rope to Ramsay, bade him hold it tight, and two men in the other boat took the other two ropes. Jerking the rope in his hands, Tom Nedley tripped the latch holding the drop-hammer, and instantly Ramsay felt the weight. He hung on very tightly and was reassured by Tom Nedley's quiet, "You'll soon get the hang of it. When I give the word, let the hammer fall just hard enough to hit the spile. Stop it, of course, before it hits the boys steadyin' for us." Ramsay waited, his eyes on Tom Nedley. The big man said, "Now!" The hammer dropped squarely but not completely, because Ramsay tried to stop it too soon. Again Tom Nedley reassured him. "Just let her fall," he urged, as he helped raise the hammer back into position. "There's plenty of time to stop her, but don't be careless. That hammer weighs a hundred and seventy five pounds, an' I doubt if even Hans' head would take that much fallin' on it." This time Ramsay got the rhythm. The hammer dropped swiftly, squarely and with full force. It seated the spile in the lake bottom, so that there was no longer any necessity for holding it. Hans and the other stepped back. Again and again Ramsay helped drop the hammer, until the pole was driven about eight feet into the lake bottom and perhaps four feet remained above the surface. It had been about thirty-six feet to start with, therefore the water at this place was twenty-four feet deep. It should be right for whitefish. "Let me take that rope a while," someone said. Gladly Ramsay relinquished his rope to Pieter, and rested his aching shoulders while he watched interestedly. The piles were being driven in a geometrical pattern, a sort of square, and Ramsay understood that the first nine were to hold the pot, the actual trap. Measuring carefully, the boats moved away and more spiles were driven. These were for the hearts of the net. Finally, running straight toward shore, spiles were driven in a pattern that resembled the forks of a 'Y.' To these would be attached the tunnel, the webbing that guided fish through the hearts of the pound net and into the pot. Ramsay straightened, easing his aching shoulders. It was hard work, very hard, to lift the hammer and let it fall for hours on end. But now the spiles for one pound net were driven. The boy turned to Hans. "Gee whiz! How about moving all this?" "You don't move a pound net except, of course, to take up the webbing when the lake freezes. Otherwise, we'll leave this right where it is. It is possible to fish a pound net in the same location for fifty years or more." "What's next?" "Set the net. I think there is still time." They rowed back to the pier, where Marta, who had taken over the treasurer's post, paid Tom Nedley and his crew. The big man grinned his thanks. "You need us again, you know where to find us." "We'll probably take you up on that," Hans said. The ropes binding the two boats were loosened and the scaffold taken down. Leaving the boat Hans had bought, Tom Nedley and his helpers piled into the other one and started rowing up the lake. Hans, Pieter and Ramsay went to the pound net. The pot, the trap, was loaded first. Then came the flaring, heart-shaped 'hearts,' and finally the leads, or tunnel. Setting himself to the oars, Hans rowed back to where they had driven the piles. He tied the lead, the beginning of the tunnel, to the spile. A five-pound stone fastened to the bottom rope carried it down into the lake. Giving the oars to Ramsay and cautioning him to travel slowly, Hans fastened the lead to each spile and sank it with stones. The flaring hearts were set in the same way. Coming to the pot, Hans first fastened a four-foot chain with an attached pulley to the pile. Then he tied a rope, double the depth of the water and with some allowance for shrinkage, to the bottom of the pot. He did this on each spile, and they put the whole pot into the water. Ramsay began to understand. In effect, they had set a gigantic fly-trap. Any fish that came along would be guided by the tunnel into the hearts, and then into the pot. Should any escape, the flaring sides of the hearts would keep them trapped and, nine times out of ten, send them back into the pot instead of out through the tunnel. * * * * * Ramsay labored under the weight of a two-hundred-pound sturgeon which had been dragged in by the seine. Hans and Pieter hadn't wanted to bother with sturgeon because there was no market for them, anyhow, but Ramsay had permitted them to throw none back into the lake. Cradling his slippery prize across his chest, as though it was a log, he carried it to the pond and threw it in. For a moment the sturgeon swam dazedly on the surface, then flipped his tail and submerged. Ramsay gazed into the pond. It was alive with sturgeon weighing from seventy-five to almost three hundred pounds. There were so many that, to supplement the food in the pond, they were feeding them ground corn. Ramsay stripped off his wet clothes and dived cleanly into the pond. Water surged about him, washing off all the sweat and grime which he had accumulated during the day. He probed along the pond's bottom, and felt the smooth sides of a sturgeon beneath him. It was only a little one. He swam on until he had to surface for air, and dived again. Across the pond's murky depths he prowled, his white body gleaming like some great worm in the water. Finally he found what he was looking for. It was a big sturgeon, and it was feeding quietly. Moving as slowly as possible, Ramsay rubbed a hand across its back. Suddenly he wrapped both arms about the fish and took a firm grasp with his bare legs. For a moment, while the dull sturgeon tried to determine what was happening, there was no movement. Then the big fish awakened to danger and shot to the surface. With all the speed of an outboard motor he sliced along it, and a moment later he dived again. Grinning, exhilarated, Ramsay swam back to shore and dressed. Tradin' Jack Hammersly's rig was in the yard, and Ramsay heard the man say, "Marta, what you been feedin' your hens?" "The best!" Marta said indignantly. "The very best!" "The best of what?" "Why grain, and scraps, and ..." "And sturgeon roe?" "Why--yes." "What I thought," Tradin' Jack sighed. "Ye'll have to stop it. Ever' customer as got some of your eggs told me they taste like caviar!" A moment later there was a rapid-fire sputter of French expletives. His face red, seeming about to explode, Baptiste LeClaire raced around the corner of the house. "Get your guns!" he screamed when he saw Ramsay. "Get your knives and clubs too! Get everything! We have to kill everybody!" CHAPTER NINE _PIRATES_ Baptiste was dancing up and down, flinging his arms like the blades of a windmill and screaming in French. Ramsay wrinkled his brow. He had picked up some French, but not enough to translate the torrent of words that rolled out of the agitated man's mouth. And never before in his life had he seen anyone so mad. Baptiste was invoking every evil he could think of, a most generous portion, upon someone's hapless head. Ramsay made a move to stop him. "Wait. I can't follow you...." A few English words, among which Ramsay recognized pig, dog and son of a rotten fish, mingled with Baptiste's violent Gallic tirade. He continued to wave his arms and yell. Ramsay waited helplessly, unable to understand or to do anything. Attracted by the clamor, Hans, Pieter, Marta and Tradin' Jack appeared. Very quietly Hans advanced to Baptiste's side. "What is it, my friend?" Almost tearfully, grateful because, at last, he had someone able to understand, Baptiste turned his machine-gun rattle of French on Hans. Ramsay watched the Dutch fisherman's face tighten, and then it was set in white-hot anger. He waited for Baptiste to finish, and asked in English, "Do you know who did it?" "No." Having worn himself out, Baptiste lapsed naturally into English, too. He turned his hot, angry face on the others. Hans spoke again. "Go to Madame Fontan in Three Points," he said to Baptiste. "Tell her that I, Hans Van Doorst, said that you are to have the nets you need. If she has not enough woven, get them elsewhere. Madame LeDou makes excellent seines and gill nets. Go to the store for the rope you need, and tell them I will pay for everything. We ourselves will come to help you drive new spiles and make new sets." "It is good of you," Baptiste's face was still flaming with rage, "but we cannot let the matter rest there." "Nor can we," Hans' tone was calm and reasoning, "go about shooting people when we do not know who to shoot." "Pah! I know! It is Devil Chad!" "Have you proof of that?" "The proof is self-evident. Who but Devil Chad would dare do such a thing?" "Did you see him?" "Does one see the wise fox when he comes in the night to steal a fat goose? No, I did not see him." "Listen, my friend. Listen carefully. If this sort of piracy has been started and we do not end it, we are lost. But ours will be a small triumph if all of us get ourselves hanged. We must proceed with caution." "I do not like caution." "Nevertheless, we must now employ it. We cannot rush off with guns and shoot because we suspect. Get your nets and whatever else you need, and start anew. When you can bring me proof of the pirates, I myself will be the first to shoot." "It is the stumbling way." "It is the only way. If there is to be war, then let there be war. But we cannot strike out blindly. To do that will be to turn every man's hand against us. We cannot fight at all if we do not know our enemies." For a moment the dark-visaged little Frenchman stood uncertainly. Then he looked directly at Hans. "I will do as you say," he agreed. "But should I catch anyone at my nets, they or I will not live to speak of it afterwards." "The same will happen should I catch anyone at our nets," Hans promised. "But let us catch them before we act." Baptiste LeClaire swept his hat off, made a courtly bow, murmured, "Your health, Madame and Messieurs," and turned back toward the pier. Expertly handled, the _Bon Homme_ sailed gracefully into the lake. Astonished, Ramsay stared at Hans, and Pieter and Marta reflected his astonishment. "What's got him by the ear?" Ramsay asked. "Baptiste," Hans said, "had three pound nets which he tended with pound boats. He had a number of gill nets which he visited with the _Bon Homme_, a proper gill net boat." Hans stared out on the lake, as though seeking the answer to some question that plagued him. He turned to face the others. "Baptiste has no more pound nets. They have all been raised and ripped to shreds. The spiles to which he attached them were broken. Of the gill nets he once had, one remains. The rest were destroyed. Aside from his years of labor, Baptiste has lost more than two thousand dollars' worth of nets." "Who did it?" Ramsay gasped. Hans shrugged. "Someone who has discovered, at last, that there is money to be had in Lake Michigan fishing. Someone who will stop at nothing to get all of it for himself." There was conviction in Ramsay's "Devil Chad!" Hans shrugged again. "So Baptiste thinks." "What do you think?" Hans swung so fiercely on him that Ramsay retreated a step. "You heard what I told Baptiste!" the Dutch fisherman said. "We must be certain! It is not for us to appoint ourselves judge, jury and executioner! Before we act we must be sure!" "Should we call in the constable?" Hans said scornfully, "Devil Chad's man!" "What must we do?" "Watch ourselves," Hans declared. "Hereafter we must leave the nets unguarded and the lake without our own patrol, only when we are sure it is safe. If someone has come to take from us our right to fish, we must be our own protection. At the same time we must not act blindly. The lake is big enough for all. If one has come who would take everything for himself, we fight." "You know it's Devil Chad." "I know no such thing." "Do you suspect him?" "Yes," Hans answered frankly. "Then why not take action?" "Look, boy," and Ramsay writhed because never before had Hans addressed him in such a fashion, "lives are now at stake. Let us be sure before we lose ours or take someone else's!" "You are right," Pieter approved. "Yes, you are right." Puzzled, Ramsay looked at his two partners. It was absurd to suppose that either was afraid; they had proven their courage too many times. Yet, though both thought Devil Chad the raider, both refused to move against him until they had proof of his piracies. Ramsay thought of something he had read, 'A man is innocent until proven guilty.' Maybe Hans and Pieter believed that sincerely, while the hot-headed Baptiste was ready to strike at anything at all. Ramsay felt a rising admiration for his partners. "What must we do?" he asked. "I doubt if they'll strike by day," Hans said. "If they come, it will be in the night. We'll make three watches, and alternate on them. That way they cannot surprise us." "Suppose they come?" Hans shrugged eloquently. "Then we will fight and fight hard, for it is certain that no one else will do our fighting for us. Do either of you have a choice as to watches?" Nobody had a choice. Hans broke three straws of different lengths, concealed them in the palm of his hand, and held them out. They drew, and compared straws. Pieter had the shortest, the first watch, Ramsay the second and Hans the third. Hans looked thoughtfully at the twilight-softened lake. "Pieter, do you want to go out at seven and stay until eleven?" "Yaah." "Good. Ramsay, stay out until about two and awaken me." "All right." Ramsay ate the excellent supper Marta had prepared, listened idly to the chatter of Tradin' Jack, who knew what had happened and was nervous because of it, and went upstairs to bed. In spite of his inner tension and his excitement, his head had scarcely touched the pillow when he dozed off. A moment later, or so it seemed, Pieter was touching his shoulder. "It's time." "I ... Huh? Oh, yes." Ramsay came fully awake, and Pieter lighted the candle in his room. Its beams sparkled brightly on the shining barrel of the muzzle-loading fowling-piece Pieter carried. Of a huge bore, the gun was charged with black powder and loaded with lead slugs. Ramsay shuddered as he accepted it. Such a gun would be sure to work great havoc among anything it was shot at, but its recoil alone would probably set a mule back on its haunches. "Anything happen?" Ramsay whispered. "Nothing," Pieter said. "Nobody came. The lake is calm and the boat awaits you on the beach." "I'll see you in the morning." "Good luck." His shoes in one hand and the shotgun in the other, Ramsay stole quietly down the stairs and out the back door. He stopped to put his shoes on, and looked around him. A pale moon shone through disheveled clouds that gave the sky the appearance of a man sadly in need of a hair-cut, and the faintest suspicion of a breeze kicked up small wavelets. Asleep on the ridge pole, Captain Klaus was a dull, shapeless blob in the night sky. Ramsay cradled the shotgun in his right elbow and walked down to the beach. The pound boat had wedged itself lightly against the sand. Ramsay put the anchor back in, carefully laid the shotgun on the rower's seat, and stood in the stern until he had tilted the craft from its mooring. Sitting down, with a vigorous stroke of the oars he sent the boat farther into the lake. In the bay a fish jumped out of water, and the sound of its falling back made a tinkling splash. Ramsay, dipping his oars quietly, steered toward the first pound net they had set. At intervals he halted to rest on the oars. There were no sounds save those that should have been present. Except for him and the pound boat, the lake seemed deserted. Lingering in the shadows, Ramsay circled the net and saw nothing. He started toward another of their pound nets. They had kept the seine busy, taken good catches from their pound nets, and turned most of their money back into additional equipment. They were getting ahead and setting themselves up in the fishing business. By next year they should have everything they needed. They would not have to buy any nets, or boats, and could begin to enjoy the profits they were earning. Ramsay found himself thinking of Devil Chad. Fishing was very hard work, and expensive, but whoever did it well could hope for a fine future. Lake Michigan was a vast reservoir of riches, and they were to be used. There was room for all, but so was there room in Three Points. Devil Chad wanted that for himself. Who but Devil Chad could now be plotting to seize the Lake Michigan fisheries? Ramsay shrugged such thoughts away. Out here on the lake he seemed able to think with great clarity, and he knew that Hans and Pieter were right. They must not lash out in thoughtless anger and hit at Devil Chad because he was the logical one to raid their nets. They must have proof, and strike as hard as possible when they struck. Ramsay visited all three pound nets, and rowed back to the first one. The lake remained calm and unruffled. When he thought it was two o'clock--the night was divided into one watch of four hours and two of three each--he went in to rouse Hans. At half-past five, when they ate breakfast, Hans had nothing to report. If pirates were out to get all nets, certainly they had not bothered theirs. Late that afternoon, when the fishing was done and Ramsay, much to the amusement of Hans and Pieter, had carried six more big sturgeon to the pond, Hans hitched the black horse and invited Ramsay to go with him to Three Points. Captain Klaus, as usual, flew to the back of the cart and perched where he could caress Hans with his bill. Hans turned the little horse down the road leading to Tom Nedley's. Ramsay stirred with interest. Big Tom Nedley came out of his shed, greeted them, and looked doubtfully at the little cart. He glanced from it to a long oaken beam that was supported on wooden horses. When he looked again at Hans, his voice and manner were almost accusing. "You aim to drag that piece of oak?" "You think I'm a fool?" Hans challenged. "Didn't think you'd drag it." Tom Nedley seemed relieved. "There ain't another piece of oak like that one in Wisconsin. How do you aim to get it home?" "You have an extra pair of wheels and an axle?" "Sure, but ..." "Ha! Bring me a wrench!" The wrench in his hands, Hans set to work unbolting the clamps that held the body on Pieter's two-wheeled cart. He lifted the body and seat off, leaving the horse hitched only to the wheels and the axle that joined them. Hans looked triumphantly at Tom Nedley, and the boatbuilder scratched his head. "You needn't think you're so smart. I'd of thought of that myself afore I let you drag that timber." "Why didn't you?" While Tom brought another pair of wheels, Ramsay looked at the solid chunk of oak. About twenty-six feet long, it was very fine-grained and it hadn't a crack or flaw throughout its length--fully seasoned, so that not a drop of sap remained in it. Even Ramsay, whose knowledge of wood was limited, could tell that this was an exceptionally fine chunk of oak. Hans and Tom Nedley seemed to look upon it as they would have looked upon some valuable jewel. Hans patted it affectionately. "Stronger than steel!" he said fondly. "Can you not imagine what a boat the _Spray II_ will be?" Tom Nedley said, "Building from that, you cannot fail." For a moment Hans was wistful, as though he had gone back in memory to the first _Spray_. Tom Nedley brought another set of wheels, rolled them into place, and covered the bare axle with a soft blanket. He used another blanket to pad the axle to which the horse was hitched, and Hans steered the horse into position. Hans, Tom and Ramsay lifted one end of the oaken beam onto the rear wheels. Ramsay helped lift the other end onto the other set of wheels, and stood aside while Hans lashed both with ropes. Ramsay watched interestedly. Hans used his ropes to permit flexibility, while at the same time he took no chances on their chafing or breaking. Apparently fishermen could do anything with ropes. Ramsay tied the unbolted seat and body to the top of the oaken beam. Hans took the little horse's bridle and led him carefully back to the road. Mounted on its four wheels, the long oaken beam swayed and turned. Leading the little horse, careful of everything that lay in front, behind and on both sides, Hans set a very slow pace. It was as though the beam were a very fragile thing that might break should it brush even the smallest tree. Actually, if it hit one hard, it would have broken any small tree in its path and rocked the larger ones. Hans continued to treat it as though it were a very delicate thing. Destined to be the keel of the _Spray II_, when they reached Pieter's house the beam was lovingly set up on three scaffoldings made of four-by-sixes and arranged near the lake. Hans patted it as lovingly as he would have stroked a favorite dog. "We have a start!" he said happily. "Why do we need another boat?" Ramsay queried. "For setting gill nets," Hans replied. "You are not a fisherman unless you know how to set a gill net, and you cannot set a gill net unless you have a proper Mackinaw boat." He petted the oaken beam again. "As responsive as a canoe it shall be, but as strong as a pound boat! This one shall not break no matter what happens. The lake will not breed a storm that it will be unable to ride out." That night Ramsay's was the first watch. He rowed the pound boat from one to another of their three pound nets. No strange vessel disturbed the lake, no hostile creature approached. Ramsay gave his watch over to Hans, and slept until dawn. They fished, processed their catch and loaded thirty thousand pounds of whitefish onto the _Jackson_ when she nosed into their pier. Ramsay went with Hans and Pieter to a place where some mighty cedar trees, that had grown for centuries, had been cut when the snow was deep. Their weathered stumps thrust six feet or more above the green foliage that surrounded them, and Hans chose very carefully. He wanted only those stumps with a fine, closely knit grain, those which, even in death, showed no cracks or flaws. He found three of which he approved, and Ramsay and Pieter used a cross-cut saw to cut them off very close to the earth. Ramsay began to understand the project in Hans' mind. Because of weather conditions, pound nets, at the very most, could be used for only about three to four months out of every year. The seine, though under no circumstances would Hans fish in the spawning season, could be dragged in until the bay froze. But gill nets could be used for seven or eight months if one had a proper boat, and Hans wanted to build one that would ride out any storm. It was not to be an ordinary Mackinaw boat, but one such as Lake Michigan had never seen. Its oaken keel had been chosen with an eye to the heaviest seas and the ice that speckled those seas in spring or fall. Though some fishermen used cedar planking for the ribbing of their boats, and steamed it until it could be bent into the desired shape, Hans intended to cut his directly from cedar stumps that had already endured five hundred years and ten thousand storms. Then the _Spray II_ would be sheathed with the best possible cedar planking and calked with the best obtainable oakum, or rope soaked in tar. They would not float her this season. Neither effort nor expense were to be spared in the building of the _Spray II_, and constructing her properly would be a winter's job. But as soon as the ice broke next year she would be ready to float, and they would be ready to set their gill nets. Ramsay grinned fleetingly as he tossed bushels of ground corn into the pond so that the numerous sturgeon he had imprisoned there would have enough to eat. It seemed so very long ago that he had thrown in with Hans and Pieter and decided to become a fisherman, and he still hadn't two silver dollars to jingle in his pocket. Not one day, scarcely one hour had been free of grueling labor. But they had two pound boats, three pound nets, had bought another seine, and with spring they would have the _Spray II_. In addition, there was enough of the season left, so that they should be able to catch plenty of fish before either ice or the spawning period curtailed operations. That would give them enough money to buy gill nets, as well as anything else they needed. None of the four partners would come out of this season with money in their pockets. They would own a sufficient amount of equipment for next year, and much of what they earned then would be profit. That night Ramsay took the third watch. He rowed softly from one pound net to the other, always keeping in the shadows so that there was small danger of his being noticed. He had been out about an hour, and had two more to go, when he saw a boat approaching. It came from the north, Three Points, and its row locks were so well greased that not the faintest sound came from them. The oarsman was expert; he dipped and raised his oars so that there was no splashing. Ramsay raised the shot gun. He leveled it. Unseen by the other boatmen, he lurked in the shadows and let them pass. Ramsay was somewhat surprised to see them give a pound net a wide berth and head into the bay. He followed, rowing his own boat silently while he tried to discern the others' intentions. There were at least four, and perhaps five, men in the other boat and they were going toward the pier. Ramsay let them draw ahead, then circled around them and as fast as he could without making any noise, he rowed straight toward the beach. Grounding his boat, he stepped out. He was aware of the other boat being drawn up cautiously. He walked toward the nocturnal visitors until he was within a half-dozen rods. He could see them now, clustered about the pier. Two started for the barrels and the barreled fish. There was a faint whispering. Ramsay waited to hear no more. Had these people been well-intentioned, they would not be so secretive. Plainly they were up to no good. Ramsay pointed the shotgun toward the sky--he had no wish to kill anyone--braced the stock against his shoulder, and pressed the trigger. The gun belched its load of leaden pellets, and red flame flashed from the muzzle. Ramsay shouted as loudly as he could. "Pieter! Hans!" Dropping the shotgun on the sand beach, he rushed forward. The two men who had started toward the barrels and barreled fish came running back. Ramsay glared his anger. Though he could not be positive because it was too dark to identify anything or anyone positively, he thought that the man who stood just a little to one side of the rest was Joe Mannis, the body-watcher. Ramsay swerved toward him, sent his doubled fist into the other's stomach, and heard a mighty '_whoosh_' as he knocked the wind out of his enemy. Up at the house a door slammed. Then a club or blackjack collided soddenly with the side of Ramsay's head and set him reeling. He stumbled forward, feeling a little foolish because all the strength had left him. Without being sure that he did so, he sat down on the sand and blinked owlishly at the night visitors. Dimly he was aware of the fact that they were launching their boat and that he must stop them, but he did not know how to do so. A nightgown flapping about his legs and a tasseled red cap on his head, Hans Van Doorst appeared on the beach. A pair of trousers hastily strapped about his own nightgown, Pieter followed. Both men looked quietly at the retreating boat, which they might have followed and would have followed had not Ramsay needed help. They lifted him to his feet. "What happened?" Hans asked quietly. "I ... They came while I was out on the lake, but they didn't bother the nets. They rowed right into the pier, and I don't know what they wanted." "Did you recognize any of them?" "I think Joe Mannis was one." "Devil Chad?" Ramsay said positively, "He was not among them. I would have recognized him." "Did you shoot at them?" "No, I shot to attract you and Pieter." "Well, that's all right, too. They won't be back tonight, or likely any other night. Come on." They helped Ramsay into the house, bathed his head and put him to bed. He awoke to a mist-filled morning. No breath of air stirred. Visibility was almost non-existent; the mist was so heavy that it almost hid the lake. Ramsay, with all the elasticity of youth, had recovered quickly from last night's incident and he had a good appetite for the breakfast Marta had prepared. Then Marta tossed her head defiantly. "All of you have been away," she announced, "and you have done many things. I have been nowhere and I have not done anything. But today I go to Three Points to shop." "Sure," Pieter said. "I'll hitch the horse for you." They cheered Marta on her way and went down to cast the seine. The pound nets, having been visited within the past two days, would not again be visited today. Aside from that, they had seined tons of whitefish and sturgeon out of the bay in front of Pieter's house. Naturally the catches were growing smaller. If they didn't take the seine too far out, and set it shallow, three men could work the windlasses. Then, just as they were ready to fish, and just about when Marta should have reached Three Points, a man on a lathered horse came pounding down the sand beach. He drew his tired mount up. "Quick!" he gasped. "An accident! Marta is badly hurt!" CHAPTER TEN _THE GREAT FISH_ The great White Sturgeon was not, in the truest sense of the word, a native of the lake. More years ago than any living thing could remember, he had been born, along with thousands of brothers and sisters, halfway up one of the many rivers that emptied into the lake. The sturgeon remembered little about that time, but just the same it had helped to shape him and make him what he was. The spawning sturgeon, a vast number of them, had started up the river together. It was a journey as old as the lake itself. Side by side they swam, in such numbers and so many evenly-spaced layers that none of the many Indians who fished along the river was able to thrust his spear without striking a sturgeon. Preying bears, otter, panthers, lynx and other creatures that liked fish, thronged the river's banks and struck at the horde as it passed. So little did all their raids combined matter that it was as though they had taken nothing. No creature that wanted one lacked a sturgeon to eat. But the great mass of fish, impelled by the desperate necessity of laying their eggs in the river, swam on. Only when miles were behind them and they were about a third of the way to the river's source, did the vast schools start to thin out. Then it was not because their enemies took too many, though they caught a great number. The schools started to lessen because many, too exhausted to go farther or content with spawning grounds already reached, dropped behind to spawn. Finally only a few, not necessarily the biggest but invariably the most vigorous, were left. Day after day, night after night, stopping only to rest or feed, they went on up the virgin river. Buck deer, drinking, saw the fleeting shadows pass, snorted and leaped skittishly away. Drinking buffalo raised their shaggy heads and, with water dribbling from their muzzles, stared after the migrating fish. Everything seemed, in some small way, to sense the mystery that went with the swimming sturgeon. They were part of the abundance of this wealthy land, and when they were through spawning, that abundance would be increased. The very presence of the fish was within itself a promise that more were to follow. Finally there were only half a dozen sturgeon left. One was a very strong female whose spawn-swollen body even now contained the egg, the cell, that was to be the great White Sturgeon. Swimming close beside her was an equally vigorous male. All the sturgeon that had been able to come this far were among the finest and best. They stopped in a quiet pool which, within itself, was almost a little lake. A third of a mile wide by a mile and a half long, the pool rolled smoothly down an almost level course. It was shaded on either side by gloomy pines that marched like soldiers in disordered rank for a very great distance. There were no grunting buffalo here, though an occasional white-tailed deer tripped daintily down to drink from the sweet, unpolluted water. On either side of the pool was a mat of green sedges and water-lilies, and in them a great horde of ducks were rearing their young. They skittered foolishly over the water, seeming to pay no attention to anything save the sheer joy of being alive. Now and then the water beneath them would dimple and ripple in widening circles towards either bank; and when it did, invariably there would be one less duckling. Nothing paid any attention whatever to such casualties. Life teemed in the pool, and there life also fed on life. It was meant to be, and the mighty pike that lived in the pool had to eat, too. Weary, but far from exhausted, the female carrying the White Sturgeon-to-be pushed herself into the sedges and lay quietly while she rid herself of the burden that she had carried so far. A million or more eggs she left there, and almost before she was finished two little pike that made their home in the sedges had started gobbling them up. The female sturgeon paid absolutely no attention, and neither did her mate, when he came to fertilize the eggs. They were here to do, and knew how to do, only one thing. Finished, they had no thought as to what might happen next. The two sturgeon swam back into the pool and rested before beginning their long return journey to the great lake. But they had chosen wisely and well. Almost before the parent fish left, a mink that had long had his eye on the small pike swam quietly down to take one while it was feeding. The other one fled. Though other things came to eat them, in due time what remained of the spawn hatched. The White Sturgeon was the first to appear. The baby fish came of strong parents, so that there were almost no infertile eggs, but such inroads had already been made among them that not one in twenty ever knew life. Immediately they were singled out by hungry enemies. The White Sturgeon should have died first for, though all his brothers and sisters were almost the color of the water in which they found birth, he was distinctly different. He was lighter--perhaps a throwback to some distant age when all sturgeon were white--and thus he was the easiest to see. But he seemed to have been born with compensating factors. When a foot-long bass, a very monster of a thing compared with the baby sturgeon, swam among them, they scattered in wild panic. The feeding bass had only to snap here and there to get all he wanted, but the White Sturgeon did not flee with the rest. Instead, he sank down beside a cattail and did not move. A tiny cloud of mud-colored water drifted around and covered him. Thus, from the very first, the White Sturgeon seemed to have a keener brain, or a sharper instinct, that made up for his distinctive coloring. Though he should have been the first to die, he did not die. He learned his lessons well, and saw how many of his brothers and sisters perished. Thus he discovered how to stay alive. For weeks he lived near his birthplace, swimming scarcely two yards from it and feeding on minute particles of both vegetable and animal life. Most of his time he spent feeding, and he grew very fast. Not until encroaching winter drove him there did he move out into the pool. Most of the ducks were gone before the first thin shell ice formed on the borders of the pool, and those that lingered after that flew out with the first snow. The snow blew in from the north on the heels of an unseasonably early winter wind, and the White Sturgeon saw the mighty pines heaped with feathery snow. Snow lay deep on the ground, and the deer that came down to the pool seemed almost jet-black against its virginal whiteness. Lingering in the shallows, the White Sturgeon held very still. His was the accumulated wisdom of ages. Ancestors almost exactly like him had swum in antediluvian seas when huge, scaley monsters roamed the earth, and perhaps the White Sturgeon knew that, as long as he held still near the snow-covered bank, he would be hard to see. Or perhaps he merely found the snow, his own color matched at last, interesting. Right after the snow stopped there was a spell of sub-zero weather that threw a sheathing of ice clear across the pool and froze the shallows to the very bottom. Only then did the White Sturgeon move out of them. He did not move far because it was not necessary to move far, and anyway the great pike lingered in the center of the pool. Almost one third jaw, the pikes' mouths were edged with needle-sharp teeth that never let go and never failed to rip what they seized. Of the young sturgeon that lived until fall, perhaps two hundred and fifty in all, the pike had half before the winter was well set. The rest were too wary to be easy prey. All winter long, living on the edge of the ice and finding all the food he needed in the soft mud floor of the pool, the White Sturgeon led a solitary existence. But it was not a lonely life because, as yet, it was not in him to be lonely. All he knew, and all he had to know, was that he must survive. Every effort was bent to that end. In the spring, shortly after the ice broke up and moved sluggishly down the river, the White Sturgeon followed it. With him went three of his brothers and two sisters, and if more than that had survived he did not know about them or where they were. Nor did he care. In his life there was no room for or meaning to affection; he traveled with his brothers and sisters merely because, like him, they too were going down the river. The journey was not at all hurried. The White Sturgeon, who by this time knew much more about the various arts of survival than he had known when he left the pool, passed the next winter in another, smaller pool, less than two miles from his birthplace. He chose the pool largely because it was the home of a vast number of fish smaller than he, and they offered an easy living to the pike, bass and other things that lived by eating fish. Grown fat and sluggish in the midst of super-abundance, these predators were not inclined to chase anything that cared to avoid them or to work at all for their living. All they had to do was lie still and sooner or later the living would come to them. For his part, the White Sturgeon had no desire to hurt anything. His sole wish was to be left alone, so he could peacefully pursue his own path of destiny. He grubbed in the mud for his food and idled when he was not eating. But, because he had a prodigious appetite, he was eating most of the time. As a consequence, he continued to grow very rapidly. Again and again, while he pursued his lazy journey down the river, the White Sturgeon saw the lake sturgeon swim past him as they headed upstream toward the spawning grounds. Swimming strongly, they came in huge schools. Spent from the spawning, they swam slowly past him on their way back to the lake. Vaguely the White Sturgeon identified himself with these fish. Never did he have more than a passing wish to join them. He wanted only to continue his leisurely trip down the river, and time meant nothing at all. Though the White Sturgeon did not realize it, everything was part of a mighty pattern and a vast scheme. Though there had never been a time when he was not in danger, the river had not been an unkind school. There he had learned how to avoid his enemies and how to become the powerful fish which he must be were he to live. Then the river gave him his last test. He was near the mouth, only a few miles from the lake, when he suddenly found himself face to face with a monstrous pike. The pike in the pool of his birth were big, but they were dwarfed by this one. Out of the shadows he came, a long, sinewy thing with the heart of a tiger and the jaws of a pike. Even wolves' jaws are not more terrible. The White Sturgeon did as he always did when danger threatened; he held very still. But this time it was futile because the pike had already seen him. Thus the thing which must never happen, did happen. The White Sturgeon came face to face with danger in its deadliest form. If he lived through this, then never again would he have to fear an enemy that swam in the water. Suddenly the pike whirled, flipped a contemptuous tail, and drifted back into the shadows out of which he had come. He was not afraid; no pike is ever afraid of anything, but the White Sturgeon was nearly as large as he and even the pike never killed wantonly, or destroyed that which he could not eat. The White Sturgeon swam on. He had graduated with honors from the river's school, and he seemed to know it. For the first time since his birth, a mighty restlessness gripped him. Not again did he linger in the pools, or stop to feed for a week or a month wherever he found a rich feeding bed. Urgings and commands within him that had been passive were suddenly active. With all this, he remained a harmless fish. Never born to battle, he had no wish to fight and he did not abandon all his hard-won caution. If the pike had not hurt him, nothing that swam in the river or lake would hurt him; but the White Sturgeon retained a fear of those creatures not born of the water. Aliens, they would not abide by the creed of the water. While heeding a sudden and great wish to get out of the river and into the lake, the White Sturgeon stayed far from both river banks. A ghost figure in the murky water, he shot out of the river's mouth and into the cold lake. For a while he sported like a dolphin, rising to the surface, showing his white back, and diving. An Indian who was spearing fish from a canoe stared his astonishment. Trembling, he sheathed his spear and paddled back to his encampment. He had seen the White Sturgeon, the Ghost Fish, and that night a mighty storm knocked down a big pine near the Indian's camp. Two people were killed when it fell. Knowing nothing of this, lying contentedly in thirty feet of water where he was aware of the storm only because his fine and deep senses made him aware of everything that occurred above, the White Sturgeon grubbed for food in the lake's bottom. The next time his tribe left the lake to rush up the river, the White Sturgeon journeyed with them. He went because he must, because it was a call even stronger than hunger and he could not resist it. The strongest of sturgeon, he stayed in the fore-front of the spawning horde and still remained away from the banks. The few Indians who saw him were so astonished that they forgot to strike with their spears, and he never even came close to the prowling bears and other beasts that waxed so fat when the migrating sturgeon came back to spawn. Guided by the most precise of instincts, the White Sturgeon went exactly to that spawning bed in the sedges where he was born, and fertilized the eggs that a female left there. Wan and spent, caring for nothing, once his main purpose in life had been realized, he turned and swam back into the lake. That was now his home. Again and again the White Sturgeon went up the river with his kind. Only once, in all the trips he made, was he in real danger, and that time an Indian's spear scratched his side. The Indian, fishing with two companions, promptly fell into the river and drowned. Thus the legend of the White Sturgeon grew. Born in a red man's fertile mind, it was handed from red man to white and distorted in the transfer. Now none could trace its origin and none knew exactly how it had begun. Lake men knew only of the White Sturgeon, and he had learned much of men. But he lived in the present, not the past. Years had elapsed since Lake Michigan was shadowed only by canoes. Now there were the Mackinaw boats, the pound boats, the churning side-wheelers and the rowboats. Because it was his affair to know everything that went on in the lake, the White Sturgeon knew them all. He knew also that it was good to rest in the lake's gentler places. Not in years had he rushed up the river with his spawning comrades. The fires of his youth had long since been quenched, and besides, he was now far too big to travel up any river. Perhaps the same quirk of nature that had granted him his pigment had given him his size. Other sturgeon were thought to be huge when they attained a weight of two hundred and fifty pounds. The White Sturgeon weighed almost a thousand pounds. He was still a gentle creature, though the sudden angers of age were apt to seize him, and on the morning that Ramsay, Pieter and Hans were called to Three Points, the Sturgeon was feeding quietly in the tunnel of the first pound net they had set. He stopped feeding when he sensed an approaching boat. It was a Mackinaw boat, used for setting gill nets, and it was shrouded in mist that sat like a fleecy blanket upon the lake. The White Sturgeon lay very still. He was not afraid but he had no wish to be disturbed, and if he remained very quiet, perhaps he would not be bothered. He was aware of something coming into the lake and of the boat's withdrawal into the shrouding mist. The White Sturgeon decided to move, but when he tried to do so he found his way blocked. A gill net was stretched across the entrance to the pound net, effectively preventing anything outside from getting in or anything inside from getting out, and the White Sturgeon was trapped by it. Gently he nosed against the gill net, seeking a way through. When none offered, he swam a little ways and tried again. A third, a fourth and a fifth time he sought escape. There was none, and the White Sturgeon's anger flared. He flung himself against the gill net, felt it cling to his mighty body, and twisted about. A hundred yards to one side, in a weak place, the net ripped completely in half. The White Sturgeon threshed and twisted until he had reduced the entrapping folds to a mass of linen thread. Segments of the ruined net clung to him as he swam away. CHAPTER ELEVEN _FISHERMAN'S LUCK_ The horse that had galloped from Three Points to Pieter's farm in order to bring news of Marta's misfortune was too spent to gallop back. Nor could he carry more than one man, even if he had not been spent. Ramsay, Pieter and Hans left horse and rider at the farm, while they started up the beach. For a short distance they stayed together. Then Ramsay, the youngest and best winded of the three, drew ahead. A cold dread and a great fear gnawed at him as he alternately walked and trotted. Marta had become like a beloved sister to him, and the messenger carried no news except that she was injured. How or why, he had not said. Ramsay glanced back over his shoulder to see if his companions were keeping up with him, and discovered that they were lost in the mist. In any event the day would have been unpleasant. There was just the right weather combination to make it so--a hint of rain combined with warm air to drape the fog over everything. And there was no indication that anything would change. Somehow it seemed just the day to get bad news. Ramsay lengthened out to trot again, and then increased his trot to a run. He was breathing hard, but far from exhausted, and with a little surprise he realized that he would not have been able to travel so far without halting, or so fast, when he first came to Wisconsin. A fisherman's life had toughened him immeasurably. Once more he slowed down and looked around to see if Pieter and Hans were in sight. They were not. He walked until he was rested, then trotted into Three Points. As though there was something in the village that drove it back, the mist had not invaded there. It was on all sides so thick that the lake could not be seen and the trees were ghost shapes, half-concealed and half-disclosed. Most of Three Points was at work, but the few passers-by on the street glanced curiously at Ramsay as he swung past them. He saw the little black horse, tied to a hitching post in front of the general store. He bounded up the wooden steps, pushed the door open and entered. Marta, the lower part of her left leg encased in a clean white bandage, was sitting on a chair. She turned astonished eyes on him. "Ramsay!" "Are you all right?" he gasped. "Why ... Of course, I'm all right!" "You're not hurt?" "A scratch!" She sniffed disdainfully. "Just a scratch! I stumbled when I stepped out of the cart. Ach! Such a clumsy one I was!" The storekeeper's wife, obviously the one who had bandaged Marta's leg, smiled her reassurance. "It is not bad," she said. "Oh!" Ramsay felt a moment's clumsiness because he could think of nothing to say, and again he exclaimed, "Oh!" Panting hard, deep concern written on their faces, Hans and Pieter came into the store. Marta's surprised eyes opened still wider. "I thought you boys were fishing!" "We--we had to come in for some more twine," Ramsay said somewhat lamely. "Three of you?" "Yaah," Hans, never slow to understand, smiled with affected laziness. "You know us men, Marta. There wouldn't one of us stay there and work while another was loafing in Three Points." "That's right." Slow Pieter finally understood that there was more here than met the eye. "How'd you hurt yourself, Marta?" The wondering gaze of the storekeeper and his wife were upon them now. Still puzzled, Marta glanced covertly at the three men. Ramsay looked at the storekeeper's wife. "You should have sent somebody to tell us she was hurt." "But," the storekeeper's wife was completely bewildered, "she is not hurt." "What's the matter?" Marta seemed worried now. "Nothing," Hans answered blandly. "Nothing at all. We just decided to have a holiday in Three Points." "Go long!" Marta scoffed. "Men! They're bigger babies than babies are!" "Be sure to bring us some twine," Hans said. "Oh, sure. That I will do." "Good." All three men were smiling easily. But as soon as they left the store and were out of Marta's sight, the smiles faded and their faces became grim and intent. "Who was the man who told us she was hurt?" Ramsay asked. Pieter shook his head, and Hans said, "I never saw him before and I don't expect to see him again. Probably he was riding into Milwaukee anyway, and somebody gave him a dollar to report an accident." Ramsay nodded. Hans, as usual, was logical and there could be only one answer. Somebody was indeed out to capture the fishing on Lake Michigan. They had started by destroying Baptiste's nets and now they were moving against Ramsay and his friends. But they knew well the prowess of the three and had no wish to strike while they were present. Marta's reported accident had been only a ruse to draw them away. Ramsay started toward the sand beach, but Hans laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Wait!" "We'd better get back and look to our nets." "There is time, and we'd better not go blindly." "What are we going to do?" Hans said grimly, "Find the constable and ask him to accompany us. Then, if there is trouble, and I expect it, we will have the law with us rather than against us." "Suppose the constable doesn't care to come along?" "He'll come," Hans promised. They strolled down the street, stopping in various places, until they found Jake Hillis, the constable Devil Chad had put in office, in the Lake House. The woman who had given Ramsay the steak and then made him wash dishes to pay for it, looked up and smiled. "Hello." "Hi!" Ramsay grinned. "You didn't run, after all." "Nope. I didn't." The constable, standing at the bar, turned around to face the three. He hooked both thumbs in his belt, letting his fingers dangle. His right hand, Ramsay could not help seeing, was not too far from the pistol that swung from his belt. There was no readable expression on his face, but the woman, who knew him well, went hastily into another room. Flanked by Ramsay and Pieter, Hans walked directly up to the constable. "We have something," he said softly, "that demands your attention." "What is it?" "It has to do with nets and a raid upon them." "I got no authority over what happens on Lake Michigan." "Nevertheless, we need a good, honest man of the law with us. And we will pay you well enough." Jake Hillis shook his head. "I can't go off on any wild goose chases. My duty is to protect this town." Hans' voice softened even more. "I am asking you again to come with us." The constable's right thumb slipped from his belt and his hand dropped to the butt of the revolver. His fingers curled around it. As though by accident, Pieter stumbled forward. Strong enough to stop a bull in its tracks, Pieter wrapped his own steel fingers around the constable's right wrist, and when they disengaged the pistol was in Pieter's hand. "Excuse me!" he said contritely. "I am so clumsy!" "Well?" Hans inquired. Jake Hillis looked from one to the other. He was like a drum which almost always must sound the cadence someone else beats. Strength was the only force he recognized, and now he saw himself surrounded by strong, determined men. For a moment he struggled with himself. Then "I'll go," he said. Hans responded graciously, "Thank you. We knew that you would come as soon as you understood the reason in it." "Here's your pistol." Pieter extended the weapon. "I got to warn you," the constable pronounced, "that I am going to hold you responsible for anything that happens here while I am away. And I better tell you that I won't put up with any law-breaking." "Good!" Hans said. "You are a conscientious man!" The mist dipped and twisted about them as they started down the sand beach toward Pieter's farm. Ramsay tried to find answers to the many questions in his mind. Certainly somebody had lured them away from their fishing gear. Who had done so? Was Devil Chad involved? If so, why did Jake Hillis accompany them at all? Certainly the servant would not willingly provoke a fight with the master. If Devil Chad was the leader of the pirates, did he trust his minion so little that he had told him nothing? Ramsay shrugged: they would have to wait and find out. Reaching the farm, Pieter entered the house to get the shotgun and a pair of exquisitely carved pistols which Ramsay had never seen before. Dueling pistols, they looked like, and Ramsay glanced curiously at Pieter. The man was anything except stolid, yet he never spoke of his past and of what had really brought him across the Atlantic Ocean to this wild inland sea. Ramsay dismissed the thought. In this country it was often just as well to forget a man's past or that he had ever had a past. Jake Hillis looked narrowly as Pieter handed Hans a pistol, kept one for himself and gave the shotgun to Ramsay. "I don't hold with shooting scrapes!" he said. "And I don't want any part of 'em!" "There'll be none," Hans assured him, "unless we are shot at first." They launched a pound boat, and Hans took the rower's seat. Jake Hillis sat beside Pieter and Ramsay crouched to one side. A shiver ran through him. The mist seemed to be settling in even more thickly; they had scarcely left the shore when they were unable to see it. From the top of the house, the bedraggled Captain Klaus squawked his protest at such weather. Hans rowed swiftly but there was no trace of hesitation in his manner, and Ramsay marveled. The mist was heavy enough to cut visibility to almost nothing, but Hans steered as certainly as he would have on the sunniest of days. He seemed to know the lake so intimately that, no matter what happened, he could still find his way. They reached the first pound net, rowed around it. Ramsay sighed with relief. If pirates had come to raid, they had not yet touched this net. Ramsay shifted his position, and Jake Hillis stirred uneasily. Then, almost beside the boat, the water rippled and the White Sturgeon surfaced for a moment. Nearly the color of the mist, he lay quietly on top of the water, then dived. Hans' low laughter rippled. "We have a friend!" he said. They were near the second pound net now, and Ramsay gripped his shotgun fiercely. He could see nothing, but something seemed to be present. It was a half-sensed threat, like an unseen tiger crouching in the darkness beside a campfire. They saw the spiles of the second pound net rising like a ghost's fingers. Slowly Hans started rowing around it. Then Ramsay glanced behind him and snapped the shotgun to his shoulder. From shorewards another mist-wreathed craft appeared. It was a Mackinaw boat, like the _Spray_, and the men on her were only half seen in the heavy overcast. Ramsay breathed a warning, "Watch it!" Hans let the boat drift and took the pistol in his hand. Almost carelessly, as though there was no hurry about anything at all, Pieter did likewise. Jake Hillis drew his breath sharply. The two boats came closer together, and Ramsay recognized Joe Mannis. There were also three nondescript loafers of the riff-raff type who are always found on any frontier and who will do anything for money. But Ramsay centered his gaze on the fifth man in the Mackinaw boat. There could be no mistaking him, even in the mist. It was Devil Chad. The other boat came nearer and was much easier to see. Ramsay felt a cold chill seize him. All the men in the boat were armed with shotguns, and they could sweep the pound boat from one end to the other if there was to be a fight. Ramsay glanced at Jake Hillis. The constable was sitting quietly, tense and strained, but he did not seem to be afraid. Devil Chad's bellow blasted, "What are you doin' here?" Ramsay heard Hans' low laugh and his quiet, "The man is most uncivil." "Don't get smart with me!" Devil Chad threatened. "You come to rob our net, didn't you?" Hans, surprised, made a momentary slip. "Your net?" "Yes, our net! You come to rob it like you robbed all the rest!" Chad's expressionless eyes pierced Jake Hillis like daggers. "What are you doin' here?" Hans answered calmly. "He is here as our guest, and at our invitation. Now let us hear some more about 'your' net." "You know what I mean! Touch it an' we start shootin'!" "But we haven't touched anything," Hans said smilingly. He turned to Jake Hillis. "Have we?" Jake Hillis, too dull-witted for quick evasion, said, "No, you haven't." Cold rage mounted within Ramsay. He swung his shotgun so that the muzzle centered squarely on Devil Chad. If it came to a gun battle, he decided grimly, his arch-enemy would at least be shot at. Hans, unruffled, took command. "Where is your net? Show us." "Right here." Ramsay heard the mockery in Hans' voice. "And I suppose that it is a gill net?" "How'd you know that?" Devil Chad challenged. "I gazed into my crystal ball," Hans said smoothly, "and I discovered that, when one fisherman wishes to eliminate a competitor, he can always stretch a gill net across the tunnel of a pound net. There is certain to be a battle, and whoever survives controls the fishing." Ramsay began to understand. Fishing on Lake Michigan was governed by no enforceable law but only by the ethics of the fishermen themselves. Most of them were ethical; when one found a good fishing ground, others usually respected his rights. But there was no law that said they had to respect them. Should one fisherman care to trespass on the rights of another, he could always find some way to provoke a quarrel. Then, regardless of anything else that happened, he could say that he was only trying to protect his property or claim in some other way that his was a just quarrel. Few people would be able to prove to the contrary. Then a blue-and-white buoy, a marker used on a gill net, floated into sight. Hans saw it, too, and again his voice was mocking. "Is that the net you mean?" There were subdued voices on the Mackinaw boat. Joe Mannis put his shotgun down and stepped to the bow of the boat with a gaff hook in his hand. He lay prone, stabbed with the gaff, and hooked the buoy. Foot by foot he reeled in thirty yards of tattered gill net. Hans' scornful laughter rolled like a barrel through the mist and bounded back in echoes. Ramsay, highly amused, echoed Hans. "Find your other buoy!" Hans called. "Pull it in, take it home, and repair your gill net! But do not again set it on our fishing grounds!" The Mackinaw boat floated into the mist. Ramsay saw the baffled rage on Devil Chad's face. But mostly he was aware of the contempt of Hans for Devil Chad. "Here!" Hans called. "You're missing a man!" He turned to Jake Hillis. The constable glowered back, like a stupid horse. "Want to swim over and join your little friends?" Hans invited. "No." "Well, we brought you out from the sand. We'll take you back to the sand." Hans' shoulders were shaking with silent mirth as he bent his back to the pound boat's oars. He steered in to the pier they had built, and expertly nosed the boat in to its landing. A mist-draped wraith, Marta, awaited them. "What happened?" she queried anxiously. "Nothing," Pieter assured her. "A great deal," Hans corrected. "They caught the White Sturgeon, for no other fish in the lake could have wrecked a net so completely. I told you we have a friend." He took a pouch from his pocket, counted five silver dollars from it, and dropped them into Jake Hillis' hand. Captain Klaus flew down from the house top to alight on Hans' shoulder. "_Quark!_" he squawked. As though he understood perfectly, Hans said, "That is right, my little one." And to Jake Hillis he said, "If you see them, tell them not to come again." Deliberately turning his back on the constable, Hans stared out over the lake. Then Jake Hillis was gone, and somehow it was as though he had never even been with them. Ramsay waited expectantly. Hans turned away from his intent study of the lake, and he was frowning as though there was some complicated problem which he must solve. Yet when he spoke, his voice betrayed nothing abnormal and there was no sign that he might have been under the least strain. "Perhaps it would be well not to fish again today. That is a shame, for the season draws to a close and we cannot fish much longer, anyway. Still, we have done all that it is necessary to do, and next year we will be well-situated. We will have gear and tackle. I go to work on the boat." Ramsay asked, "Do you think they will come again?" Hans answered deliberately, "I do not think so, but no man may say for certain. They are not without determined and intelligent leadership. If he does come again, he will come hard and directly at us. He will not bother with the nets. There is no need to keep a patrol on the lake tonight." Without another word Hans turned on his heel and strode off to where the _Spray II_ was supported on its blocks. Ramsay went into the barn, shouldered a hundred-pound sack of cornmeal, and carried it to the pond in which he had imprisoned almost countless sturgeon. With both hands he cast the ground corn into the pool, and returned for another sack, and another. Then he stood with the last empty sack limp in his hands, idly watching the pond. It had been an exciting summer, the most adventurous and most satisfying he could remember, but it must soon end. Already there was a hint of frost in the air, and frost meant that the whitefish would soon spawn. Nothing could persuade Hans to fish in the spawning season, when every fish caught meant the loss of perhaps ten that might be. Even if Hans would have fished, autumn meant storms when none but a fool would venture onto the lake in a small boat. Ramsay turned slowly away from the pond. He wandered over to where Hans was working on the _Spray II_. It was to be a Mackinaw boat, somewhat like a canoe, and it was to be used for setting gill nets. These, Ramsay understood, could be set almost as soon as the ice went out. Handy with almost any sort of tool, Hans himself had fashioned a wood vise that turned on a wooden gear. He had a section of cedar stump clamped in the vise, and with a rasp and a fine-toothed saw he was painstakingly fashioning a rib for the _Spray II_. Unhurried, a true artist, he shaped one side of the rib to the other. When he had finished, it was a perfect thing, so evenly balanced that a feather's weight on either side might have unbalanced it. Ramsay wandered away, satisfied. The _Spray II_ was to be no ordinary vessel. There would not be another Mackinaw boat on Lake Michigan to match it. Restlessly Ramsay worked on the seine until Marta called them. He ate, went to bed, and dropped into his usual instant deep slumber. At first he was vaguely irritated because noises in the night disturbed him. Then he identified those sounds as the crying of an alarmed sea gull. Captain Klaus, on top of the roof, was vehemently protesting something. Ramsay became aware of a strange, unreal sunrise reflecting through his bedroom window. Fully awake, he rushed to the window, and saw that, down on the beach, all their boats were burning fiercely. CHAPTER TWELVE _THE POND_ Captain Klaus made a swooping flight that carried him out toward the burning boats. Frightened by a puff of smoke, he flew back to the top of the house and continued to call querulously. For a moment Ramsay stood still, petrified by the spectacle. Then his shout alarmed the house. "Hans! Pieter!" By the light that flickered through his window he sprang for his clothing and hastily pulled his trousers on. Letting the tails and front hang out, he donned his shirt and put shoes on his bare feet. He was aware of muffled cries echoing from the rest of the house, and a lighted candle flared in the hall. He rushed out to meet Hans coming from his bedroom, and a second later Pieter's door flew open. Only half-awake and less than half-dressed, the latter blinked like a sleepy dog in the candle's little light. Marta peered uneasily over his shoulder. "What is it?" "The boats are burning!" Ramsay gasped. With a mighty, outraged lion's roar, Pieter came fully awake and sprang toward the stairs. For one brief second Ramsay was aware of Marta's face, dead-white, then he leaped to follow Pieter. Holding the candle aloft, Hans followed. Again the Dutch fisherman seemed to take complete command of the situation. There was anger in his voice but no trace of panic when he warned the other two, "Slowly! Go slowly!" His hand on the kitchen door, Pieter halted. Ramsay paused uncertainly behind him, and Hans blew the candle out. The Dutch fisherman had weathered so many savage storms that he seemed to know exactly what to do, no matter what the crisis. Ramsay watched and approved. He must learn to be more like Hans and to rule the emergencies that arose rather than let them rule him. Hans spoke again, "Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter. If they came again, they are probably armed and they may shoot. Pieter, get the guns." Pieter shuffled off to the dark kitchen and came back. Ramsay felt the familiar shotgun being pressed into his hands, and he knew that Hans and Pieter each had a pistol. Because that seemed the thing to do, Ramsay waited until Hans acted. The Dutch fisherman spoke again, and his voice remained unruffled. "We cannot tell who or what is out there. Until we discover exactly, keep out of the light cast by the burning boats. Do not use your guns unless they shoot first. Then shoot to kill. Come on." Silent as a shadow, Hans slipped into the blackness that reigned at the back of the house. Pieter followed, while Ramsay brought up the rear. He shivered, but only part of his chill was caused by the cold night. This afternoon on the pound boat he had felt only tense excitement. But then Hans and Pieter had backed him and their presence had been a very real thing. Now, in the night, he was almost completely unaware of them. It was as though he stood completely alone. Ramsay felt his way along the rear wall of the house to the corner, and there the darkness was broken by the glare from the burning boats. Ramsay crept up beside Hans and peered around the corner. The mist was gone, and a sharp breeze had sprung up in its wake. Every night, when the fishing was done, or any time at all when they weren't being used, the pound boats were pulled far up on the shore. Casting a circle of light over the water, the burning boats illuminated the rising waves whose whitecaps broke and fell. A fierce storm was in the making. Ramsay's fear gave way to terrible anger. The wind from the lake would have fanned the flames anyway, but obviously, before they had been set on fire, the two pound boats had been coated with tar, pitch, or something else that would burn hard and assure their complete destruction. They were already charred beyond the faintest hope of salvation. Ramsay gritted his teeth. Hans left the house and swung back, away from the lake, on a course that would keep him in the shadows. Ramsay followed, and he was aware of Pieter following him. There was not the least sign of the raiders or of the boat they might have come in. Ramsay hesitated. Perhaps they had done their work and fled, or perhaps they were lurking in ambush near the burning boats. Five shotguns could be ready to cut down whoever came. Then Ramsay set all his doubts at rest. He knew what he must do. There could no longer be any question but that this was Devil Chad's work. He controlled everything around Three Points that made any money. He was out to gain control of the fishing, too, and he was not a man who would leave any job half-done. Failing to provoke a fight because the White Sturgeon had ruined his gill net, he had taken the direct approach. Beyond any doubt he would be able to produce any number of witnesses who would swear that Hans, Ramsay and Pieter were the aggressors. Ramsay knew what he was going to do about this. "Take the shotgun," he whispered, and pressed the weapon upon Pieter. "But ..." "Take it," Ramsay repeated. Leaving the shotgun with the bewildered Pieter, he dropped to the ground and wormed farther away from the circle of light. Into the shadows he went, then on toward the lake. Now he did not know where Hans and Pieter were or what they were doing, but he was positive that they would take any action necessary when the time came. He no longer felt alone. This was a thing that could never be settled with guns but must be slugged out toe to toe and man to man. The fishing was worthwhile, and any man who would get and keep anything worthwhile had to be ready to fight for it. If Devil Chad had already fled, tomorrow they must go into Three Points and seek him out. Ramsay halted, peering around. He could see nothing clearly. The flames had died down and there was only dimness, filled with varying shadows that were most difficult to identify. But what was that down at the edge of the lake? It seemed to rise and fall with the rising and falling waves. Most of the shadows were there one second and flitted away the next, but this did not flit away, and after another thirty seconds Ramsay was fairly sure that it was a Mackinaw boat, anchored out in the lake. Its crew had waded ashore from it and, when and if they ran, they would wade back to it. Ramsay began a slow, steady crawl toward the anchored craft. The burning pound boats flared brightly, seeming to ring him with a halo of light. He shrank back, certain he could be seen, then as the glare subsided, crawled forward again. If he could see no one in the darkness, neither could anyone see him. He was within thirty yards of the lake now, and he no longer gave a thought to Hans and Pieter. He was sure only that they would be present when they were needed and that his way was the right one. There could be no compromise with destruction and no lingering aftermath of this outrage. Whatever was to be settled had to be settled completely, and tonight. Ramsay was certain now that the thing he saw was an anchored Mackinaw boat. It remained in the same place, rising and falling with the waves, and no nebulous shadow did that. Intent on the boat, he was not aware of the man until he heard his voice, "Gus, you fool! I said be quiet!" Ramsay held very still, and a rising exultation flooded him. He had heard that voice before, and there was only one just like it. He had heard it first when he stood on the _Holter_--that seemed years ago. He knew that he lay within feet of Devil Chad, who was indeed waiting in ambush with his men. The angry voice repeated, "Be quiet! They'll come!" Ramsay rose and rushed forward, flinging himself into this combat with all the fierce joy of a newly awakened warrior. He had given a full summer, an important part of his life, to building up a career which he greatly loved. Now he stood ready to defend it with his muscles, his heart and, if need be, his life. He saw Devil Chad rise uncertainly to meet him, not knowing whether he was friend or foe. He aimed a mighty kick at the shotgun in the other's hands, and he knew that he had knocked it completely out of his enemy's grasp. He felt a fresh burst of wind on his cheek and, strangely, knew all about the storm that was brewing on the great lake. He closed with his enemy. Devil Chad and his men had come to destroy and, if necessary, to kill. But they had counted on Ramsay, Pieter and Hans, charging angrily up the sand beach. Outlined against the burning boats, they would be at a tremendous disadvantage. A hail of lead from five shotguns could cut them down in almost no time. They had their choice between surrendering or dying for what they believed in. It had never occurred to Devil Chad or his men that an enemy would dare crawl into their very midst. The darkness that had befriended them now became their enemy. Nobody dared shoot because nobody could possibly be certain whether he were shooting at friend or foe. Ramsay edged up to Devil Chad and swung a tremendous upper-cut to the other's jaw. He missed, felt his knuckles graze his enemy's cheek, and stepped back for a new try. Only vaguely was he aware of muffled exclamations that became shouts and then grunts. He knew that Pieter and Hans had closed in. Then it was as though he and Devil Chad were alone. This was something that had to be. The seed that made the task necessary had been planted long ago, on the _Holter_. It had taken deep root during the fight in the tannery. Since that time Ramsay had met every challenge the lake had flung at him. Now he would have to prove himself capable of meeting the challenges men flung at him. Then, and only then, could he survive. Ramsay's lips framed a grin. He had taken the risk, and he had won. For one brief second somebody might have shot him down, then the opportunity was forever gone. Now nobody dared shoot. He found a firm footing on the lake sand. Ramsay dodged a terrific blow that would have knocked him flat had it connected, and went back in with his arms swinging. He sunk a left and a right to his adversary's midriff and heard Devil Chad's breath whistle out of his clenched lips. He drew back to strike again. Like the bull he was, Devil Chad charged recklessly. He took Ramsay's stinging blows without flinching, and the boy had to give ground. But it was not lost ground, and for one brief, glorious second Ramsay stood and traded blows. His head rocked, but he took what the other had to offer and returned it in full measure. Then he learned his mistake. A pair of gigantic arms were flung about his middle. They tightened like a vise, bending him backward and seeming to compress him into a space not half-big enough. His spine was ready to crack, and lights danced in his head. He gasped for air. The many lessons he had been taught by Hans Van Doorst came to his rescue. Four months ago, and perhaps even one month ago, the fight would have been ended by that terrific bear hug. But now Ramsay remembered in time that he was not fighting a man alone but a man who was part beast. And it was never wise to lose one's head. A man must always adapt himself and fight like a beast if he fought with one. Summoning all his remaining strength, Ramsay drew back his right foot and sent his heavy shoe smashing into Devil Chad's shin. The fellow relaxed his hold and staggered back into the darkness. Ramsay stumbled away from him. Devil Chad was a bull, he remembered, and he did not know about matadors. The next time he rushed, the boy stepped aside and let his opponent's momentum carry him past. Ramsay's strength and breath came back. He became cool, able to reason coolly. Devil Chad outweighed him by fifty pounds, so he must not close again. If he did not, and there were no accidents, he, Ramsay, would win this fight. For the first time in his life Devil Chad was fighting his equal. Ramsay felt strength swell within him. It was the strength of the lake, and it had flowed into his body through the numberless sturgeon he had carried to the pond and from the many times he had helped bring in the seine and from the many fish he had scooped from the raised pound nets. He was no longer a boy but a man. The burning pound boats were falling into embers now, and as the light they cast receded the blackness of the night became more intense. Wind keened in from the lake, and the waves assaulting the sand beach made themselves heard. Ramsay waded in, his fists flying. In the darkness he was aware of Devil Chad coming to meet him, but his deception of his opponent was complete. From the first, he had had no intention of meeting him squarely. He stepped aside, lashing out with both fists as he did so, and felt both of them collide soddenly with Devil Chad's chin. The latter bellowed, swung his head and hooked viciously. But he hooked falsely, for Ramsay was not there. His lithe body, dodging and twisting, now here and now there, became like the cape that lures the bull to its doom. Devil Chad swung and kicked, and often he struck his target. But he did not strike hard enough to bring Ramsay down, and he could not again get a grip with his giant arms, although he tried desperately. Roaring wildly, he charged. But it was a blind, mad attack, directed almost completely by rage and desperation. Ramsay licked his upper lip, vaguely aware of the fact that he was tasting his own blood but not caring. He felt no pain, and it was oddly as though he sat on some high pinnacle from which he could watch himself and direct himself. Both his fists lashed squarely into Devil Chad's face, driven by all the strength in his hard, young body. Devil Chad paused, as though bewildered, and Ramsay knew that he was stunned. Not stopping, throwing some of his caution to the wind, he followed up his advantage. His fists worked like cracking whips as he struck again and again. Devil Chad spun around, took two halting steps, and sank to one knee. He remained there like some carved statue, and again Ramsay licked away the blood that flowed down his face. Now, if he did the correct thing, he would go in and end it with kicking feet. He would beat Devil Chad as mercilessly as he had been beaten. But he did not. He waited, cool and poised, while the other bowed before him. Only when Devil Chad lurched to his feet and struck out drunkenly did Ramsay go in again, and he went in with his fists. He beat a continuous, almost unopposed tatto on his enemy's chin. The second time Devil Chad collapsed he measured his full length on the sand, and he did not move again. Ramsay stood watching intently for several moments. He wanted to make certain that he had met his enemy fairly and defeated him fairly. How long he had been fighting he did not know. It seemed like a few seconds, but it must have been much longer. He only knew that he had come out of the battle stronger than he was when he went into it. He called, "Hans?" "Here," the Dutch fisherman answered. His voice was strained, but even now there was nothing of desperation in it. Rather, it was a joyous voice. Ramsay turned toward it and saw scuffling men. He approached them and reached out with groping hands until he touched another man. It was neither Hans nor Pieter, and as soon as he was sure of that he swung. He felt a strong disappointment, for the heat of battle flared strong within him and, instead of fighting back, the man merely collapsed on the sand. Obviously he had already been manhandled by Hans and had little strength left. Ramsay looked strangely at him, as though there was something that should not be. Then he became aware of the fact that dawn had come and he could see. He turned to help Hans or Pieter, whichever needed it the most, and he turned just in time to see Hans hit Joe Mannis so hard that the body-watcher flew into the air, described a little backward whirl, and fell on the sand. Hans stood, shaggy and huge, breathing hard, but unbeaten and unbeatable. Moving over beside him, Ramsay felt that at last he was worthy to stand there. Both watched while Pieter teased the single remaining man, one of the hired ruffians who had helped set the gill net, then slapped him resoundingly on both cheeks. As though he were unworthy of further notice, Pieter whirled on his heel and left his foe. The man went weaving up the beach into the lightening morning. Hans grinned wryly at Ramsay. "Your face, it looks like a horse stepped on it." "You've got a couple of mosquito bites yourself." "Yaah." Hans grinned again. Ramsay said, "They got our boats." Hans said, "They got our nets, too. Joe Mannis, he told me that when we fought. They would get us, he said." "They didn't." "No, they didn't." They turned at a sudden wooden scraping out on the lake, and saw the Mackinaw boat under way. Beaten and bruised, Devil Chad crouched at the oars. Hurriedly he sent the boat farther out, toward the open lake. They watched as though this were some foreign sight of no interest whatever. Hans walked over to prod Joe Mannis with the toe of his shoe. "Get up," he said. Joe Mannis stirred and groaned. He opened his eyes, blinked stupidly and raised himself on one hand. There was a deceptive gentleness in Hans' words and tone, but Joe Mannis was not deceived. He knew that Hans meant it when he said, "Come down the beach once more after this storm. You will find something to interest only you. Then never let me see you again. If I do, I will drown you in the lake." Hans looked out on the lake, into the gathering storm and at the receding Mackinaw boat. High waves were already clawing at it, and Devil Chad was not yet out of the bay. Hans said, "He is not a fisherman. He is not even a sailor. I myself would think twice about taking the _Spray_ out now." Near the boat something white, something not born of the rolling whitecaps, appeared for a second and disappeared. Ramsay smiled softly. He knew that he had again seen the White Sturgeon. He also knew what Joe Mannis would find in the morning. Devil Chad. The three partners walked back down the sand to the embers of the pound boats. They stood near them, warming themselves in the last of the fire. Ramsay prodded the sand with his toe. They were right back where they had started. A whole summer's hard work had gone to satisfy the greed and lust of one man. What they had left was the seine, the row boat, the forming skeleton of the _Spray II_ and the pier. Ramsay set his jaw. They could do it again. They had done it once. He looked toward the Mackinaw boat, and discovered that it had gone out of the bay into the open lake. But his eyes were attracted by something else on the horizon. A moment later he identified it as a plume of smoke. Five minutes afterward, storm-lashed but defiant, the _Jackson_ nosed out of the lake into the sheltered bay. Manned by able seamen, sure of herself, the _Jackson_ came up to her accustomed place at the pier. Ramsay, Hans and Pieter caught her mooring ropes. Resplendent in his uniform, little Captain Williamson came down his rope ladder and strutted on the pier. "A blow," he said, as though a storm on Lake Michigan meant nothing to him. "We'll tie up here until it's over, then go back to Chicago. Have you got any fish?" "Some," Ramsay admitted. He thought of the ten barrels of whitefish that were ready for shipment, and he watched Captain Williamson's face fall. The little captain emitted a long sigh. "Some, eh? I was hoping for better news. Chicago's growing like a weed in the sun, and it's hungry. Most of the fishermen made their last shipments ten days ago. The markets are almost empty, and even sturgeon's bringing five cents a pound." For one brief second the storm clouds parted and the sun shone through. Then the sky was again overcast and the storm leaped furiously. Ramsay turned his shining face toward Hans and Pieter. The tons of sturgeon in the pond ... At five cents a pound there would be more than enough money to replace everything and to buy the finest planking for the _Spray II_. Ramsay said, "Save plenty of room on the _Jackson_. We'll need it." On top of the ridge-pole, Captain Klaus fluttered his long wings and curved his sinuous neck. As though he approved thoroughly he called, "_Quark!_" * * * * * _Books by Jim Kjelgaard_ BIG RED REBEL SIEGE FOREST PATROL BUCKSKIN BRIGADE CHIP, THE DAM BUILDER FIRE HUNTER IRISH RED KALAK OF THE ICE A NOSE FOR TROUBLE SNOW DOG TRAILING TROUBLE WILD TREK THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON THE EXPLORATIONS OF PERE MARQUETTE 
40018	----	file was produced from images generously made available by Biodiversity Heritage Library.) [Illustration front cover] _THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY_ _EDITED BY CASPAR WHITNEY_ BASS, PIKE, PERCH AND OTHERS [Illustration illo 003] [Illustration illo 005] BASS, PIKE, PERCH AND OTHERS BY JAMES A. HENSHALL, M.D. AUTHOR OF "BOOK OF THE BLACK-BASS," "MORE ABOUT THE BLACK-BASS." "CAMPING AND CRUISING IN FLORIDA," "YE GODS AND LITTLE FISHES," ETC. [Illustration illo 006] New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1903 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1903. BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped April, 1903. Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. INTRODUCTION In this volume are included all of the game-fishes of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, except the salmons and trouts, and the tarpon, jewfish, and other fishes of large size, which are described in other volumes of this series. As a matter of convenience I have grouped the fishes in families, whenever possible, but in their sequence I have been guided chiefly by their importance as game-fishes, and not in accordance with their natural order. The latter feature, however, has been provided for in a systematic list on a subsequent page. In order not to burden the text with matter that might not be of general interest, the technical descriptions of the fishes of each group are given in small type at the head of each chapter; and that they may be readily understood by the lay reader the following explanations seem necessary. The length of the head is from the point of the snout to the hindmost point or margin of the gill-cover. The length of the body is from the point of the snout to the base of the caudal fin, the fin itself not being included. The depth of the body is from the highest point of the dorsal line to the lowest point of the ventral line, usually from the base of the first dorsal fin to the base of the ventral fin. The expression "head 5" means that the length of the head is contained five times in the length of the body; the expression "depth 5" means that the depth of the body is contained five times in its length; "eye 5" means that the diameter of the eye is contained five times in the length of the head. In describing the fins the spiny rays are denoted by Roman numerals, and the soft rays by Arabic numerals, and the fins themselves by initials; thus "D. 9" means that the dorsal fin is single and composed of nine soft rays; "D. IX, 10" means that the single dorsal fin has nine spiny rays and ten soft rays; when separated by a hyphen, as "D. X-12," it means that there are two dorsal fins, the first composed of ten spiny rays and the second of twelve soft ones; "A. III, 11" means that the anal fin has three spines and eleven soft rays. The expression "scales 7-65-18" indicates that there are seven rows of scales between the dorsal fin and the lateral line, sixty-five scales along the lateral line, and eighteen oblique or horizontal rows between the lateral line and the ventral line. The number of rays in the fins and the number of scales along the lateral line, as given, represent the average number, and are subject to slight variation; thus in some localities the number of rays in a fin may be found to vary one or two, and the number of scales along the lateral line may vary from one to five, more or less, from the number given in the descriptions. I have adhered strictly to the nomenclature of the "Fishes of Middle and North America" (Bulletin, U.S. National Museum, No. 47), by Jordan and Evermann, and in the main I have followed the descriptions as recorded in that admirable work; but in many instances I have depended on my own notes. The suggestions as to angling and the tools and tackle recommended may be confidently relied on, as they are in conformity with my own practice and are based on my personal experience, covering a period of forty years, on many waters, from Canada to the West Indies, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. JAMES A. HENSHALL. BOZEMAN, MONTANA. February 1, 1903. SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE FISHES DESCRIBED IN THIS VOLUME FAMILY =SILURIDÆ= =Ictalurus punctatus= (Rafinesque). =The Channel Catfish=. FAMILY =CYPRINIDÆ= =Cyprinus carpio=, Linnæus. =The German Carp=. FAMILY =ELOPIDÆ= =Elops saurus=, Linnæus. =The Ten-pounder=. FAMILY =ALBULIDÆ= =Albula vulpes= (Linnæus). =The Lady-Fish=. FAMILY =SALMONIDÆ= =Coregonus williamsoni=, Girard. =The Rocky Mountain Whitefish=. =Argyrosomus artedi sisco=, Jordan. =The Cisco=. FAMILY =THYMALLIDÆ= =Thymallus signifer= (Richardson). =The Arctic Grayling=. =Thymallus tricolor=, Cope. =The Michigan Grayling=. =Thymallus montanus=, Milner. =The Montana Grayling=. FAMILY =ARGENTINIDÆ= =Osmerus mordax= (Mitchill). =The Smelt=. FAMILY =ESOCIDÆ= =Esox americanus=, Gmelin. =The Banded Pickerel=. =Esox vermiculatus=, Le Sueur. =The Western Pickerel=. =Esox reticulatus=, Le Sueur. =The Eastern Pickerel=. =Esox lucius=, Linnæus. =The Pike=. =Esox nobilior=, Thompson. =The Mascalonge=. FAMILY =HOLOCENTRIDÆ= =Holocentrus ascensionis= (Osbeck). =The Squirrel Fish=. FAMILY =SCOMBRIDÆ= =Sarda sarda= (Bloch). =The Bonito=. =Scomberomorus maculatus= (Mitchill). =The Spanish Mackerel=. =Scomberomorus regalis= (Bloch). =The Cero=. FAMILY =CARANGIDÆ= =Carangus crysos= (Mitchill). =The Runner=. =Carangus latus= (Agassiz). =The Horse-eye Jack=. =Trachinotus glaucus= (Bloch). =The Gaff Top-sail Pompano=. =Trachinotus goodei=, Jordan & Evermann. =The Permit=. =Trachinotus carolinus= (Linnæus). =The Pompano=. FAMILY =RACHYCENTRIDÆ= =Rachycentron canadus= (Linnæus). =The Cobia=. FAMILY =CENTRARCHIDÆ= =Pomoxis annularis=, Rafinesque. =The Crappie=. =Pomoxis sparoides= (Lacépéde). =The Calico-bass=. =Ambloplites rupestris= (Rafinesque). =The Rock-bass=. =Archoplites interruptus= (Girard). =The Sacramento Perch=. =Chænobryttus gulosus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Warmouth Perch=. =Lepomis auritus= (Linnæus). =The Red-breast Sunfish=. =Lepomis megalotis= (Rafinesque). =The Long-eared Sunfish=. =Lepomis pallidus= (Mitchill). =The Blue Sunfish=. =Eupomotis gibbosus= (Linnæus). =The Common Sunfish=. =Micropterus dolomieu=, Lacépéde. =The Small-mouth Black-bass=. =Micropterus salmoides= (Lacépéde). =The Large-mouth Black-bass=. FAMILY =PERCIDÆ= =Stizostedion vitreum= (Mitchill). =The Pike-perch=. =Stizostedion canadense= (Smith). =The Sauger=. =Perca flavescens= (Mitchill). =The Yellow Perch=. FAMILY =CENTROPOMIDÆ= =Centropomus undecimalis= (Bloch). =The Snook, or Rovallia=. FAMILY =SERRANIDÆ= =Roccus chrysops= (Rafinesque). =The White-bass=. =Roccus lineatus= (Bloch). =The Striped-bass=. =Morone interrupta=, Gill. =The Yellow-bass=. =Morone americana= (Gmelin). =The White Perch=. =Petrometopon cruentatus= (Lacépéde). =The Coney=. =Bodianus fulvus= (Linnæus). =The Nigger Fish=. =Epinephelus adscensionis= (Osbeck). =The Rock Hind=. =Epinephelus guttatus= (Linnæus). =The Red Hind=. =Mycteroperca venenosa= (Linnæus). =The Yellow Fin Grouper=. =Mycteroperca microlepis= (Goode & Bean). =The Gag=. =Mycteroperca falcata phenax=, Jordan & Swain. =The Scamp=. =Centropristes striatas= (Linnæus). =The Sea-bass=. =Centropristes ocyurus= (Jordan & Evermann). =The Gulf Sea-bass=. =Centropristes philadelphicus= (Linnæus). =The Southern Sea-bass=. =Diplectrum formosum= (Linnæus). =The Sand-fish=. FAMILY =LOBOTIDÆ= =Lobotes surinamensis= (Bloch). =The Triple Tail=. FAMILY =LUTIANIDÆ= =Lutianus jocu= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Dog Snapper=. =Lutianus apodus= (Walbaum). =The Schoolmaster=. =Lutianus aya= (Bloch). =The Red Snapper=. =Lutianus synagri=s (Linnæus). =The Lane Snapper=. =Ocyurus chrysurus= (Bloch). =The Yellow-tail=. FAMILY =HÆMULIDÆ= =Hæmulon album=, Curvier & Valenciennes. =The Margate-fish=. =Hæmulon macrostomum=, Gunther. =The Gray Grunt=. =Hæmulon parra= (Desmarest). =The Sailor's Choice=. =Hæmulon sciurus= (Shaw). =The Yellow Grunt=. =Hæmulon plumieri= (Lacépéde). =The Black Grunt=. =Hæmulon flavolineatum= (Desmarest). =The French Grunt=. =Anisotremus virginicus= (Linnæus). =The Pork-fish=. =Orthopristis chrysopterus= (Linnæus). =The Pig-fish=. FAMILY =SPARIDÆ= =Stenotomus chrysops= (Linnæus). =The Scup=. =Stenotomus aculeatus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Southern Porgy=. =Calamus calamus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Saucer-eye Porgy=. =Calamus proridens=, Jordan & Gilbert. =The Little Head Porgy=. =Calamus bajonado= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Jolt Head Porgy=. =Calamus arctifrons=, Goode & Bean. =The Grass Porgy=. =Lagodon rhomboides= (Linnæus). =The Pin-fish=. =Archosargus probatocephalus= (Walbaum). =The Sheepshead=. FAMILY =KYPHOSIDÆ= =Kyphosus sectatrix= (Linnæus). =The Bermuda Chub=. FAMILY =SCIÆNIDÆ= =Cynoscion nothus= (Holbrook). =The Bastard Weakfish=. =Cynoscion regalis= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Weakfish=. =Cynoscion thalassinus= (Holbrook). =The Deep-water Weakfish=. =Cynoscion nebulosus= (Cuvier & Valenciennes). =The Spotted Weakfish=. =Leiostomus xanthurus=, Lacépéde. =The Lafayette, or Spot=. =Micropogon undulatus= (Linnæus). =The Croaker=. =Menticirrhus saxatilis= (Bloch & Schneider). =The Kingfish=. =Aplodinotus grunniens=, Rafinesque. =The Fresh-water Drumfish=. FAMILY =LABRIDÆ= =Tautogolabrus adspersus= (Walbaum). =The Cunner=. FAMILY =EPHIPPIDÆ= =Chætodipterus faber= (Broussonet). =The Angel-fish=. FAMILY =BALISTIDÆ= =Balistes carolinensis=, Gmelin. =The Turbot=. FAMILY =PLEURONECTIDÆ= =Pseudopleuronectes americanus= (Walbaum). =The Flounder=. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE SUNFISH FAMILY, _Centrarchidæ_ 1 The Small-mouth Black-bass, _Micropterus dolomieu_ 3 The Large-mouth Black-bass, _Micropterus salmoides_ 30 The Rock-bass, _Ambloplites rupestris_ 52 The Sacramento Perch, _Archoplites interruptus_ 57 The Warmouth Perch, _Chænobryttus gulosus_ 58 The Blue Sunfish, _Lepomis pallidus_ 62 The Long-eared Sunfish, _Lepomis megalotis_ 65 The Red-breast Sunfish, _Lepomis auritus_ 67 The Common Sunfish, _Eupomotis gibbosus_ 69 The Calico-bass, _Pomoxis sparoide_ 73 The Crappie, _Pomoxis annularis_ 79 CHAPTER II THE BASS FAMILY, _Serranidæ_ 85 The White-bass, _Roccus chrysops_ 86 The Yellow-bass, _Morone interrupta_ 90 CHAPTER III THE SEA-BASS FAMILY, _Serranidæ_ (continued) 95 The Striped-bass, _Roccus lineatus_ 96 The White-perch, _Morone americana_ 110 The Sea-bass, _Centropristes striatus_ 115 The Southern Sea-bass, _Centropristes philadelphicus_ 118 The Gulf Sea-bass, _Centropristes ocyuru_ 119 CHAPTER IV THE PIKE FAMILY, _Esocidæ_ 120 The Mascalonge, _Esox nobilior_ 122 The Pike, _Esox lucius_ 137 The Eastern Pickerel, _Esox reticulatus_ 149 The Western Pickerel, _Esox vermiculatus_ 153 The Banded Pickerel, _Esox americanus_ 154 CHAPTER V THE PERCH FAMILY, _Percidæ_ 156 The Pike-perch, _Stizostedion vitreum_ 157 The Sauger, _Stizostedion canadense_ 164 The Yellow-perch, _Perca flavescens_ 165 CHAPTER VI THE GRAYLING FAMILY, _Thymallidæ_ 173 The Arctic Grayling, _Thymallus signifer_ 176 The Michigan Grayling, _Thymallus tricolor_ 178 The Montana Grayling, _Thymallus montanus_ 181 CHAPTER VII THE SALMON FAMILY, _Salmonidæ_ 203 The Rocky Mountain Whitefish, _Coregonus williamsoni_ 204 The Cisco, _Argyrosomus artedi sisco_ 207 CHAPTER VIII THE DRUM FAMILY, _Sciænidæ_ 213 The Weakfish, _Cynoscion regalis_ 215 The Bastard Weakfish, _Cynoscion nothus_ 221 The Kingfish, _Menticirrhus saxatilis_ 221 The Croaker, _Micropogon undulatus_ 226 The Lafayette, _Leiostomus xanthurus_ 228 CHAPTER IX THE DRUM FAMILY, _Sciænidæ_ (continued) 232 The Fresh-water Drumfish, _Aplodinotus grunniens_ 232 CHAPTER X THE MINNOW FAMILY, _Cyprinidæ_ 236 The German Carp, _Cyprinus carpio_ 236 CHAPTER XI THE CATFISH FAMILY, _Siluridæ_ 244 The Channel-catfish, _Ictalurus punctatus_ 244 CHAPTER XII THE SHEEPSHEAD FAMILY, _Sparidæ_ 251 The Sheepshead, _Archosargus probatocephalus_ 252 The Scup, _Stenotomus chrysops_ 259 CHAPTER XIII MISCELLANEOUS FISHES The Cunner, _Tautogolabrus adspersus_ 264 The Flounder, _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_ 266 The Smelt, _Osmerus mordax_ 269 CHAPTER XIV THE MACKEREL FAMILY, _Scombridæ_ 272 The Spanish Mackerel, _Scomberomorus maculatus_ 273 The Cero, _Scomberomorus regalis_ 278 The Bonito, _Sarda sarda_ 282 CHAPTER XV THE GROUPER FAMILY, _Serranidæ_ 285 The Gag, _Mycteroperca microlepis_ 287 The Scamp, _Mycteroperca falcata phenax_ 291 The Yellow-finned Grouper, _Mycteroperca venenosa_ 294 The Rock Hind, _Epinephelus adscensionis_ 295 The Red Hind, _Epinephelus guttatus_ 297 The Coney, _Petrometopon cruentatus_ 299 The Nigger-fish, _Bodianus fulvus_ 300 The Sand-fish, _Diplectrum formosum_ 303 CHAPTER XVI THE CAVALLI FAMILY, _Carangidæ_ 306 The Runner, _Carangus chrysos_ 307 The Horse-eye Jack, _Carangus latus_ 310 The Pompano, _Trachinotus carolinus_ 311 CHAPTER XVII THE CHANNEL FISHES THE GRUNT FAMILY, _Hæmulidæ_ 321 The Black Grunt, _Hæmulon plumieri_ 323 The Yellow Grunt, _Hæmulon sciurus_ 326 The Margate-fish, _Hæmulon album_ 328 The Sailor's Choice, _Hæmulon parra_ 330 The Pig-fish, _Orthopristis chrysopterus_ 331 The Pork-fish, _Anisotremus virginicus_ 334 THE SNAPPER FAMILY, _Lutianidæ_ 336 The Yellow-tail, _Ocyurus chrysurus_ 338 The Lane Snapper, _Lutianus synagris_ 339 The Red Snapper, _Lutianus aya_ 342 The Dog Snapper, _Lutianus jocu_ 344 The Schoolmaster, _Lutianus apodus_ 345 THE PORGY FAMILY, _Sparidæ_ 347 The Jolt-head Porgy, _Calamus bajonado_ 348 The Saucer-eye Porgy, _Calamus calamus_ 350 The Little-head Porgy, _Calamus proridens_ 352 The Grass Porgy, _Calamus arctifrons_ 353 CHAPTER XVIII MISCELLANEOUS FISHES The Lady-fish, _Albula vulpes_ 355 The Ten-pounder, _Elops saurus_ 361 The Snook, _Centropomus undecimalis_ 366 The Triple-tail, _Lobotes surinamensis_ 370 The Cobia, _Rachycentron canadus_ 373 The Spotted Weakfish, _Cynoscion nebulosus_ 376 The Deep-sea Weakfish, _Cynoscion thalassinus_ 381 The Bermuda Chub, _Kyphosus sectatrix_ 382 The Angel-fish, _Chætodipterus faber_ 384 The Pinfish, _Lagodon rhomboides_ 386 The Squirrel-fish, _Holocentrus ascensionis_ 388 The Turbot, _Balistes carolinensis_ 390 INDEX 401 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE OSWEGO (LARGE-MOUTH) BASS 36 THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS. THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS. THE ROCK-BASS 62 SURF-FISHING FOR BASS 96 CATCHING SEA-BASS OFF NEWPORT 100 THE SEA-BASS. THE MASCALONGE. THE PIKE 114 THE MASCALONGE OF THE WEEDS. TROLLING WITH HANDLINE 120 THE EASTERN PICKEREL. THE WESTERN PICKEREL. THE PIKE-PERCH. THE YELLOW-PERCH 140 THE ARCTIC GRAYLING. THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING. THE MONTANA GRAYLING 174 THE MORE SPORTSMANLY WAY OF CATCHING MASCALONGE 200 THE WEAKFISH. THE KINGFISH. THE GERMAN CARP 226 THE CHANNEL-CATFISH. THE SHEEPSHEAD. THE CUNNER 244 FISHING FOR CUNNERS 250 THE FLOUNDER. THE SMELT. THE SPANISH MACKEREL 264 THE BONITO. THE NIGGER-FISH. THE POMPANO 280 CATCHING SPANISH MACKEREL ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF STREAM 300 THE BLACK GRUNT. THE RED SNAPPER 322 THE JOLT-HEAD PORGY. THE LADY-FISH. THE COBIA 348 TAKING BONITO BY TROLLING OFF BLOCK ISLAND 350 THE ANGEL-FISH. THE TURBOT 384 BASS, PIKE, AND PERCH CHAPTER I THE SUNFISH FAMILY (_Centrarchidæ_) The sunfish family is composed entirely of fresh-water fishes. They are characterized by a symmetrically-shaped body, rather short and compressed; mouth terminal; teeth small, without canines; scales rather large; cheeks and gill-covers scaly; scales mostly smooth; border of preopercle smooth, or but slightly serrated; opercle ending in two flat points, or in a black flap; a single dorsal fin, composed of both spiny and soft rays; anal fin also having both spines and soft rays; the dorsal spines varying from 6 to 13 in the different species, with from 3 to 9 in the anal fin; sexes similar; coloration mostly greenish. GENUS MICROPTERUS _Micropterus dolomieu._ Small-mouth Black-bass. Body ovate-oblong; head 3; depth 3; eye 6; D. X, 13; A. III, 10; scales 11-73-17; mouth large, the maxillary reaching front of eye; scales on cheek minute, in 17 rows; teeth villiform. _Micropterus salmoides._ Large-mouth Black-bass. Body ovate-oblong; head 3; depth 3; eye 5; D. X, 13; A. III, 11; scales 8-68-16; scales on cheek large, in 10 rows; mouth very large, maxillary extending beyond the eye; teeth villiform. GENUS AMBLOPLITES _Ambloplites rupestris._ Rock-bass. Body oblong, moderately compressed; head 2-3/4; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; D. XI, 10; A. VI, 10; scales 5-40-12, with 6 to 8 rows on cheeks; mouth large, maxillary extending to posterior part of pupil; teeth small, single patch on tongue; gill-rakers 7 to 10, on lower part of arch; preopercle serrate near its angle; opercle ends in 2 flat points. GENUS ARCHOPLITES _Archoplites interruptus._ Sacramento Perch. Body oblong-ovate, compressed; head 2-2/3; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; D. XII, 10; A. VI, 10; scales 7-45-14; 8 rows on cheeks; mouth very large, maxillary extending beyond pupil; teeth numerous and small, with 2 patches on tongue; gill-rakers 20; opercle emarginate; most of the membrane bones of head serrate. GENUS CHÆNOBRYTTUS _Chænobryttus gulosus._ Warmouth Perch. Body heavy and deep; head 2-1/2; depth 2-1/4; eye 4; D. X, 9; A. III, 8; scales 6-42-11; 6 to 8 rows on cheeks; teeth small and numerous; gill-rakers 9; preopercle entire; mouth very large; opercle ends in a black convex flap. GENUS LEPOMIS _Lepomis pallidus._ Blue Sunfish. Body short and deep, compressed; head 3; depth 2; eye 3-1/2; D. X, 12; A. III, 12; scales 7-46-16; 5 rows on cheeks; mouth small, maxillary barely reaching eye; teeth small and sharp; opercular flap without pale edge; gill-rakers x + 11 to 13. _Lepomis megalotis._ Long-eared Sunfish. Body short and deep, the back arched; head 3; depth 2; eye 4; D. X, 11; A. III, 9; scales 5-40-14; 5 rows on cheeks; mouth small and oblique; opercular flap long and broad, with red or blue margin; gill-rakers x + 8 or 9. _Lepomis auritus._ Red-breast Sunfish. Body elongate; head 3; depth 3; eye 4; D. X, 11; A. III, 9; scales 6-45-15; mouth large, oblique; palatine teeth present; gill-rakers _x_ + 8 or 9, quite short; opercular flap very long and narrow; scales on breast very small; 7 rows scales on cheeks. GENUS EUPOMOTIS _Eupomotis gibbosus._ Common Sunfish. Body short and deep, compressed; head 3; depth 2; eye 4; D. X, 11; A. III, 10; scales 6-45-13; 4 rows on cheeks; mouth small, oblique, maxillary scarcely reaching front of eye; pharyngeal teeth paved and rounded; gill-rakers soft and small, _x_ + 10; opercular flap rather small, the lower part bright scarlet. GENUS POMOXIS _Pomoxis sparoides._ Calico-bass. Body oblong, elevated, much compressed; head 3; depth 2; D. VII, 15; A. VI, 17; scales 40 to 45; 6 rows on cheeks; mouth large, maxillary reaching to posterior edge of pupil; snout projecting; fins very high, anal higher than dorsal. _Pomoxis annularis._ Crappie. Body rather elongate; head 3; depth 2-1/3; D. VI, 15; A. VI, 18; scales 36 to 48; 4 or 5 rows on cheek; mouth very wide; fins very high, but lower than _sparoides_. THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS (_Micropterus dolomieu_) The generic name _Micropterus_ was given to the small-mouth black-bass by the French ichthyologist Lacépéde, in 1802, who was the first to describe it. The name _Micropterus_, which means "small fin," was bestowed on account of the mutilated condition of the dorsal fin of the specimen, a few of the posterior rays of the fin being detached and broken off, giving the appearance of a short and separate fin. The specimen was sent to Paris from an unknown locality in America, and is still preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, where I personally examined it. It is a fine example, about a foot in length, and is remarkably well preserved. As there was no known genus to which the specimen with the curious dorsal fin could be referred, Lacépéde created the new genus _Micropterus_. He gave it the specific name _dolomieu_ as a compliment to his friend M. Dolomieu, a French mineralogist, for whom the mineral dolomite was also named. Originally, the small-mouth black-bass was restricted to the Great Lake region, parts of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and along the upper reaches of streams flowing from the Alleghany Mountains in the Southern states. It has, however, been introduced into all of the New England and Middle states, and into many Western states. It has a compressed, rather elliptical body, the dorsal and ventral outlines being nearly equal; it becomes deeper with age. As its range, or distribution, is so great and extensive, and the waters it inhabits are so different in hue and character, the coloration of the small-mouth bass varies from almost black to the faintest tinge of green, in different sections of the country. The coloration is so variable that it differs even in fish in the same waters. It is influenced mostly by the hue of the water, character of the bottom, the presence or absence of weeds about the haunts of the bass, and, moreover, the changes in color may occur in a very short time when subject to these various conditions. The general color, however, is greenish of various shades, always darker on the back, and paling to white or whitish on the belly. When markings are present, they form vertical patches or bars, never horizontal. Three bronze streaks extend from the eye across the cheeks. All markings, however, may become obsolete with age. The natural food of both species is crawfish, which might be inferred from the character of their teeth and wide-opening mouth. There is a popular belief that they are essentially and habitually piscivorous; but this is an error; they are not so black as they are painted. They feed on minute crustaceans and larval forms of insects when young, and afterward on crawfish, minnows, frogs, insects, etc., as do most fishes that have teeth in the jaws. But the teeth of the black-bass are villiform and closely packed, presenting an even surface as uniform as the surface of a tooth-brush. Such teeth are incapable of wounding, and merely form a rough surface for holding their prey securely. All truly piscivorous fishes have fewer, but sharp, conical teeth, of unequal length, like the yellow-perch, pike-perch, mascalonge, and trout, or lancet-shaped teeth like the bluefish. The black-bass is far less destructive to fish life than any of the fishes mentioned; on the contrary, it suffers the most in a mixed community of fishes, and is the first to disappear. There are small lakes in Canada and Michigan where the brook-trout and black-bass have coexisted from time immemorial without jeopardy to the trout. There are small lakes in Wisconsin where black-bass and cisco, with other species, have coexisted for all time; and while the cisco is as numerous as ever, the black-bass has almost disappeared. It does not follow, however, that black-bass should be introduced in trout waters; far from it. Brook-trout are being exterminated fast enough, owing to the changed natural conditions of the streams and their surroundings, without adding another contestant for the limited supply of food in such waters. Both species of black-bass have been introduced into Germany, France, Russia, and the Netherlands. In Germany, especially, they have found a permanent home. It was my privilege materially to assist Herr Max von dem Borne, of Berneuchen, with such advice as enabled him to start on a sure footing in his enterprise, and with such subsequent success in its establishment that he published several brochures on the black-bass to meet the demand for information as to its habits and merits as a game and food-fish. An effort was made some years ago to introduce the black-bass into English waters, but without success, owing to a want of knowledge as to the proper species to experiment with. The small-mouth bass was placed in weedy ponds or small lakes in which only the large-mouth bass would live. The small-mouth bass thrives only in comparatively clear, cool, and rocky or gravelly streams, and in lakes and ponds supplied by such streams or having cold bottom springs. In lakes of the latter character, in northern sections, it coexists with large-mouth bass in many instances. In such cases, however, the small-mouth will be found usually at the inlet, or about the springs, and the large-mouth at the outlet or in sheltered, grassy situations. In winter it undergoes a state of partial or complete torpidity. In ponds that have been drained in the winter season it has been found snugly ensconced in the crevices of rocks, beneath shelving banks, logs, roots, or among masses of vegetation, undergoing its winter sleep. In the spring, when the temperature of the water rises above fifty degrees, the small-mouth bass emerges from its winter quarters, about which it lingers until the water becomes still warmer, when it departs in search of suitable locations for spawning. At this time, owing to a semi-migratory instinct, it ascends streams, and roams about in lakes or ponds, often ascending inlet streams, or in some instances descending outlet streams. When favorable situations are found, the male and female pair off and proceed to fulfil the reproductive instinct. The spawning period extends from May to July, according to the section of the country it inhabits, and when the temperature of the water is suitable. The nests are formed on a bottom of gravel or coarse sand, or on a flat rock in very rocky streams. The male fish does the work of preparation by scouring with fins and tail a space about twice his length in diameter, forming a shallow, saucer-shaped depression, in which the female deposits her eggs, which are fertilized by the male, who hovers near by. The eggs are heavy and adhesive, being invested with a glutinous matter that enables them to adhere to the pebbles on the bottom. The number of eggs varies from two thousand to twenty-five thousand, according to the size and weight of the female. The nest is carefully guarded by the parents until the eggs hatch, the period of incubation being from one to two weeks, according to the temperature of the water. The resultant fry are then watched and brooded by the male fish for several days or a week, when they seek the shelter of weeds and grasses in shallow water. The young fry feed on minute crustaceans and the larval forms of insects. When a month old they are about an inch long, and continue to grow, if food is plentiful, so that they reach a length of from three to six inches in the fall. Thereafter they increase a pound a year under the most favorable conditions, until the maximum weight is attained, which is about five pounds. In some instances, however, they have reached a weight of seven or even ten pounds, where the environment has been unusually favorable; notably in Glen Lake, near Glens Falls, New York, where a half-dozen or more have been taken weighing from eight to ten pounds. One of ten pounds was twenty-five and one-half inches long and nineteen inches in girth. As a game-fish the black-bass has come into his inheritance. As the French say, he has arrived. With the special tools and tackle now furnished for his capture, he has proved my aphorism. "Inch for inch, and pound for pound, he is the gamest fish that swims." When I ventured this opinion twenty-five years ago, there were no special articles made for his capture except the Kentucky reel and the McGinnis rod, twelve feet long and fifteen ounces in weight. In awarding the palm as a game-fish to the black-bass, I do so advisedly, in the light of ample experience with all other game-fishes, and without prejudice, for I have an innate love and admiration for all, from the lovely trout of the mountain brook to the giant tarpon of the sea. In the application of so broad and sweeping an assertion each and every attribute of a game-fish must be well considered: his habitat; his aptitude to rise to the fly; his struggle for freedom; his manner of resistance; his weight as compared with other game-fishes; and his excellence as a food-fish, must be separately and collectively considered and duly and impartially weighed. His haunts are amid most charming and varied scenes. Not in the silent and solemn solitudes of the primeval forests, where animated Nature is evidenced mainly in swarms of gnats, black-flies, and mosquitoes; nor under the shadows of grand and lofty mountains, guarded by serried ranks of pines and firs, but whose sombre depths are void of feathered songsters. However grand, sublime, and impressive such scenes truly are, they do not appeal profoundly to the angler. He must have life, motion, sound. He courts Nature in her more communicative moods, and in the haunts of the black-bass his desires are realized. Wading down the rippling stream, casting his flies hither and yon, alert for the responsive tug, the sunlight is filtered through overhanging trees, while the thrush, blackbird, and cardinal render the air vocal with sweet sounds, and his rival, the kingfisher, greets him with vibrant voice. The summer breeze, laden with the scent of woodland blossoms, whispers among the leaves, the wild bee flits by on droning wing, the squirrel barks defiantly, and the tinkle of the cow-bell is mellowed in the distance. I know of such streams in the mountain valleys of West Virginia, amid the green rolling hills of Kentucky and Tennessee, and in the hill country where Missouri and Arkansas meet. The aptitude of the black-bass to rise to the artificial fly is not questioned by the twentieth-century angler, though it was considered a matter of doubt by many anglers during the last quarter of the nineteenth. The doubt was mainly owing to a lack of experience, for fly-fishing for black-bass was successfully practised in Kentucky as early, certainly, as 1845. I have before me a click reel made in 1848 by the late Mr. J.L. Sage, of Lexington, Kentucky, especially for fly-fishing. I have also seen his fly-rod made by him about the same time, and used by him for many years on the famous bass streams of that state. And I might say, in passing, that blackbass bait-fishing, as an art, originated in Kentucky a century ago. George Snyder, of Paris, Kentucky, when president of the Bourbon County Angling Club, made the first multiplying reel for casting the minnow, in 1810, and as early as 1830 many such reels were used in that state. The rods employed by those pioneers of black-bass fishing were about ten feet long, weighing but several ounces, cut from the small end of a Mississippi cane, with the reel lashed to the butt. They used the smallest Chinese "sea-grass" lines, or home-made lines of three strands of black sewing-silk twisted together. Those old disciples of Walton would have been shocked, could they have seen the heavy rods and coarse lines that are still used in some sections, for their own tackle was as light, if not so elegant, as any made at the present day. Another quality in a game-fish is measured by his resistance when hooked and by his efforts to escape. I think no fish of equal weight exhibits so much finesse and stubborn resistance, under such conditions, as the black-bass. Most fishes when hooked attempt to escape by tugging and pulling in one direction, or by boring toward the bottom, and if not successful in breaking away soon give up the unequal contest. But the black-bass exhibits, if not intelligence, something akin to it, in his strategical manoeuvres. Sometimes his first effort is to bound into the air at once and attempt to shake out the hook, as if he knew his misfortune came from above. At other times he dashes furiously, first in one direction, then in another, pulling strongly meanwhile, then leaps into the air several times in quick succession, madly shaking himself with open jaws. I have seen him fall on a slack line, and again by using his tail as a lever and the water as a fulcrum, throw himself over a taut line, evidently with the intent to break it or tear out the hook. Another clever ruse is to wind the line around a root or rock, and still another is to embed himself in a clump of water-weeds if permitted to do so. Or, finding it useless to pull straight away, he reverses his tactics and swims rapidly toward the angler, shaking himself and working his jaws, meanwhile, as if he knew that with a slack line he would be more apt to disengage the hook. I have never known a black-bass to sulk like the salmon by lying motionless on the bottom. He is never still unless he succeeds in reaching a bed of weeds. He is wily and adroit, but at the same time he is brave and valiant. He seems to employ all the known tactics of other fishes, and to add a few of his own in his gallant fight for freedom. As a food-fish there is, in my estimation, but one fresh-water fish that is better, the whitefish of the Great Lakes. Its flesh is white, firm, and flaky, with a fine savor, and a juicy, succulent quality that is lacking with most other fresh-water fishes. About the spawning period, especially in fish from weedy ponds, it is somewhat musky or muddy in flavor, like other fishes in similar situations; but by skinning the fish instead of scaling it much of that unpleasant feature is removed. BLACK-BASS TACKLE The first consideration for the fly-fisher is suitable tools and tackle, and the most important article of his outfit is the fly-rod. Fortunately, at the present day, manufacturers turn out such good work that one does not have to seek far to obtain the best. And the best is one made of split bamboo by a first-class maker. Such a rod necessarily commands a good price, but it is the cheapest in the end, for with proper care it will last a lifetime. I have rods of this character that I have used for thirty years that are still as good as new. But the angler should eschew the shoddy split-bamboo rods that are sold in the department stores for a dollar. A wooden rod at a moderate price is far better than a split-bamboo rod at double its cost. Rods are now made much better, of better material, and considerably shorter and lighter than formerly, and withal they are much better in balance and action. If any evidence were needed to prove and establish the superiority of the modern single-handed fly-rod over the old-style rod, it is only necessary to refer to the following facts: At the tournament of the New York State Sportsman's Association, in 1880, a cast of seventy feet won the first prize for distance; and at that time the longest on record was Seth Green's cast of eighty-six feet. At a contest of the San Francisco Fly-casting Club held on October 11, 1902, at Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park, Mr. H.C. Golcher made the remarkable and wonderful cast of one hundred and forty feet, beating the previous record cast of one hundred and thirty-four feet, held jointly by Mr. Golcher and Mr. W.D. Mansfield of the same club. A suitable fly-rod for black-bass fishing may be from nine to ten and one-half feet in length, and weigh from six and one-half to eight ounces, according to the preferences of the angler and the waters to be fished. For an all-round rod for all-round work my ideal is ten and a quarter feet long and weighing seven ounces in split bamboo and eight ounces in ash and lancewood, or ash and bethabara. It should be made in three pieces, with a stiffish backbone, constituting the lower third of its length, and with most of the bend in the upper two-thirds. A rod constructed on this principle will afford just the requisite amount of resiliency for casting, with sufficient pliancy and elasticity for playing a fish, and embody all the power and strength needed. The reel-seat should be simply a shallow groove in the hand-piece, with reel-bands, instead of the solid metal reel-seat, which subserves no good purpose and is only added weight; moreover, it is now put on the cheapest rods as a trap to catch the unwary. All metal mountings should be German silver or brass. Nickel-plated mountings are cheap and nasty. A light, single-action click reel of German silver or aluminum of fifty or sixty yards' capacity is the best. A plain crank handle is to be preferred to a balance handle, but in either case there should be a projecting rim or safety band, within which the handle revolves, in order to prevent fouling of the line. My own preference is for the English pattern, with a knobbed handle affixed to the edge of a revolving disk on the face of the reel. A multiplying reel with an adjustable click may be utilized instead of a click reel for fly-fishing. The enamelled, braided silk line is the only one suitable for casting the fly, and there is no better. A level line will answer, but a tapered one is better adapted for long casts. It may taper toward one end or both ways from the centre, the latter being preferable. From twenty-five to thirty yards is sufficient for all emergencies. It should be thoroughly dried every day it is used. A convenient way is to wind it around the back of a chair. Leaders may be from three to six feet long, accordingly as one or two flies are used in the cast. It should be composed of single, clear, round silkworm-gut fibre, tapering from the reel line to the distal end. It should not be tested to a greater weight than two pounds, as testing silkworm-gut weakens it very materially. It may be stained or not, though there is no advantage in coloring it; I prefer the natural hue. There should be a loop at the small end, and one three feet above it, for attaching the snells of flies. Before using it, it must be soaked in water until soft and pliable. Extra leaders may be carried in a box between layers of damp felt, so as to be ready for emergencies. The best and smallest and most secure knot for tying the lengths of gut together in making the leader is a simple half-hitch, like tying a single knot in a piece of string. When thoroughly soaked, the two ends to be tied are lapped a couple of inches, and a single knot, or half-hitch made in them, pulling the knot tight, and cutting off the loose ends closely. Snells should be three or four inches long, of good single gut, the shorter length for end fly. If the flies are made with a loop at the head, the snells for same should have a loop at each end for attaching to both fly and leader. If flies are made on eyed hooks, the snell should have but one loop for the leader, and a free end for tying to the eye of hook. The best knot for the purpose is made by passing the end of snell through the eye of hook, then around the shank just below the eye, and then between the shank and snell and draw tight, forming a jam knot. Where the snell is tied to the fly, it should likewise have a loop for attaching to the leader. It should also be reinforced by a piece of gut an inch long at the head of the fly to strengthen it and prevent chafing. Snells, whether separate or tied to flies, should be carried like leaders between layers of damp felt. Most flies made for black-bass fishing are too large. The largest trout flies tied on hooks Nos. 4 to 6 are big enough. As just mentioned, they are tied directly to the snell on tapered hooks, or made with a small gut loop at the head of the fly, which is much the best way. Since the introduction of the eyed hook, or rather a revival of it, for trout flies, they are now utilized for bass flies also. As between the Pennell hook with turned-down eye and the Hall hook with turned-up eye, there is not much choice. Both patterns are based on the old Limerick hook. I prefer the Sproat or O'Shaughnessy to either, with gut loop at the head of the fly. If the black-bass is not color-blind, he seems to have a penchant for brown, gray, black, and yellow, as flies embodying these colors seem to be more attractive to him than others. One can judge in this matter, however, only from experience. And even then the deduction of one angler is often at variance with the inference of another. The most successful bass flies, like salmon flies, are not made in imitation of natural insects. This is true also of some of the "general" trout flies that have proved particularly pleasing to the black-bass, as the professor, grizzly king, king of the waters, Montreal, coachman, etc. True, the black, gray, red, and yellow hackles, which are supposed to be imitations of caterpillars, are very useful on nearly all waters; but their resemblance to any known larval forms is very slight. There is a well-known rule in regard to the size and color of flies to be used at particular states and stages of the water, and in accordance with the time and character of the day. It is to use small and dark flies on bright days, with low and clear water; and larger and brighter flies on dark days with high or turbid water, and at dusk. This rule is hoary with age. It has come down to us through past centuries with the indorsement of thousands of intelligent and observant anglers, and should be respected accordingly. It is in the main reliable and trustworthy. Of course there will occur exceptions to prove the rule. And some iconoclastic anglers at this late day, in view of the exceptions, declare that it is entirely valueless as a guide; but they offer nothing better. It is true, nevertheless, and a safe rule to follow. FLY-FISHING To be a successful fly-fisher for black-bass the angler must know something of the habits of his quarry, or at least of its haunts and favorite places of resort. On streams these places are in the eddies of rocks or large boulders, in the deeper water above and below riffles, under shelving banks and rocks, among the submerged roots of trees on the bank, near weed patches, driftwood, and logs, and in the vicinity of gravelly bars and shoals. Except in cloudy weather the angler may rest during the noon hours, as the most favorable time is in the morning and late afternoon until dusk. If wading, the angler should fish down-stream, and when the shadows are long, should endeavor to keep the sun in front. He should move slowly and cautiously, making as little noise as possible, casting to the sides and in front over every likely spot. Casts of thirty or forty feet are usually sufficient. The flies should be allowed to float down-stream, with tremulous motions, sidewise, to imitate the struggles of a drowning insect, and then permitted to sink several inches or a foot at each cast. Whipping the stream is sometimes quite successful where the bass does not respond to ordinary casting. This is done by casting in quick succession and repeatedly over one spot, allowing the flies merely to touch the water, until several such casts are made, when they should be permitted to sink, for a few seconds, as before. In making up the cast, two flies should be selected of different combinations of colors, as polka and professor. If necessary, changes should be made until two are selected that seem to meet the fastidious fancy of the fish. If a taut line is maintained, the bass usually hooks himself, but the angler should strike quickly upon feeling the slightest tug, or when seeing the swirl of the fish. One cannot strike too quickly. By striking is meant a simple turning of the hand sidewise, with a perfectly tight line; this is amply sufficient to set the hook. Should the line be slack and lifeless at the moment, a more vigorous movement is required, but even then it is usually too late. When a bass is hooked, the contest should be between rod and fish, rather than between the reel and fish. It is the spring of the rod that conquers him, not the giving and taking of line. If the rod is held firmly, at an angle of forty-five degrees, with the thumb on the spool of the reel, there is no likelihood of a good rod breaking. Line should be given grudgingly, and the fish kept on the surface as much as possible. When exhausted he should be drawn over the landing-net and lifted out quickly, at the same time releasing the thumb from the reel to relieve the strain on the rod. In fishing from the bank in deeper streams, or from a boat on small lakes, whereby the fish is better enabled to see the angler, longer casts are necessary, or the angler must screen himself from observation by trees or bushes on the bank. The boat should be kept in the deeper water and the casts made toward the shallows of bars, shoals, and weed patches. The best time for boat fishing on lakes or ponds is from near sundown until dark. CASTING THE MINNOW The live minnow, shiner preferred, is by far the best bait for the black-bass, as it is more easily seen, and the best way of presenting it is by casting from the reel. For this purpose a rod eight or nine feet long is much better than a shorter or longer one. After a long series of experiments with rods from six to twelve feet, I arrived at the conclusion that the one now known as the Henshall rod, eight and one-fourth feet long and from seven to eight ounces in weight, fulfils all the requirements of casting, hooking, and playing a black-bass. It is light, strong, and of beautiful proportions. In first-class split bamboo it may be as light as six and one-half ounces, but should not exceed seven and one-half ounces. In ash and lancewood, or bethabara, from seven to eight ounces is the correct weight. A multiplying reel is indispensable. It may be two, three, or four-ply, but the best work and the most effective casting can only be done with the most perfect reel. It should be as light as possible, in a fifty or sixty-yard reel. German silver is the best material, though brass is fully as serviceable, and costs less. Some very good reels are made of hard rubber and metal. Only braided lines should be used, as twisted ones kink too much in casting. Undressed silk, of the smallest caliber, size H, is best. Braided linen is stronger, but of larger caliber, and not so suitable for good casting. Neither can effective casting be done with oil-dressed or enamelled lines. Snelled hooks on single-gut snells, size No. 1 or No. 2, Sproat preferred and O'Shaughnessy next, are the best in any method of bait-fishing for black-bass. There are several other styles of hooks used, but, everything considered, those named are the most faultless, and for shape, strength, and general excellence cannot be excelled. No leader is used, as the minnow must be reeled up to within a foot or two of the tip of the rod in casting. The snell of the hook is attached to the reel-line by the smallest brass box-swivel, or it may be tied directly to the line. The casts are made from right or left and underhand, not overhead as in casting the fly. Casts of 160 feet have been made in this way. The chief factor in this style of casting is the proper control of the reel by the thumb--by a gentle but constant and uniform pressure on the revolving spool, to prevent overrunning of the line during the cast, and a stronger pressure to stop the reel at the end of the cast. The thumb must be thoroughly educated to this work, and, once acquired, the rest is easy, as but little muscular effort is required. The novice must begin with short casts and increase their length as he becomes more proficient in the management of the reel. Perfect casting from the reel is more difficult than casting the fly, and more artistic. In wading a stream the casts are directed to the same likely places mentioned under the head of fly-fishing. The minnow is allowed to sink to half the depth of the water and reeled in slowly, which gives a lifelike motion to the bait when hooked through the lips. If there is no response, the next cast should be made to another spot, as a bass, if inclined to take the lure at all, will usually do so upon its first presentation. In fly-fishing it is imperative to strike as soon as the bass seizes the fly, otherwise he ejects it at once, if not hooked by a taut line, for he is conscious of the deception as soon as the fly is taken into his mouth. With natural bait it is different. The bass first seizes the minnow crosswise or tail first, turns it in his mouth, and swallows it head first. This takes a little time. Usually he holds it in his mouth and bolts away from other fish, or rushes toward a secure hiding-place--hence the vigorous initial dash and taking of line. If stopped before being hooked, he gives several tugs in quick succession, when he should be given line slowly. The angler, with thumb on the spool of the reel, can feel every motion of the fish. When he pulls steadily and strongly and increases his speed, the hook should be driven in by striking in the opposite direction to his course, or upward. A vigorous "yank" is not needed. With the strained line a movement of the tip of the rod a foot or two is sufficient with a sharp hook. If fishing from a boat, where the angler is more apt to be seen, it should be kept in deep water and the casts made toward the haunts of the bass in shallow water. Should the hooked bass break water on a long line, the slight straightening of the bent rod that ensues will tend to keep it taut, and there is nothing more to do. On a short line, however (the bend of the rod being maintained), he should be followed back to the water by a slight lowering of the tip, but it should again be raised as soon as he touches the water. The critical moment is when he is apparently standing on his tail, shaking himself, with wide-opened jaws. If he is given any slack line at this time, the hook is likely to be thrown out. Lowering the tip to a leaping fish is a good old rule when done understandingly. It has been ridiculed by some anglers who do not seem to have a clear conception of it. They claim that by lowering the tip it gives sufficient slack line to enable the fish to free himself. But if the rod is bent, as it should be, the simple lowering of the tip with a short line merely relieves it somewhat from the weight of the fish; there is no slack line, nor could there be unless the rod is lowered until it is perfectly straight, which no wide-awake angler would permit. As the fish is in the air but a second or two, the careless angler simply does nothing, which is, perhaps, the best thing that could happen for him. Trolling is practised from a moving boat along the edges of weeds or rushes, or in the neighborhood of gravelly shoals and bars or rocky ledges. The bait may be a minnow or a very small trolling-spoon; if the latter, it should have but a single hook. The revolving spoon is itself the lure, and any addition of a bunch of feathers, a minnow, or a strip of pork-rind does not add to its efficiency in the least, and moreover savors of pot-fishing. A rod and reel should always be used, as trolling with a hand-line is very unsportsmanlike. Still-fishing is practised from the bank or from an anchored boat. If the bait is live minnows, no float is necessary; but if crawfish, helgramites, cut-bait, or worms are employed, a very small float is useful to keep the bait off the bottom. The boat should be anchored in close proximity to the feeding-grounds of the bass, and the angler should keep as still as possible. Contrary to the popular opinion, fish hear sounds, not only those made in the water, but those in the air as well, otherwise they would not be provided with so delicate an auditory apparatus; because they do not always notice sounds made in the air is no proof that they do not hear them. The suggestions already made as to the hooking and playing and landing the bass apply to still-fishing as well. The minnow is best hooked through both lips, but if they are very small, they may be hooked just under the dorsal fin. THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS (_Micropterus salmoides_) The large-mouth black-bass was also first described by the French ichthyologist Lacépéde, in 1802, from a drawing and description sent to him from South Carolina by M. Bosc, under the local name of "trout-perch." Owing to the vernacular name, he gave it the specific name of _salmoides_, "salmon-like" or "trout-like." Thirty years before, pressed skins of the large-mouth bass had been sent to Linnæus by Dr. Garden from Charleston. South Carolina, under the name of "freshwater trout," but Linnæus failed to describe or name it. The black-bass is called "trout" to this day in the Southern states. The large-mouth black-bass is very similar in appearance to the small-mouth bass. It is not quite so trimly built, being somewhat more "stocky" and robust. Its mouth is larger, the angle reaching behind the eye. It has larger scales, and those on the cheeks are not much smaller than those on the body, while in the small-mouth bass the cheek scales are very small compared with its body scales. The large-mouth is more muscular, and has a broader and more powerful tail. Its distribution is perhaps wider than that of any other game-fish, its range extending from Canada to Florida and Mexico, and, through transplantation, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It has also been introduced into Germany. France, Russia, and the Netherlands, where it is greatly esteemed both as a game-fish and food-fish. The coloration of the large-mouth bass is often of the same hue as the small-mouth bass, though usually it is not so dark, being mostly bronze-green, fading to white on the belly. When markings are present, they tend to form longitudinal streaks of aggregated spots, and not vertical ones, as in the small-mouth. Its habits of feeding, spawning, etc., are very similar to those of the small-mouth. It prefers stiller water, and is more at home in weedy situations, and will thrive in quiet, mossy ponds with muddy bottom where the small-mouth would eventually become extinct; on the other hand, the large-mouth can exist wherever it is possible for the small-mouth to do so. It is better able to withstand the vicissitudes of climate and temperature, and has a wonderful adaptability that enables it to become reconciled to its environment. The feeding habits of the two black-basses are much the same, though they differ as to their haunts. The large-mouth favors weedy rather than rocky places, and though its food is also much the same, the large-mouth is perhaps more partial to frogs and minnows, in the absence of crawfish, which, like the other species, it prefers. In the Northern states it hibernates, and reaches a maximum weight of six or eight pounds, while in the Gulf states, where it is active the year round, it is taken weighing twenty pounds or more. In Florida I have taken it on the fly up to fourteen pounds, and up to twenty pounds with natural bait. In waters where it coexists with the small-mouth bass there is no difference in their excellence as food-fish. I have often eaten the large-mouth bass from the clear-water lakes of Utah and Washington, that, with the single exception of the whitefish of Lake Superior, were the best of all fresh-water fishes. And I can truly say the same of those from some of the large rivers of Florida, notably the St. Lucie, St. Sebastian, and New rivers. It prefers to spawn on gravel or sand, but if such situations are lacking, it makes its nest on a clay or mud bottom, or on the roots of water-plants; or in ponds of very deep water without shallow shores, it will spawn on the top of masses of weeds, in order to get near enough to sunlight. In other respects its breeding habits are similar to its cousin the small-mouth, the time of incubation and the guarding of the eggs and young being about the same. As to the much-mooted subject of the gameness of the large-mouth bass I have no hesitation in saying, from an experience of nearly forty years, covering all sections of the country, that where the two species coexist there is no difference in their game qualities. The large-mouth is fully the equal of the small-mouth where they are exposed to the same conditions. Many anglers profess to think otherwise, but their deductions are drawn from a comparison of the two species when subject to totally different environment; for it is altogether a matter of environment and not of physical structure or idiosyncrasy that influences their game qualities. A small-mouth bass in a clear, rocky stream, highly aerated as it must be, is, as a matter of course, more active than a large-mouth bass in a quiet, weedy pond. With others the opinion is merely a matter of prejudice or hearsay, a prejudice that is, indeed, difficult to account for. It does not make the small-mouth bass a gamer fish by disparaging the large-mouth. As I have said elsewhere, if the large-mouth bass is just as game as the small-mouth, the angler is just that much better off. As prejudice and ignorance go hand in hand, we are not surprised when we hear persons--I do not style them anglers--call the small-mouth the "true" black-bass, implying that the large-mouth is not a black-bass, but is, as they often say, the Oswego bass, which is, of course, absurd. I am glad to add, however, that the prejudice against the large-mouth bass is dying out among observant anglers, who know that a trout in a clear stream is more vigorous than one in a weedy, mucky pond. From my own experience I am prepared to say that the large-mouth bass is more to be relied on in rising to the fly than the small-mouth, which fact should be taken into consideration when the gameness of the two species is compared. The remarks concerning fly-fishing for the small-mouth bass are also applicable to the large-mouth, as both are fished for in the same way, and with the same tackle, except that the rod may be a little heavier. For the large bass of the Gulf states the rod should be fully eight ounces in weight, and the flies a trifle larger, on hooks Nos. 2 to 6; otherwise the tackle should be the same. Minnow-casting for the large-mouth need not differ from that described for the small-mouth bass. The tackle likewise may be the same, though for the heavy bass of Florida the rod may be eight, or even nine ounces, if preferred. Hooks may also be employed of a larger size, say Nos. 1 to 1-0, or even 2-0, as larger minnows are used for bait. Some anglers of the Middle West have adopted a very short rod of six feet or less for casting the live frog or pork-rind overhead, in the same way as casting a fly. This is a very primitive style of bait-casting, being the same as practised by bucolic boys and Southern negroes using a sapling pole without a reel. The frog is reeled up to within a few inches of the tip and propelled like a wad of clay from a slender stick as we were wont to do as boys. The frog is projected with great accuracy, but not without a smack and splash on the water. With such a rod most of the pleasure of playing a bass to a finish is lost. Presumably the end justifies the means, but this method does not appeal to the artistic angler. If bait must be used, a small minnow, lightly cast from a suitable rod, is more in accordance with the eternal fitness of things and the practice and traditions of the gentle art. In very weedy ponds and lakes, however, where there is not open water enough to play a bass, and where it must be landed as soon as possible, this rod and style of casting answer a good purpose. [Illustration OSWEGO (LARGE-MOUTH) BASS] Still-fishing is the same for either species of black-bass, but as it is usually done from an anchored boat on Northern lakes, where the large-mouth bass is of greater size and weight than the small-mouth bass, somewhat heavier tackle may be used than recommended for the small-mouth. Trolling with the live or dead minnow, or a small spoon with a single hook, is a very successful method on lakes, ponds, and broad, still rivers. A greater length of line can be utilized in trolling, whereby the fish is not so apt to see the angler. More ground can also be covered than in any other style of fishing. The boat should be propelled slowly along the borders of rushes and weed patches, over shoals and gravelly banks, and near projecting points of the shore. Considerable care should be exercised to move as noiselessly as possible, avoiding splashing with the oars or paddle, or making any undue noise with the feet or otherwise in the boat, as such sounds are conveyed a long distance in so dense a medium as water. In trolling, the line may be lengthened to fifty yards, if necessary, though from twenty to thirty yards will usually be sufficient, especially when a good breeze is blowing. Bobbing for the large-mouth bass is much in vogue in the Gulf states, but is more often practised in Florida. The conventional "bob" is formed by tying a strip of deer's tail, with or without a piece of red flannel, around a triangle of hooks, the hairs completely investing the hooks. A single hook, however, answers fully as well or better. The hook is of large size, Nos. 3-0 to 5-0. The method of procedure is as follows: The boat is propelled by a single-bladed paddle, the paddler being seated in the stern. The boat is moved silently and cautiously, skirting the edges of water-lilies and bonnets, which grow thickly along the margin of the channels. The angler is seated in the bow with a very long cane rod, to which is affixed a short line of a few feet, not to exceed six. As the boat advances, the angler dances the bob as far ahead as possible. It is held a few inches or a foot above the water, into which it is "bobbed" at short intervals. Sometimes the bass leaps from the water to seize it. When hooked, the fish islanded without any ceremony and as soon as possible, keeping it meanwhile on the surface, to prevent its taking to the weeds. Bartram described bobbing as practised in Florida, for black-bass, nearly a century and a half ago. Although bass fishing dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century, when bobbing, skittering, and still-fishing were common methods in the extreme Southern states for the large-mouth bass, and though the dawn of the nineteenth century saw bait-fishing and fly-fishing for the small-mouth bass in Kentucky, it is surprising how little was known in the Northern and Eastern states about the black-bass and bass fishing a century after Bartram described bobbing for that game-fish in the narrative of his travels. Even so late as 1871, when the _Forest and Stream_ was established, very little appeared in its pages anent bass fishing. Indeed, a few years later, a discussion lasting a year or more appeared in its columns from week to week, as to whether the black-bass would rise to the fly. Previous to the publication of the writer's "Book of the Black-bass" in 1881, no work on angling gave any but the most meagre account of black-bass or bass fishing. The "American Angler's Guide," published in 1849 by John J. Brown, states that the black-bass has rows of small teeth, two dorsal fins, and a swallowtail. In the same work the large-mouth bass of the Southern states is classified under the head of "brook trout," the author being misled apparently by its Southern name of "trout," and goes on to say that they "grow much larger than Northern trout," and that they "are fished for with the same arrangement of tackle as the striped bass or salmon." A contributor to the work, however, from Buffalo, New York, treats briefly and vaguely of still-fishing with minnows and crawfish. Brief notes also from Southern and Western anglers give fair descriptions of the appearance and habits of both species of black-bass. Frank Forester (Henry W. Herbert) knew no more of the black-bass than Mr. Brown, and acknowledges that he never caught one. That old Nestor of angling, Uncle Thad Norris, in his "American Angler's Book," 1864, gives the descriptions of Louis Agassiz and Dr. Holbrook for the black-bass, and then relates his only experience as follows, "I have taken this bass in the vicinity of St. Louis, on a moonshiny night, by skittering a light spoon over the surface of the water, while standing on the shore." Genio C. Scott in his "Fishing in American Waters," 1869, has less to say, and evidently knew less of the black-bass than any of the earlier writers. He gives just three lines concerning black-bass fishing, saying, "This fish is taken by casting the artificial fly, or by trolling with the feathered spoon, with a minnow impaled on a gang of hooks, and forming spinning tackle." Of all the angling authors prior to 1870, Robert B. Roosevelt is the only one who knew anything about black-bass or black-bass fishing, having fished for it in the St. Lawrence basin. He says, "They will take minnows, shiners, grasshoppers, frogs, worms, or almost anything else that can be called a bait." Also, "They may be captured by casting the fly as for salmon or trout, and this is by far the most sportsmanlike way, but the most destructive and usually resorted to is trolling." The only personal experience he gives of black-bass fishing, unfortunately, is by trolling with large flies. In his "Game Fish of the North," 1862, he devotes five pages to the black-bass, but apparently does not discriminate between the two species. In "Superior Fishing," 1865, he devotes two pages to the black-bass of Canada and the Great Lakes, in a general way, but gives two instances of fishing as follows, "Pedro soon hooked a splendid black-bass, and landed him after a vigorous struggle of half an hour; he weighed three pounds and three-quarters, and was thoroughly game." And again, "That evening was again devoted to the black-bass, which took both the fly and spoon greedily." During the period covered by the authors named, from 1849 to 1869, the anglers of the South and Middle West were using light cane rods, Kentucky reels, and the smallest sea-grass lines for bait-fishing, and trout fly-rods and trout-tackle for fly-fishing, rods and tackle as light, to say the least, as those in use to-day. In 1866 I removed to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, where there were thirty lakes within ten miles abounding in black-bass of both species, with pike, rock-bass, crappies, perch, etc. On my home grounds was a large shallow pond fed from Fowler Lake. Becoming much interested in the black-bass, and finding but little information available in the books of that day concerning their habits, I determined to give some study to the subject. Accordingly I cut a ditch from the pond to the lake, with suitable screens, and stocked it with black-bass of both species. During their spawning period in the summer I watched them faithfully and constantly from a blind of bushes on the bank. This I did for several years, turning the adult bass into the lake when the fry were large enough to look out for themselves, and turning the fry out also in the fall. I extended my observations of the bass during their breeding season to the many lakes near by. I found a difference of several weeks in the time of their spawning in these lakes, owing to the difference in temperature, caused by their varying depth. The appearance of the bass also differed slightly in the various lakes, so that it was possible, from a close study of their variations in color, size, and contour, to determine in what particular lake any string of bass was taken. About the same time, from 1868 to 1870, Mr. Cyrus Mann and Mr. H.D. Dousman established their trout hatchery and ponds not far from Oconomowoc, and Colonel George Shears, of Beaver Lake, a few miles away, also began hatching trout on a smaller scale. These establishments presented an opportunity to study the artificial propagation of brook-trout, and I soon became familiar with the _modus operandi_. This was before the institution of the United States Fish Commission, though the state of Wisconsin already had an able and efficient Fish Commission, Mr. H.D. Dousman being one of the commissioners. Colonel Shears also experimented with black-bass culture, and between us we reared many thousands to the age of three months, before turning them out. Near my pond was a shallow, marshy cove to which the pike resorted in early spring to spawn, giving me an opportunity to study their breeding habits, also. There being so many lakes and ponds in the vicinity, and their being so well supplied with fishes of various kinds, my opportunities for the observation of fish life were as great as fortunate. The differences of opinion among anglers, of all men, pertaining to the practice of their art, has become axiomatic. Some will differ even to the estimation of a hair in the legs of an artificial fly, while it is averred others will go so far as to "divide a hair 'twixt south and south-west side," as Butler has it. But, seriously, there are several moot points which I have endeavored to discuss in the following piscatorial polemic. Two friends went fishing. Both were famous black-bass anglers, with the enthusiasm born of a genuine love and an inherent appreciation of the gentle art so common among Kentucky gentlemen. One was a fly-fisher, the other a bait-fisher. Each was a devotee to his especial mode of angling, though generously tolerant of the other's method. They had fished together for years when the dogwood and redbud blossomed in the spring, and when the autumnal tints clothed the hillsides with scarlet and gold. They differed in their methods of fishing from choice, or from some peculiar, personal idiosyncrasy, for each was an adept with both bait and fly. But this difference in their piscatorial practices, like the diversity of nature, produced perfect harmony instead of discord. Each extolled the advantages and sportsmanship of his own method, but always in a brotherly and kindly manner; never dictatorial or opinionated in argument, or vainglorious and boastful as to his skill, for both were possessed of the generous impulses of gentlemen and the kindly influences of the gentle art. Moreover, they were innately conscious of a common aim, and differed only as to the ways and means of best attaining that end, which, while dissimilar, were not inharmonious. And so the Silver Doctor and the Golden Shiner, as they dubbed each other, went trudging along the bank of the merry stream together. The Doctor, lightly equipped with only rod, fly-book, and creel, sometimes relieved the Shiner by toting his minnow bucket or minnow net. They were fishing a rocky, gently flowing river, characteristic of the Blue Grass section. They stopped at a broad, lakelike expansion of the stream, caused by a mill-dam, and, in a quiet cove at the entrance of a clear brook. Golden Shiner proceeded to fill his minnow bucket with lively minnows, using for the purpose an umbrella-like folding net. This he attached to a long, stout pole, and, after baiting it with crushed biscuit, lowered it into the water. In a short time he had all the bait necessary--chubs, shiners, and steelbacks. "The golden shiner is the best of all," said he, "especially for roily or milky water; but the chub and steelback are stronger and livelier on the hook, and for very clear water are good enough." They then proceeded below the mill-dam, where there was a strong riffle, with likely-looking pools and eddies. "The proper way to hook a minnow is through the lips," continued Golden Shiner, "especially for casting. One can give a more natural motion to the minnow on drawing it through the water. For still-fishing, hooking through the tail or under the back fin will answer; but even then I prefer my method, unless the minnow is less than two inches in length." And he made a long cast toward the eddy of a large boulder. "For the same reason," acquiesced Silver Doctor, "artificial flies are tied with the head next the snell,"--industriously casting to right and left over the riffle. "But some flies are tied with the tail next to the snell," ventured Shiner. "That is true, but it is unnatural. I never saw an insect swim tail first up-stream. Nature is the best teacher, and one should endeavor to follow her lead." Just then the Doctor snapped off his point fly. Upon examination he found that the snell was dry and brittle next to the head of the fly, though he had previously soaked it well in a glass of water. He discovered that a drop of shellac varnish had encroached beyond the head of the fly for perhaps the sixteenth of an inch on the snell. This portion, being waterproof, remained dry and brittle--a very common fault with cheap flies. "This fly," said the Doctor, "was given to me for trial by Judge Hackle. He tied it himself. The broken end of the snell still shows a portion of shellac coating." "I never thought of that before," remarked Shiner. "No doubt many flies are cracked off from the same cause." "Without a doubt, as you say. I know a lady," continued the Doctor, "who, as Walton says, 'has a fine hand,' and who superintends an extensive artificial fly establishment--and who has written the best book ever published on the subject of artificial flies--who personally inspects every fly turned out by her tyers. And, moreover, she varnishes the head of every fly herself, in order that not the least particle of shellac may touch the snell. Such careful supervision and honest work, to quote Walton again, 'like virtue, bring their own reward,'" and the Doctor resumed his casting with another fly. "Well, Doctor, I sympathize with you; but my snells are clear-quill and no varnish. I may throw off a minnow once in a while by a very long cast, but it is soon replaced, and costs nothing. And, speaking of casting, I observed that you made half a dozen casts to reach yonder rock but sixty feet away, while I placed my minnow, by a single cast, a hundred feet in the other direction. Moreover, I reel my line toward me through undisturbed water, while you whipped the entire distance by several preliminary casts." "That is necessarily true," answered the Doctor; "but while you must recover all of your line for a new cast, I can cast repeatedly with the extreme length of my line in any direction; so I think honors are easy on the question of casting." "But," persisted Shiner, "with my quadruple multiplying reel, it is only a matter of a few seconds to prepare for a new cast. Then again. I have better control of a hooked fish, and can give and take line much faster than you with your single-action click reel." "While I grant your reel has a great advantage in speed, I hold that a single-action click reel is all-sufficient to play and land a hooked fish. Your reel is intended particularly to make long initial casts, and it is admirably adapted for that especial purpose; but in playing a bass it has no advantage over a click reel; in fact, I prefer the latter for that purpose. Really, the engine of destruction to the hooked fish is the rod. Its constant strain and yielding resistance, even without a reel of any kind, will soon place him _hors de combat_." Golden Shiner was not slow to perceive the force of the Doctor's arguments and held his peace. In the meantime both anglers had succeeded in killing some half-dozen bass, the largest ones falling to the rod of the bait fisher, as is usually the case. The sun was now climbing toward the zenith, and the Doctor's flies seemed to have lost their attractiveness for the wary bass, while the Shiner, seeking deeper water, was still successful in his efforts. The day, however, was becoming uncomfortably warm. "You will admit, Doctor, that you must cast your flies early in the day or late in the afternoon to insure much success, while I can fish during the middle of the day in deeper water and still have a measure of reward, which I consider quite an advantage of bait over fly." "Granted. Fish rise to the fly only in comparatively shallow water, and are found in such situations in bright weather only early and late in the day. But I prefer to fish at just those times. I do not care to fish during the middle portion of the day in summer." And the Doctor proceeded to reel in his final cast. Just then his friend hooked the largest fish of the morning's outing. It was an unusually gamy bass, and leaped several times in rapid succession from the water, shaking itself violently each time. But the Shiner was equal to "his tricks and his manners," and soon had him in the landing-net. "Doctor, why does a hooked bass break water and shake his head? Is it through fear or rage?" "It is to rid his jaws of the hook. He can neither pick his teeth with a fin, nor remove a foreign substance from his mouth with his tail. His mouth is his prehensile organ. A horse, cow, dog, or fowl will shake the head violently to rid its mouth of an offending object. But a fish, having no neck to speak of, can only shake his head by shaking his body, and that only in a lateral direction. As a bass cannot shake himself energetically enough beneath the water to dislodge the hook, owing to the resistance of the denser medium, he naturally leaps into the air for that purpose; and he always does so with widely extended jaws, as you have seen time and again this morning. He probably also fortifies himself at the same time by taking in oxygen from the air. He does so, at all events, willy-nilly." "How high can a black-bass leap from the water, do you think?" "A foot or two at most, as you well know," replied the Doctor. "In rocky streams like this, one has a good gauge for measuring the leap. I never saw a bass leap as high as yonder boulder, which is about three feet above the water; and as you have taken several fish in its eddy, you might have proved it by your own observation, as I did myself." "I distinctly remember, now," affirmed Shiner, "that my last catch--the big fellow--leaped several times very near that same rock, and he did not go half as high." The two friends then repaired to a cool spring beneath a spreading beech, to enjoy a luncheon and a quiet pipe,--well satisfied with their morning's sport,--and to continue the _argumentum ad hominem_ anent fly and bait, with the usual result that; "A man convinced against his will. Is of the same opinion still." THE ROCK-BASS (_Ambloplites rupestris_) In the same family with the black-bass are a number of other sunfishes that will next be considered, merely as a matter of sequence, and not on account of their importance as game-fishes. The rock-bass was first described by the French naturalist, Rafinesque, in 1817, while travelling in America. His specimens were from New York and Vermont, which he named _rupestris_, "living among rocks." In the Northern states it is generally known as the rock-bass, but in Kentucky and other states of the Middle West it is called red-eye, goggle-eye, etc. Its original habitat was from Canada and Lake Champlain southward along the Mississippi Valley to Louisiana and Texas, but its range has been extended to many other states east and west by transplantation. In its general appearance it resembles somewhat the black-bass, but it is a deeper fish and is more compressed. Its dorsal and anal fins are comparatively larger and stronger. It has a large eye and a capacious mouth well filled with small teeth, some on the roof of the mouth being rather sharp. The color is of various shades of olive-green, with brassy or coppery reflection, more or less mottled with black, forming broken and indistinct lines along the sides. The iris of the eye is scarlet, hence "red-eye"; there is a black spot on the angle of the gill-cover and dark mottlings on the soft dorsal, anal, and caudal fins. It prefers clear streams and lakes, and congregates in small schools about rocky situations, gravelly bars, about mill-dams, and in the vicinity of weed patches in ponds. It spawns in the spring and early summer, making and guarding its nest like the black-bass, and feeds on crawfish, small minnows, and insect larvæ. In size it usually runs from a half-pound to a pound in streams, though reaching two pounds or more in lakes. It is a good pan-fish for the table, and is well thought of in the Mississippi Valley, though held in lighter esteem in the St. Lawrence basin, where it coexists with larger and better fishes. The rock-bass is an attractive-looking fish, and for its size is very pugnacious. It will take the artificial fly, or natural or artificial bait. It bites freely at small minnows, grubs, grasshoppers, cut-bait, or angle-worms. It is capable of affording considerable sport with light tackle, owing to its large and strong fins, and its habit of curling its sides in opposition to the strain of the rod. With a light fly-rod of four or five ounces, and corresponding tackle, and trout flies on hooks Nos. 5 to 7, the rock-bass is not a mean adversary. It rises to the various hackles, and to such flies as coachman, brown drake, gray drake, and stone fly, especially toward evening. The flies must be allowed to sink with every cast after fluttering them awhile on the surface. For bait-fishing a trout bait-rod of the weight just mentioned, with a reel of small caliber and the smallest braided silk line, will be about right. Sproat hooks Nos. 3 to 4 on light gut snells tied with red silk are the best. Live minnows about two inches long, carefully hooked through the lips, are to be lightly cast and allowed to sink nearly to the bottom and slowly reeled in again. Or if a float is used, the minnow may be hooked just under the dorsal fin. A small float is necessary when white grubs, crawfish, cut-bait, or worms are used as bait. On lakes it is readily taken by trolling with a very small spoon, about the size of a nickel, with a single Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hook No. 1 attached. A rod nine or ten feet long cut from the small end of a native cane pole, weighing but a few ounces, with a line of sea-grass or raw silk about the length of the rod, will answer very well for bait-fishing. This is the tackle mostly used by boys in the Middle West, and it might be profitably employed by boys of larger growth. A dozen "red-eyes," gleaming with green and gold, on the string of the boy angler, is something to be proud of. He gazes with fond admiration on the wide-open crimson eyes, which to him seem more precious than rubies. He admires the bristling fins, the gracefully sloping sides, the gaping mouth and forked tail, with boyish enthusiasm and appreciation. Although hot and tired, and with many a scratch and bruise on hands and feet, such trifles are lighter than air, and do not admit of a moment's consideration. Seated on a rock at the margin of the stream, with the string of fish in the water, he feasts his eyes on the finny beauties with the conscious pride of well-earned success and the happy culmination of his outing. In imagination the battles are all fought over and over again. He knows just where and under what condition and circumstance each fish was caught, as, with bare toes, he separates and indicates the individual on the string. That largest one was hooked under the dam beside the big rock. The next in size was taken among the roots of the old sycamore at the bend of the creek. Another and still another from the deep hole under the rocky cliff. Oh, the joyous days of youth and going a-fishing in the glad springtime of life! And then, having laved his swollen feet in the cooling stream, he washes the blood and scales from his hands, scrapes the mud and slime from his well-worn clothes, shoulders his lance of elm, and starts for home, bearing his trophies with as proud a mien as a warrior of old returning with the spoils of war. THE SACRAMENTO PERCH (_Archoplites interruptus_) The Sacramento perch is closely allied in structure to the rock-bass, and is the only perchlike fish in fresh water west of the Rocky Mountains. It was collected by the Pacific Railroad Survey and described and named _interruptus_ by Girard, in 1854, owing to the interrupted character of the vertical markings. It inhabits the Sacramento and Joaquin rivers in California, and is much esteemed as a food-fish, but unfortunately it is being rapidly exterminated by the carp and catfish that are said to infest its spawning grounds. In its conformation it is almost identical with the rock-bass, but differs in having more teeth on the tongue and more gill-rakers. In coloration, however, it differs very much, being sometimes uniformly blackish or brassy, but usually the black coloration is disposed in several vertical bars or markings of an irregular shape. It has a black spot on the angle of the gill-cover. I have had no experience in angling for the Sacramento perch, which is said to be taken with the hook in large quantities for the market. I have no doubt but the tackle recommended for the rock-bass would be just as effective for this fish, with similar baits. THE WARMOUTH PERCH (_Chænobryttus gulosus_) The warmouth perch, also known as the black sunfish in the North, was first described by the French naturalists, Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1829, from specimens from Lake Pontchartrain. Louisiana. They named it _gulosus_, "large-mouthed," owing to its big mouth. There is a slight variation between the Northern and Southern forms. It abounds in all coastwise streams from North Carolina to Florida and Texas, and sparingly in Lake Michigan and the upper Mississippi Valley. In its general shape and appearance it is not unlike the rock-bass, though in the radial formula of its fins and in its large mouth it approaches nearer the black-bass than any other species of the family. It has a large head and deep body, almost as deep as long, and is nearly symmetrical in outline. Its teeth are in brushlike bands on the jaws, with patches on the tongue. The Southern form has one or two less soft rays in the dorsal and anal fins. It is dark olive on the back, lighter on the sides, with blotches of blue and coppery red, and the belly brassy or yellowish. Iris red, ear-flap black, bordered with pale red, with three dusky red bars radiating from the eye across the cheeks. Fins mottled with a darker color, and a black blotch on the last rays of the soft portion of the dorsal fin. It is not so gregarious as the rock-bass, but otherwise is similar in its habits, though not so partial to rocky situations, rather loving deep pools and quiet water. It feeds on minnows, tadpoles, frogs, insects, and their larvæ. It spawns in the spring. It is a good pan-fish, and grows to eight or ten inches in length and a weight of nearly a pound. For its size, it is the gamest member of the family except the black-bass, and is more like that fish than the others. It is a favorite game-fish in the South, rising well to the fly, and is a free biter at natural bait. In angling for the warmouth, the same rods and tackle mentioned under the head of rock-bass are well suited. In the Southern states a light native cane rod, ten or twelve feet long, and a line of the smallest caliber, sea-grass or twisted silk, is the favorite style of tackle, with hooks Nos. 2 to 3 tied on light gut, and a quill float and split-shot sinker. The usual bait is the black cricket, or the catalpa worm or caterpillar. The white grub found in decayed stumps, and other larvæ, crawfish and small minnows, are all useful. Of these the minnow is the best. On streams a small float is necessary to keep the bait from the roots of overhanging trees. In the stillness of Southern streams, under the moss-draped trees, I have idled away many a dreamy hour in the pleasure of fishing for the warmouth, but at the same time fully alive to the weird surroundings. Occasionally the splashing of a hooked fish on the surface entices an alligator from his lair in expectation of a fishy morsel. The echoes are awakened time and again by the pumping of the bittern, the hoarse cry of the crane, or the hooting of an owl in the dark recesses of the cypress swamp. The solitudes of those waters are very fascinating to the lone fisher. The novelty of the situation appeals very strongly to the angler-naturalist whose experiences have been on the clear, sparkling, tumbling streams of the North. There Nature is ever bright and joyous; here she is quiet and sombre and subdued. But the fishes know no north or south or east or west,--always the same creatures of interest and beauty, and ever responding to the wiles of the angler. I was once fishing on St. Francis River, in Arkansas, where the warmouths were both large and gamy. One day I went through the woods and cane-brakes to the banks of Mud Lake, situated in the midst of a cypress swamp. The lake was much smaller than it had been formerly, as was apparent from the wide margins of the shores, which were of considerable extent between the timber and the water. On this margin was a group of four cypress trees that in size exceeded any that I had ever seen, and I think worthy of mention. They were from twenty to twenty-five feet in diameter, or sixty to sixty-five feet in circumference, three feet above the ground. They were buttressed like the wall of a mediæval stronghold. In comparing notes with many naturalists and travellers, they have declared the size of those cypress trees to be both unique and wonderful. THE BLUE SUNFISH (_Lepomis pallidus_) The blue sunfish was first described by Dr. Mitchill from the waters of New York in 1815. He named it _pallidus_, meaning "pale," as it was more sober in hue than the other brilliantly colored sunfishes. It is the largest of the sunfishes, so-called, as the black-bass, warmouth, and crappies are not popularly regarded as "sunfishes." The blue sunfish has a wider distribution than any other member of its family except the black-bass. Its range extends from the Great Lakes through the Mississippi Valley to Texas, and along the South Atlantic states to Florida. In the Middle West it is known as blue gill and in the South as blue bream and copper-nosed bream. It has a medium-sized head and very deep body, its depth varying from one-half its length to almost as deep as long, in which case, barring head and tail, it is almost round in outline. It is much compressed. The ear-flap is quite black, without the pale or red border usual in the other sunfishes. [Illustration THE SMALL-MOUTH BLACK-BASS _Micropterus dolomieu_] [Illustration THE LARGE-MOUTH BLACK-BASS _Micropterus salmoides_] [Illustration THE ROCK-BASS _Ambloplites rupestris_] As might be inferred from its extensive range, its coloration varies greatly. In large and old examples it is sometimes of a uniform slaty hue with purplish reflections. In others it is olive-green or bluish green, darker above, with the breast and belly coppery red. Young specimens are more brilliantly colored, with silvery reflections and various chainlike markings. It thrives alike in stream, pond, or lake, adapting itself to almost any environment. It feeds on insects and their larvæ, very small minnows, and other small aquatic organisms. It spawns in the spring and early summer, and its manner of nesting and guarding its young is similar to that of the other members of the family. It grows to six or eight inches in length usually, but often to a foot, especially in large waters. It is quite a favorite game-fish in most localities, and with such tackle as recommended for the rock-bass it gives considerable sport, especially in localities that are lacking in larger and better game-fishes. It rises well to the fly, and will take any of the baits recommended for the other sunfishes. In those states of the Middle West, where the brook-trout does not exist, the "blue gill" is greatly esteemed and much sought after, as it furnishes the opportunity to employ light trout tackle in its capture, and with such gear it affords fine sport. I have taken the blue sunfish in all waters from Wisconsin to Florida. In the latter state many years ago I fished a fresh-water lake on Point Pinellas, near St. Petersburg, Florida, though there were but two houses there at that time. I was using a very light rod, and the fish were as large and round as a breakfast plate, and moreover the gamest and most beautiful in coloration of any blue gill I had ever met. The characteristic blue was replaced by a deep, intense, and brilliant purple, shot with silvery and golden reflections. While playing one on the surface, an osprey sat on a dead pine watching with apparent concern and eagerness. The fish made a stubborn resistance, with much splashing. Then a strange thing happened. The fish-hawk swooped down and seized the fish and attempted to fly away with it. Perhaps the hook became fast to his claw, but at any rate he circled around and around the pond, tethered to my line. It was the first, last, and only time that I did the aerial act of playing a bird on the wing. After a few seconds of this exciting and novel sport the osprey broke away, carrying both fish and hook. THE LONG-EARED SUNFISH (_Lepomis megalotis_) This species was first described by Rafinesque in 1820 from streams in Kentucky. He named it _megalotis_, meaning "large ear," owing to its large and conspicuous ear-flap. It is one of the handsomest sunfishes in its brilliant coloration, and a great favorite with the youthful Waltonians of the Mississippi Valley. It inhabits small streams in Michigan and the Mississippi Valley, and the Atlantic slope from South Carolina to Florida and Mexico, and is very abundant in Kentucky, where it is sometimes called "tobacco-box," owing to its "lid-like" opercle. Its body is short and deep, with quite a hump or arch anteriorly, making the profile of the face quite steep in old specimens. The ear-flap is very long and wide, blackish in color, with a border usually of pale bluish or a reddish hue; its back is blue, with chestnut or orange belly; sides with red spots and bluish lines; iris of eye red; lips blue. The soft rays of the dorsal fin are blue, with orange between. Ventral and anal fins are dusky blue. The top of the head and nape is dark. The coloration is very brilliant and varies in different localities. Its habits of feeding and spawning are similar to those of the blue sunfish, though it usually inhabits smaller streams; it grows to a length of from six to eight inches, and is regarded as a good pan-fish by many. It is an eager biter at angle-worms, which is the bait _par excellence_ of juvenile anglers, who greatly enjoy fishing for "sunnies." The only tackle needed is a light cane rod, very fine line, and small hooks, Nos. 6 or 8, split-shot sinker, and, of course, a float, for no boy would care to fish without a "bob" or "cork." Half of the pleasure of the young angler is in watching the float. But the fly-fisher may also obtain sport to his liking with a rod of a few ounces' weight and midge flies on No. 10 hooks, for at the close of the day the long-eared sunfish rises well. In the absence of better fishing this is not to be despised. I once saw a boy fishing for "tobacco-boxes" from a rock beneath a mill-dam on a Kentucky stream. He hooked one of good size, and in his eagerness to secure it tumbled into the pool, which was quite deep, much over his head. After some little delay we got him out, almost drowned, and in a very limp and exhausted condition. When finally he was restored and capable of speech he exclaimed, "I saved my tobacco-box, anyhow!" During all the struggle he held on to his rod, and still clutched it when "landed." Whether he did so from the desperation with which drowning men are said to cling to straws, or from an inherent sporting instinct, deponent sayeth not. A clergyman, who knew nothing of fish, but who was attracted to the scene, said to the dripping boy, "My lad, let this be a solemn warning to you: throw away the tobacco-box you have saved and give up chewing; it may drown you yet." THE RED-BREAST SUNFISH (_Lepomis auritus_) This handsome sunfish was the first of its family to receive the recognition of a naturalist, being described by Linnæus in 1758. He named it _auritus_, or "eared," from its conspicuous ear-flap. His specimen was credited to Philadelphia, and was, presumably, from some neighboring water. It is a fish of the Atlantic slope, with a range extending from Maine to Florida, and is also found in Louisiana. It is very abundant in the South Atlantic states. Its form is similar to the long-eared sunfish, but with a more prominent snout and a depression in front of the eye. Its ear-flap is as long but not so broad; its color olive or bluish above; sides bluish with reddish spots; breast and belly orange or red; blue stripes on the front of the head. The southern form has a dusky blotch on the last rays of the dorsal fin, which is lacking in those of northern waters. Its habits are similar to those of the other sunfishes proper, as to food, spawning, etc. It grows to a length of from eight to ten inches. It is a favorite food and game-fish in the South, where it is known as red-breast bream and red-bellied perch. The same remarks as to angling mentioned under the head of warmouth perch will apply to this fish as well. My angling career really began with the capture of "silversides" with a paste of bread crumbs, but was inaugurated with taking this "sunny" and the "punkin-seed" on the artificial fly. An old English gamekeeper, in the employ of our family as gardener and hostler, taught me to tie a fly and cast it with a willow wand when but five years of age. At the feet of that Gamaliel in corduroy I imbibed a love of angling that has constantly grown with the lapse of years. But increased knowledge of fishes and a wider experience in angling have not lessened my affection for my first love--the "sunny." This acknowledgment is due one of the humblest and least important, but also one of the prettiest species of the finny tribe. THE COMMON SUNFISH (_Eupomotis gibbosus_) This is the pumpkin-seed or "sunny" of fragrant memory. It is enshrined in the heart of many an American angler as his first love, when with pin hook, thread line, and willow wand he essayed its capture in the nearest brook or mill-pond. Looking backward over an angling career of half a century, the gamesome "sunny" with its coat of many colors shines out as a bright particular star among those of greater magnitude. It is here set down, then, mainly as a matter of sentiment and to keep its memory green. The little "sunny" was christened by the greatest naturalist that ever lived, Linnæus, who in 1758 named it "_gibbosus_" owing to the gibbous outline of its little body. His specimens were from South Carolina. It inhabits the Great Lake region, and the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Florida, and the northern portion of the Mississippi Valley. In outline it is not unlike a pumpkin-seed, hence one of its popular names. This is well expressed in its specific name _gibbosus_. It has quite a small mouth, but large eye. In coloration it rivals the gayly-tinted fishes of the coral reefs in tropical seas. The predominating colors are yellow and blue, being bluish on the back, paling on the sides to a lighter shade, with yellow blotches and coppery reflections, and belly bright orange-yellow; the cheeks are yellow with blue streaks; rays of dorsal fin blue, the connecting membrane yellow; ear-flap black, ending in a scarlet border; lips blue; iris of eye scarlet. Its habits of spawning, nest-making, and care of eggs and fry are similar to those of the other sunfishes mentioned. It is partial to clear water, with sandy or gravelly bottom, in the vicinity of weed patches. It feeds on insects and their larvæ and minute crustaceans, and is especially fond of the eggs and fry of other species. It grows to a size of eight inches, though usually from three to six inches. Like all the sunfishes, it is an eager biter, and with very light tackle much real pleasure can be enjoyed by the angler who is not too particular as to his preferences. It rises readily to small dark flies, as the several hackles, black gnat, etc., on hooks Nos. 10 to 12. For bait-fishing nothing is quite so good as earthworms on hooks Nos. 8 to 10. There are quite a number of other sunfishes belonging to this family, but those named are the most important. In the Southern states, where the sunfishes are known generically as "bream" or "brim" and "perch," they are more appreciated than in the Northern states, where the brook-trout is the favorite among the smaller species. If fished for with very light and suitable tackle, there is a great measure of enjoyment to be derived from bream-fishing, north or south. Certainly for beauty of coloration they are not excelled, and as pan-fish they are preferred by many to the dainty brook-trout. There is a certain fascination in fishing with a float, or "cork," or "bob," as the boys have it. And among us "old boys" there is a certain undefined feeling, it may be a reminiscent affection, connected with the float, much the same as that with which we regard the powder-flask and shot-pouch of the days of yore. And I am not sure but that the old things and old ways were best, or at least more enjoyable. One can heartily agree with Alonzo of Aragon in his preferences for old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. What old angler does not remember the eagerness and expectancy with which he watched the "cork" in days gone by? How well he knew and understood every motion of it, responsive to the nibbling "sunny": first a gentle spinning, then a preliminary bobble, then a premonitory start away an inch or two, and then--O joy!--its swift and sudden disappearance beneath the surface. The lapse of time cannot wither nor modern custom stale the pleasures of youthful fishing. To be sure, it was not all piscatorial cakes and ale; there were a few thorns with the roses; there were the bruised fingers and toes, the wet and torn clothes, and the impending and dreaded "dressing down" when home was reached; but these disagreeable concomitants were soon forgotten, and are now scarcely remembered, while the pleasures are laid up in the lavender of sweet recollection. The old-time zest of fishing with a float can still be gratified; we can renew our youth by fishing for "sunnies" in the old-fashioned way. In the wooded streams of the Southern states the float is a _sine qua non_ for bream-fishing, owing to the many tangled roots of trees on the banks, and the mosses, grasses, and other aquatic plants that grow so luxuriantly in the sluggish waters. Then here's to the float and the sunny and the bream! THE CALICO-BASS (_Pomoxis sparoides_) The calico-bass was first described by Lacépéde from specimens sent to France from South Carolina. He named it _sparoides_ from a fancied resemblance, either in its scales or compressed body, to those features in fishes belonging to the family _Sparidæ_. Owing to its wide distribution it has received many names, more or less descriptive. In the Northern states it is variously called crappie, croppie, strawberry-bass, grass-bass, bank lick bass, silver-bass, big-fin bass, Lake Erie bass, razor back, bitter-head, lamplighter, etc., while in the Southern states it is known as speckled perch, goggle-eyed perch, chincapin perch, bridge perch, etc. As the calico-bass and the next fish to be described, the crappie, belong to the same genus of the sunfish family, and resemble each other very much, the vernacular nomenclature is much confused, and in some instances is interchangeable. Some years ago I proposed to call them northern and southern crappie; but as the name calico-bass has obtained considerable currency, it is best to adopt that name for the northern species, leaving the name crappie for the southern form. The calico-bass is found in the Great Lake region and the upper Mississippi Valley, and along the Atlantic slope from New Jersey to Florida and Texas. Its range has been considerably extended by transplantation, even to France, where it thrives well as a pond fish. It is a handsome fish, resembling in its general features and shape the sunfishes, but with a thinner body and larger fins. It has a long head and a large mouth, with thin lips and projecting lower jaw. The eye is large with a dark, bluish iris. Its fins are large and strong. It grows usually to eight or ten inches in length, weighing from half a pound to a pound, but occasionally reaches a foot in length and two or three pounds in weight. Its color is bright olive-green, with silvery reflections, darker on the back, and paling to the belly. In some localities it is of a much darker and purplish hue with brassy lustre. It is profusely covered with dark spots or blotches, as large as the finger-tips or "chincapins." The fins are mottled with pale spots on a darker or olive ground. It is gregarious, being usually found in schools, and prefers clear water. It is especially adapted to pond culture, and spawns in spring or early summer, according to locality; it prepares its nest in sand, gravel, or on a flat rock in the same way as the sunfishes. Its food is the same, also, though it is more partial to young fish. It is an excellent pan-fish but does not excel as a game-fish, for though a very free biter, it does not offer much resistance when hooked. However, with very light tackle it affords considerable sport, as it does not cease biting, usually, until most of the school are taken. The usual method of angling for this fish is from an anchored boat on ponds or small lakes, or from the bank. At times it rises pretty well to the fly, and trolling with a very small spoon is also successful on lakes. The lightest rods and tackle should be employed, with hooks Nos. 3 to 5 on gut snells. A small quill float is useful in very weedy ponds with mossy bottom. The best bait is a small minnow, though grasshoppers, crickets, crawfish, cut-bait, or worms are all greedily taken. Fly-fishing is more successful during the late afternoon hours until dusk. The flies should be trout patterns of coachman, gray drake, black gnat, Henshall, or any of the hackles on hooks Nos. 4 to 5. I first became acquainted with the calico-bass during my residence in Wisconsin, many years ago. In the vicinity of Oconomowoc it was known as the silver-bass, though summer visitors from St. Louis, confusing it with the kindred species, the crappie, called it "croppie," as the real crappie is known at Murdoch Lake near that city. Owing to its greedy, free-biting habits it was a prime favorite with youthful anglers and the fair sex; for once a school was located, the contest was free, fast, and furious until, perhaps, the entire school was captured. It was frequently taken by black-bass fishers when casting the minnow or trolling, much to their disgust. Of course it is always the unexpected that happens, in fishing as in other affairs of life, and the angler who was casting a fine minnow for a black-bass, viewed with disdain if not anger the unlucky "pickerel," rock-bass, perch, or calico bass that appropriated--or, as the English angler has it, "hypothecated"--the said choice shiner. I was once fishing with General Phil Sheridan and General Anson Stager for black-bass on a lake near Oconomowoc. When the great telegrapher, after a beautiful cast near a bed of rushes, hooked a calico-bass, and was anathematizing the "measly silver-bass" with all the dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet, Sheridan quietly remarked, "Oh, let up, Stager, it is one of the fortunes of war; better luck next time!" Stager smiled, gently unhooked the offending fish, and returned it to the water, saying, "Good-by, croppie, my regards to the rest of the family; but don't monkey with my minnow again." When cruising on the St. Johns, or camping on some of the fresh-water lakes of Florida, I have greatly enjoyed both the fishing with light tackle and the eating of this fine pan-fish. It is there known as the perch, silver perch, or speckled perch. It may not be out of place to say that the generic term "bass" is connected only with salt-water fishes in the Southern states. Fishes that are known in the Northern states as bass of some kind become, generically, "perch" in the South; and the black-bass becomes a "trout" or jumping-perch. If bait-fishing, one is never at a loss for bait on the lakes of Florida. The black-bass and calico-bass lie in open water, adjacent to the patches of lily-pads or bonnets. Among the latter frequent the minnows and small fry. To catch your minnow the bait is also handy. In the stems of the lilies and bonnets there lies concealed a small worm, which is readily seen by splitting the stems. With the worm first catch your minnow, which is transferred to your bass hook, which is next cast into clear, deeper water, to be taken by a black-bass or "speckled perch." What a simple and admirable arrangement for the lazy fisherman! My old friend, Dr. Theodatus Garlick, who with Dr. H.A. Ackley were the fathers of fish-culture in America, having succeeded in hatching brook-trout as early as 1853, relates the following instance of the remarkable tenacity of life in the calico-bass: "A specimen from which a drawing was made, was wrapped in a piece of paper when taken from the water, and carried in my coat pocket for over four hours, and when placed in a bucket of water soon revived, and seems at the present time to enjoy excellent health. In warm weather, however, it would not, in all probability, survive so severe a test of its vital powers." I imagine that this circumstance happened in winter, and that the fish became frozen before or after being placed in his pocket; otherwise I doubt if the fish could have survived so long, unless the piece of paper was very large and very wet. I know of many instances occurring with myself and others where freshly caught fish have been revived after being frozen for several hours. THE CRAPPIE (_Pomoxis annularis_) The crappie was first described by Rafinesque in 1818 from specimens collected at the Falls of the Ohio, near Louisville, Kentucky. He named it _annularis_, "having rings," as it was said to have "a golden ring at the base of the tail," but I have never seen it; it does have a gold ring, however, around the iris of the eye, and this was probably the occasion of the name. Like the calico-bass, the crappie has received a great many local names. In the northern region of its range it is variously known as white croppie, crappie, barfish, bachelor, etc., and in Kentucky as newlight, Campbellite, and tin-mouth, while farther south it is called silver perch, speckled perch, goggle-eye, sac-à-lait, shad, etc. It inhabits the Ohio and Mississippi river basins from Kansas to Louisiana and Texas, and is more abundant in Kentucky and other Southern states than farther north. Its range, however, has been extended by transplantation to many states. In general features it resembles the calico-bass very much, though to the trained eye the differences are very apparent. It is not quite so deep nor so robust as the calico-bass. The mouth is somewhat larger, and the snout more prominent or projecting on account of a depression or indentation in front of the eye. The eye is a little larger, and the membrane of the jaws is quite thin and transparent, hence one of its names,--"tin-mouth." The crappie has but six spines in the dorsal fin, whereas the calico-bass has seven, whereby they may be readily distinguished. It grows to about the same size and weight as the calico-bass, ten or twelve inches, though under favorable conditions it grows larger, reaching a weight of three pounds. I have frequently taken it as heavy, or a little heavier, in Kentucky, where many ponds and streams seem peculiarly fitted for it. In coloration it is much paler than the calico-bass, and the markings are not so dark or in such large spots or blotches. It is silvery olive-green, much mottled with a darker shade of same color, especially on the back, the lower sides and belly being more silvery and seemingly translucent. The dorsal and caudal fins are much mottled with shades of green, though the anal fin is almost plain. The iris of the eye is dark, with a silvery or golden border. It is found in clear streams and likewise in still, weedy ponds and bayous, or in all situations adapted to the large-mouth black-bass, with which fish it is nearly always associated. It is admirably suited for pond culture. It is quite gregarious and loves to congregate about the submerged top of a fallen tree or sunken brush, and about mill-dams. It feeds on all small aquatic organisms and insects and their larvæ, and the fry of other fishes, tadpoles, etc. While a very free-biting fish, its game qualities, when hooked, are not remarkable. It is pulled out with scarcely a struggle. It is rather a shy fish, withal, and must be fished for cautiously, and with little noise or confusion. When these precautions are observed, and with very small minnows for bait, nearly the entire school can be captured in a short time. It is an excellent pan-fish, and on this account is a prime favorite. For still-fishing, a light rod of a few ounces in weight, and a line of the smallest caliber, size H, should be used. Hooks for bait-fishing should be about No. 3, as the crappie has a large mouth; they should be tied on gut snells. A quill float is useful in weedy places, or about brush and logs. The best bait is a very small minnow, hooked under the dorsal fin, care being taken not to injure the spinal cord. Soft crawfish, cut-bait, or earthworms may be substituted where minnows are scarce. A reel is not necessary for bait-fishing, but a short leader should always be used, and where required a split-shot sinker is heavy enough. For fly-fishing, the lightest trout fly-rod and the smallest click reel should be employed, with a braided, enamelled silk line of the smallest caliber, and dark or grayish flies of small size, on hooks No. 4, on gut snells, with a fine leader. The most useful flies are gray, red, and black hackles, black gnat, blue dun, gray and brown drake, and stone fly; but far the best fly that I have ever used is the Henshall of a small size. It has a body of green peacock harl, hackle of white hairs from a deer's tail, gray wings, and tail of a fibre or two from the tail feather of a peacock; they will rise to this fly when no other will tempt them to the surface. Toward sunset, with the tackle named, on a breezy summer day, the angler will be amply rewarded, for under these conditions fly-fishing for the crappie is a sport not to be despised. It has been alleged that the name "Campbellite," by which the crappie is sometimes known in Kentucky, was bestowed because the fish first appeared in Kentucky streams about the same time that the religious sect founded by Alexander Campbell became established in that state. This may have been the origin of the name, but I am inclined to doubt it from the fact that the crappie has probably always inhabited Kentucky streams, inasmuch as it was first described by Rafinesque in 1820 from Kentucky waters. He gave gold ring and silver perch as the common names then in vogue for it at Louisville. I think it more likely the name originated in this wise: among the many names given to this fish is "newlight," probably owing to its bright and apparently translucent appearance; and as this name was also bestowed by some on the religious sect referred to, the names newlight and Campbellite became interchangeable for both fish and sect. It is, however, seldom called Campbellite, while newlight is the most universal name for it in central Kentucky. The name crappie, or croppie, has an unknown derivation; perhaps it comes from the French _crêpe_, a "pan-cake," from its shape or deliciousness when fried, for it was always a great favorite with the French of St. Louis and the creoles of Louisiana. In the latter state it is also known as _sac-à-lait_, "bag for milk" (?). Great numbers of crappies are annually seined from the shallow bayous and sloughs bordering the Illinois and Mississippi rivers by the United States Fish Commission, and planted in suitable waters. If allowed to remain in the sloughs, which dry up in the summer and fall, they would eventually perish. CHAPTER II THE BASS FAMILY (_Serranidæ_) The bass family is composed mostly of marine fishes, nearly all of which are good game and food-fishes. These will be described among the fishes of the East Coast and Florida in subsequent pages. It is the most typical group among the percoid (perchlike) fishes. Only two species of the family inhabit fresh water,--the white-bass and the yellow-bass. The fishes of this family are characterized by an oblong body, large mouth, brushlike or bristlelike teeth, sometimes with canines; one or two dorsal fins, the first always composed of spiny rays; the anal fin, always with three spines; scales adherent and rough (ctenoid); preopercle usually serrate; opercle with flat points or spines; cheeks and opercles always scaly; premaxillary protractile; dorsal and ventral outlines do not always correspond; caudal fin not deeply forked; its peduncle stout. THE WHITE-BASS (_Roccus chrysops_) _Roccus chrysops._ The White-bass. Body oblong, deep, and compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 2-1\2; eye 5; D. IX-I, 14; A. III, 12; scales 10-60-15; mouth moderate, maxillary reaching middle of pupil; a patch of teeth at base of tongue, and a patch on each side; preopercle serrate; subopercle with a deep notch; lower jaw somewhat projecting; dorsal fins separate; gill-rakers long and slender, _x_ + 14. _Morone interrupta._ The Yellow-bass. Body oblong, ovate, the back arched; head 3; depth 2-2/3; eye 4-1/2; D. IX-I, 12; A. III, 9; scales 7-50-11; dorsal fins slightly joined; jaws subequal; no teeth on base of tongue; gill-rakers moderate, _x_ + 13 to 16; preorbital and suprascapula serrate. The white-bass was first described by Rafinesque in 1820 from the falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky. He named it _chrysops_, or "gold eye," owing to the golden hue of the iris. It is known also as white lake-bass and fresh-water striped-bass. It is abundant in Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and upper Mississippi River, especially in Lake Pepin, and in Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. It was formerly not uncommon in the Ohio River, but is now rare. Its body is compressed and rather deep, with the back arched; its head is rather small, but the mouth is large, with the lower jaw protruding; the eye is large; teeth brushlike, without canines. The color is silvery white, greenish above, golden below, with six or more narrow dusky lines along the body, most conspicuous above the lateral line; those below broken, or not continuous. The white-bass is found in water of moderate depth, preferring those that are clear and cool, as it does not resort to weedy situations. It is essentially a lake fish, except in spring, when it undergoes a semi-migration, entering the tributaries of lakes in large schools. It spawns usually in May. It feeds on small fishes, crawfish, insects, and their larvæ, etc. Its usual size is a pound or a little less, but occasionally it grows to three pounds. It is a food-fish of much excellence, its flesh firm, white, flaky, and of good flavor. It is one of the best fresh-water game-fishes, being a bold biter, and on light and suitable tackle affords much sport to the appreciative angler. For fly-fishing, the best season is during the spring, when it enters the tributary streams of lakes. At this time the fly-fisher will be successful at any hour of the day. He may fish from the bank or from an anchored boat, the latter plan being the best. As the fish are swimming in schools, either headed up or down stream, no particular place need be selected, though off the points at the edge of the channel, or in the narrowest portions of the streams, are perhaps the best. In the summer and fall the fish are in the lakes or deeper water, when the fishing will be more successful during the late afternoon hours until sundown, and the angler may be guided by the conditions followed in black-bass fly-fishing, as mentioned in a previous chapter. A trout fly-rod of six or seven ounces, with the usual trout click reel and corresponding tackle, will subserve a good purpose. When the fish are running in the streams the most useful flies are gray drake, green drake, stone fly, brown hackle, gray hackle, Henshall, and Montreal, of the usual trout patterns, on hooks Nos. 5 to 7. For bait-fishing, a light black-bass or trout rod, with multiplying reel, braided silk line of the smallest caliber, a leader of small gut three feet long, and hooks Nos. 3 or 4 tied on gut snells, will answer well. The best and in fact the only bait that can be successfully used is a small minnow, hooked through the lips. The fishing is done from an anchored boat on lakes or the deep pools of streams, either by casting or still-fishing. No fish will rise to the artificial fly except in comparatively shallow water, or when near the surface, and this is especially true of the white-bass when it resorts to the depths after the spring run is over. I remember a striking instance of this that once occurred in Wisconsin. I was fishing for black-bass in the Neenah channel of Lake Winnebago during the May-fly season, when the black-bass were taking the artificial fly right along, being near the surface feeding on the natural flies, though the water was quite deep, with a rocky bottom. A party of bait-fishers anchored near my boat, and began fishing with heavy sinkers, as the water was very swift, and with small minnows for bait. The white-bass were not slow in taking the proffered minnows, and they caught a goodly number, but not a single black-bass; nor did I take a single white-bass during several hours of fishing, for they were lying among the rocks at the bottom. In the rocky coves about the Bass Islands of Put-in-Bay, on Lake Erie, I have had really good sport, in the summer months, bait-fishing for white-bass, with light tackle, the fish running about two pounds; but with the fly my success was generally _nil_, as they were in deep water, and nothing but minnows would attract them. But in the upper Mississippi, notably on Lake Pepin, the case was different. About the rocky points of that beautiful lake, and in the clear water of the river below, I have enjoyed royal sport fly-fishing for white-bass. This was years ago. Afterward I made a trip in a steam yacht from Cincinnati to St. Paul, traversing the Mississippi from Cairo to the head of navigation, and also going up the St. Croix River to Taylor's Falls. On this trip the white-bass fishing was not so good as in former years, though the black-bass seemed to have held their own pretty well. I might remark, in passing, that the upper Mississippi is one of the most beautiful and scenic rivers in the world, and is unsurpassed for black-bass fly-fishing. At one time the islands of that river furnished superb woodcock shooting in summer, which could be varied with fine fishing. THE YELLOW-BASS (_Morone interrupta_) The yellow-bass was first described by Dr. Theodore Gill in 1860. His type specimens were from the lower Mississippi River in the vicinity of St. Louis and New Orleans. He named it _interrupta_, in allusion to the broken or "interrupted" lines along its sides. It is also known as brassy-bass. It belongs to the same genus as the white-perch of the East Coast. It is found only in the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries, sometimes extending its range a short distance up the Ohio River. The yellow-bass might be called a cousin of the white-bass, though it belongs to a different genus. It takes the place of that fish in the lower Mississippi Valley. Compared with the white-bass it has a somewhat longer head, with a body not quite so deep; otherwise the general shape is much the same. The mouth is a little larger, though the snout does not project quite so much, and the profile of the head is straighter, and it has a larger eye. The posterior border of the cheek-bone is finely serrated. The general color is brassy or yellowish, darker on the back and lighter on the belly. There are about half a dozen very distinct and black longitudinal lines along the sides, the lower ones broken or "interrupted," the posterior portions dropping below the anterior, like a "fault" in a stratum of rocks. It is fond of the deeper pools in the rivers and clear-water bayous, and the foot of rapids and riffles. It is partial to the same character of food as the white-bass, small minnows constituting the greater part. It likewise spawns in the spring, and grows to a pound or two in weight, sometimes reaching three pounds. It is an excellent food-fish. I have had good sport with the yellow-bass on St. Francis River in Arkansas, and at the head of the Yazoo Pass, in Mississippi, with the same tackle and by similar methods as recommended for the white-bass on a prior page. As with the two black-basses and the two crappies, the white-bass and yellow-bass having similar habits and kindred tastes, the same tackle and the same modes of angling are as well suited for one as for the other. This will apply to both fly-fishing and bait-fishing. I was once, one autumn, with a party on a river steam yacht on the lower Mississippi when geese, ducks, deer, and turkeys were more plentiful than they are now. Up the St. Francis River, in the "sunk lands" of Arkansas, the yacht was moored at Cow Bayou, near a steep clay bluff, on the top of which was a dilapidated tent occupied by a young man and his wife, who were building a shanty boat in which to float down to sunnier climes for the winter, as the man was "nigh gone" with consumption. One morning I was out early fishing for yellow-bass after a rainy night. As I was landing a fish I saw the woman at the top of the bluff, looking for a way down to the yacht. She was quite a fresh and comely-looking woman, too. She started down very carefully, for the wet clay was quite slippery. I became interested to see how she would succeed. Suddenly her bare feet slipped from under her, and she came down with a rush, her one garment, as I soon discovered, an old calico gown, slipping back over her head, disclosing her nude form, which appeared very white in contrast to the red clay. Then I looked the other way just as she flopped over from a prone to a supine position. When she reached the river side she looked like a sculptor's model in clay. She quietly adjusted her gown as if nothing unusual had occurred, and asked: "Has you-uns got any matches? We-uns' matches all got wet in the drizzle last night, and I want to cook my old man's breakfus." I pulled ashore and handed her my matchbox, and scarcely knowing what to say, I remarked. "You had better change your dress before you cook breakfast." She replied, "I hain't got another one." While the boys were eating their breakfast of fried fish, deer steak, and broiled duck, I related the "toboggan" episode, and mentioned the "one frock." When the meal was concluded the boys overhauled their belongings and chipped in several pairs of slippers, long woollen stockings, underclothing, and blankets, and the "skipper" threw in some calico and muslin from the yacht's stores. These were made into bundles and carried to the top of the bluff by a more circuitous route. Proceeding to the tent they deposited their offerings, together with some ducks and venison. The man and woman were overcome with gratitude, but the boys said they were glad to get rid of the stuff. The skipper had taken his camera along to get a snap-shot at the tent and its occupants, which being made known to them the woman said. "Wait a minnit!" She went into the tent, but immediately reappeared wearing a large sun-bonnet, in which she was "took" with her "old man." I have often wondered since why she put on that sun-bonnet. My excuse for this digression may be found in the memorable words of George Dawson, "It is not all of fishing to fish." CHAPTER III THE BASS FAMILY (_CONTINUED_) (_Serranidæ_) In addition to the fresh-water species of this family and those of the East Coast are the groupers, cabrillas, etc., of Florida waters, to be noticed later. The family name is founded on Cuvier's genus _Serranus_, from the Latin _serra_, or "saw," in allusion to the serrated edge of the cheek-bones, common to all fishes of this family. _Roccus lineatus._ The Striped-bass. Body rather elongate, little compressed; head 3-1/4; depth 3-1/2; eye 6; D. IX-I, 12; A. III, 11; scales 8-67-11; back little arched; head subconical; mouth large, maxillary reaching middle of orbit; lower jaw projecting; teeth on base of tongue in two parallel patches; preorbital entire; preopercle weakly serrate; margin of subopercle entire; suprascapula entire; gill-rakers long and slender, 4 + 15; dorsal fins separate; caudal fin forked. _Morone americana._ The White-perch. Body oblong, ovate, the back moderately elevated; head 3; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; D. IX-I, 12; A. III, 8; scales 8-50-12; head depressed above eyes; snout rather pointed; mouth small, maxillary not reaching middle of orbit; preorbital entire; base of tongue without teeth; head scaled; dorsal fins connected at base; gill-rakers 4 + 16. _Centropristes striatus._ The Sea-bass. Body robust, elevated anteriorly, somewhat compressed; head 2-2/3; depth 2-2/3; eye 5; D. X, 11; A. III, 7; scales 5-55-17; head large and thick, naked on top; mouth rather large, lower jaw projecting; teeth in broad bands, the canines small; preopercle serrate; gill-rakers long, about _x_ + 18; scales on cheeks in 11 rows; caudal fin double concave or three-lobed. THE STRIPED-BASS (_Roccus lineatu_) The specific name _lineatus_, or "striped," was bestowed by Bloch in 1792. North of the Delaware River it is universally called striped-bass, but in more southern waters it is known as rock or rockfish, from its habit of foraging on rocky shores in search of crustaceans and small fishes. From this vernacular name comes the generic name _Roccus_. It is found from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Florida, but is most abundant from Buzzards Bay to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It has been successfully transplanted to the Pacific coast, where it is now common near San Francisco. The form of the striped-bass varies considerably with age. Young specimens are rather slender and symmetrical in outline, the depth being about a fourth of the length. The depth increases with the weight of the fish, while the back becomes more arched, and the belly more pendulous. The head equals in length the depth of the body usually. The mouth is large, opening obliquely; the snout is rather sharp, and the lower jaw projects. The color is olivaceous, often bluish on the back, sides with silvery lustre, fading to white on the belly. There are six to eight horizontal rows of dark spots, forming interrupted stripes, four or five running from head to caudal fin, with three shorter ones below; the fins are pale and usually unmarked. It is found within the range given during the entire year, though it frequents certain situations at different seasons. The largest fish resort to the rocky shores of the bays and indentations of the coast between the shores and outer reefs, those of smaller size frequent the estuaries and tideways, and still smaller ones seek the shallower and quieter waters. [Illustration SURF-FISHING FOR BASS] It spawns in the spring, usually in May, in both fresh and brackish water. Large schools ascend rivers for long distances in the spring, more particularly those rivers resorted to by the shad, which they seem to follow, perhaps for the purpose of feeding on shad spawn, as they are said to do. Others follow the smelt up certain rivers farther north. A large female will deposit from a million to two million eggs, which are about one-seventh of an inch in diameter, are free, transparent, and semi-buoyant, and hatch in a few days. Owing to a large oil-drop in the front part of the yolk-sac, the young fry at first swim with the head toward the surface of the water, and not in the horizontal position usual with the fry of most fishes. Its food consists of small fishes, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, squids, sandworms, and other marine invertebrates. It grows to a very large size, being frequently taken by anglers from thirty to sixty pounds, and in the nets of fishermen as heavy as one hundred pounds or more. In the city of Baltimore, in boyhood days, I often went to the fish markets on Saturdays to see and admire the various kinds of fishes. On one occasion there were several large rockfish being weighed on the old-time balance, consisting of a beam and two large, flat, wooden scales supported by chains. The largest fish did not weigh quite two fifty-six-pound weights. A man then asked me how much I weighed, and I replied one hundred and three pounds. I was then placed on the scale instead of the weights, with the result that the fish outweighed me perhaps a pound or two. At all events it weighed between one hundred and three and one hundred and twelve pounds--probably one hundred and five pounds. It was as long as an average man. The striped-bass is a food-fish of fine quality, and the markets of the eastern cities are well supplied with it during summer and fall, and to a certain extent during the winter. It is very active from early spring until late in the fall, when it resorts to the back-waters and bayous of tidal rivers for the winter. It is said by some to hibernate, but this is doubtful. The opinion is probably due to the fact that it is more sluggish and listless while in winter quarters, and refuses to respond to the wiles of the angler. That the striped-bass is a game-fish of high degree goes without saying. It is rated by some enthusiastic anglers as being superior even to the salmon in game qualities. This opinion, however, is hardly correct when the two are compared weight for weight. In surf-fishing the first rush of a large fish, upon feeling the hook, is something to be remembered. It is probably longer and stronger than that of a salmon of equal weight, for the reason that while the latter fish is leaping from the water in its efforts to escape, the bass is making his furious dash for liberty beneath the surface, and exerting every ounce of his muscular fibre in the effort. But this immense strain cannot long be continued, and as he seldom breaks water like the salmon, and does not sulk, he resorts to strategy and finesse to free himself. After making several desperate but ineffectual rushes to escape, he may endeavor to chafe or part the line against sharp rocks, or to foul it among the kelp or sea-weeds. Sometimes, but not often, he dives toward the angler to obtain slack line, which is a dangerous move if the reel does not respond quickly in taking up the loose line. When it is considered that all of these manoeuvres of a monster bass to free himself occur amidst the rolling and tumbling of the surf, or in the dashing of foam-crested combers, while the angler often has but a precarious footing on a slippery rock, and perhaps with a half gale of wind blowing, some idea may be formed of the skill and good judgment required to subdue and land so valorous a fish. And under such conditions it is very natural for the angler to rank his noble quarry with the salmon. When a Baltimore boy I thought there was no better sport than still-fishing for rockfish running from a half to a pound or two, on the flats off Fort McHenry, the Lazaretto, or up the Patapsco River near the Long Bridge. It was good sport, too, for the fish were plentiful in those days, and from an anchored boat, with light cane rod and shrimp bait, I was often on the ground to catch the young flood tide at sunrise, or before, on summer mornings, and seldom failed to be rewarded with a full basket of small striped-bass. [Illustration CATCHING SEA-BASS OFF NEWPORT] Still-fishing in summer is best practised in comparatively shallow water in the estuaries, at the edge of the tideways, near the mouths of rivers, or up streams of good size as far as the tide reaches. In some cases the fishing may be done from bridges, piers, wharves, or from the bank, but usually from an anchored boat. In the estuaries and at the mouths of rivers the first of the flood and the last of the ebb are usually the best stages of the tide. In the shallow bays and lagoons, or far up the rivers, the full tide is the most favorable time. For this fishing the rod should be light, pliable, and not more than nine feet in length. A black-bass rod can be utilized to good advantage. The best rod for the purpose, however, is the "Little Giant," a modification of the Henshall black-bass rod. It is in two pieces, seven and one-half feet long, and weighs eight ounces in ash and lancewood, or seven ounces in split bamboo. It is stiffer than the Henshall rod, so that a two or four-ounce sinker can be used with it whenever necessary. A good multiplying reel must be employed with black-bass rods. The line should be fifty yards of braided linen, smallest size, with a three-foot leader of single gut; Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks Nos. 1 or 2 on gut snells are large enough for bass up to two or three pounds. A small float is useful on grassy bottom with shrimp or crab bait, and sinkers of weights in accordance with the strength of the tidal current must be employed, also a landing-net. Shrimps, soft or shedder crabs, soft-shelled clams, sandworms, small minnows, silversides, spearing or killifishes, are all good baits in their season. Shrimp is perhaps the best all-round lure. It should be hooked under the back plates, and a single shrimp is sufficient for small bass. Shedder or soft crab should be cut in small pieces. The scallop is likewise an attractive bait, especially in the fall, when clam bait may also be used to advantage. Early in the spring shad roe may be used in quiet waters, or at slack tide, but it is a difficult and unpleasant bait to handle. The bait should be from one to three feet above the bottom, and should be kept in motion. Even crab bait should not be allowed to lie on the bottom, as some anglers advise. To maintain the proper position and depth of the bait the angler may employ a float, with or without a sinker, as the exigencies or conditions demand. Very often hand-lines or stiff cane poles are used in estuary fishing, and the bass, even when of several pounds in weight, are yanked out of the water into the boat at once. But with the tackle recommended above the pleasure of the angler is enhanced, and the fish given a chance for his life in the brief struggle that follows. In trolling for fish of from three to ten pounds a natural bamboo rod, eight or nine feet long, answers well with one hundred yards of braided linen line, size E or F, and Sproat hooks No. 2-0 to 3-0 on gut snells. Where the bass run larger, two hundred feet of line, size E, with hooks Nos. 5-0 to 6-0 may be required, also a heavier rod. The baits for trolling are bloodworms of large size, a minnow hooked through the lips, the natural squid or an eel-tail; also the artificial squid of bone or block tin, or a trolling-spoon or spinner with a single hook. When the spoon or artificial squid is used it is not necessary or advisable to add sandworms or other natural bait, as is often done. Employ one or the other, but never both in combination. The artificial baits are sufficiently attractive in themselves, and the additions mentioned do not enhance their effectiveness. The boat should be rowed alongshore, or over rocky reefs or shoals, and about the eddies of rock pools. As the fish always hooks itself in trolling, it only remains for the angler to play and land his quarry in good form, always having a large landing-net or gaff in the boat. Casting menhaden bait from the rocky shores of the coast requires tools and tackle of great excellence and strength, as the largest bass are taken in this way. The most approved rod is a first-class split-bamboo, eight or eight and one-half feet long, and weighing from twelve to sixteen ounces. A more serviceable rod, that is, one that will admit of harder usage, is made of greenheart, lancewood, or bethabara, of the same length, but somewhat heavier. A cheaper rod, but one that will give good satisfaction, and withal is lighter than a wooden rod, is made of natural male Calcutta bamboo, and is known as a "chum" rod. Rods of eight or eight and one-half feet in length should be made in two or three pieces, or if not exceeding seven and one-half feet may be made of one six-foot piece with a handle of eighteen inches. They should have double bell-mouth guides and funnel top. The more expensive rods should have the guides, or at least the funnel top, lined with agate. The reel must be a first-class multiplier, made expressly for surf-fishing, with jewelled or steel bearings, with a capacity of two hundred yards of from twelve to eighteen-thread Cuttyhunk line. The hooks should be knobbed Sproat or O'Shaughnessy, Nos. 5-0 to 7-0, and attached to the line by two half-hitches, the loose end turned up and secured by another half-hitch. A long-handled gaff-hook of good steel and very sharp is indispensable. A chum knife and spoon are also necessary, and a woollen thumb-stall will be needed for thumbing the reel, or a piece of leather may be affixed to one of its bars as a brake. The bait for casting may be the tail of a lobster, cleaned of every vestige of shell, but menhaden bait is generally used. After scaling the fish, a slice of several inches is cut from its side, tail end, and scored on the flesh side longitudinally with a sharp knife, to admit of its being more readily folded along the hook, which it should envelop completely. The small end of the bait is affixed to the head of the hook by a half-hitch or two, its bend and barb being concealed by the broader end of the bait. This is the conventional method of baiting, though I have had good success in more southern waters by using an entire bait of mullet or other silvery fish, five or six inches in length, and hooked through the lips. The residue of the menhaden, after the baits are cut off, is chopped fine, and is known as "chum." This is thrown in the water to attract the bass. It is called "chumming," and causes an oily "slick" that spreads over the surface for a long distance. The pieces of cut fish thrown in are soon swallowed by scup, cunners, bass, and other fishes, leaving nothing but the oily slick on the surface. The bluefish, being a surface feeder, is probably attracted by the slick, but it is questionable if it is noticed by the striped-bass, a bottom and mid-water feeder. And even if the common belief were true, it is not likely that the bass would be tolled directly toward the angler through a slick covering many acres. The real attraction is in the chopped menhaden that sinks below the surface. Casting the menhaden is quite an art. It is somewhat in the nature of casting a minnow for black-bass as described on a previous page, though the rod is a two-handed one and the bait much heavier. The bait is reeled up to within a foot or two of the rod tip, and the rod grasped by both hands, one just above and one below the reel, with the thumb of the lower hand resting on the spool of the reel, and protected by a woollen or leather thumb-stall. With the rod at one side, it is given a preliminary whirl, or swing or two, and the bait cast, underhand, much like striking at a hip-high or shoulder-high ball with a bat. The cast is made from either side, and while some anglers place the right hand below in casting from both sides, it is not the best way. In casting from the right side the left hand should be below, and the reel controlled by the left thumb; while in casting from the left side the right hand should be below. The thumb should maintain a gentle and uniform pressure on the spool as it revolves, to prevent backlashing, and by a stronger pressure stop the revolution of the spool as the bait reaches the water. As long a cast is made as possible, and when the bait settles it should be reeled in again very slowly and the cast repeated until the bait is taken by a bass. When the water is very rough, so as to churn the bait and keep it in constant motion, fewer casts are necessary, as the bait can be left in the water for a longer time before making a new cast. When the fish is hooked and starts on his initial rush, line should be given, the thumb always on the spool to check him when it can be done without endangering the tackle. His first rush will probably be his strongest, and he must then be killed on the rod and reeled in to the gaffer. During the struggle of playing the fish, great care must be observed to prevent the cutting or chafing of the line against sharp rocks, and to keep the fish away from weeds, timbers, or other obstructions. As the bass may weigh anywhere from ten to fifty pounds, the utmost skill and precaution are necessary to land him safely. Very often the angler has not only to contend with the fish, but with the strength and undertow of the tide and the tossing of breakers--factors that are by no means to be despised or neglected. But once fairly gaffed, the angler may feast his eyes on the grand fish, weighing, perhaps, thirty pounds or more, and congratulate himself on a great achievement. When the bass are running far up the fresh-water streams in the spring, they will often take the artificial fly. As the fish do not run much heavier than black-bass, the rod and tackle used in fly-fishing for that fish can be utilized, employing such flies as oriole, polka, coachman, red ibis, or other showy creations. The fishing is more successful about sundown. Many years ago the striped-bass was planted in the waters of the Pacific coast by the United States Fish Commission. It has multiplied exceedingly, so that bass-fishing is now a favorite sport with San Francisco anglers, who fish the neighboring bays, rivers, and sloughs with great success. The baits commonly used are clams and the trolling-spoon. The sport has culminated in the formation of several striped-bass clubs, with quite a large membership. THE WHITE-PERCH (_Morone americana_) The white-perch was described, but not named, by Shöpf, in 1788, from the waters near New York. From his description Gmelin named it, in the same year, _Perca americana_, or "American perch." The genus _Morone_ was established for it in 1814 by Dr. Mitchill, as owing to structural differences it could not properly be placed in the genus _Perca_. The white-perch is one of the most abundant fishes of the brackish waters on the Atlantic coast, its range extending from Nova Scotia to South Carolina, but more especially from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. It is also landlocked in fresh-water ponds at various places along the coast. It is a handsome fish, symmetrical in outline, and well proportioned. Its body is compressed, its depth is not quite a third of its length. Its head is as long as the depth of the body, depressed above the eyes, and with a somewhat pointed snout. The mouth is rather small; the teeth are small, without canines; there are a few teeth on the edge of the tongue, but none on its base. There are two dorsal fins, though they are connected at the base. Its color is olivaceous, or green of various shades on the head and back, with silvery or greenish sides, and silvery white belly. Sometimes the color is bluish on the back and head. Those confined in ponds are always darker in hue. The white-perch is one of the best and most esteemed pan-fishes of the eastern coast. It grows to a foot or more in length, occasionally weighing three pounds; but the usual size is from six to nine inches, and from one-half to a pound in weight in brackish water. Smaller ones ascend the streams to fresh water. It is usually found associating with small striped-bass, and their habits are much alike, feeding on the same food, as small minnows, young eels, shrimp, etc. It spawns in the spring, usually in May, in shallow, weedy situations in both fresh and brackish water. The eggs are quite small, about forty thousand to a fish, and hatch in three or four days. As a boy I was very fond of fishing for white-perch, which were then very abundant in the Spring Garden branch of the Patapsco River, at Baltimore, from Ferry Bar to the mud-flats near the Long Bridge, and also above the bridge on the main river in brackish water. Being gregarious, it was found in large schools, and was a free biter at shrimps, shedder-crab, small minnows, and earthworms. At the time of which I write it was very plentiful at the mouths of all tidal rivers emptying into Chesapeake Bay. I have seen great wagon loads brought ashore in one haul of a long market seine. And in camping along the Bay, during my summer vacations, they seemed to be as plentiful as blackberries. There was never any dearth of fried white-perch or other fishes in our camp, and we never tired of them. We feasted on them daily, with terrapin, soft-shelled crabs, oysters, green corn, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and watermelons, and all to be had for the mere catching or asking. Any light rod may be used for white-perch, with or without a small multiplying reel, with a line of braided linen, smallest size, and hooks Nos. 6 to 8. Most anglers use two or three hooks, but I would advise a single hook for all kinds of fishing. A short leader of single gut, about three feet long, is an advantage, and hooks should be tied on gut snells. In quiet water, with small, live minnows for bait, a sinker or float need not be used. In tidal waters a sinker is necessary to keep the bait at mid-water, or a few feet from the bottom, especially when shrimp, crab, or earthworms are used for bait. The weight of the sinker must be adapted to the strength of the tide. The best season is during late summer or autumn in brackish water, from an anchored boat, at half-flood or half-ebb tide; up the tidal rivers at high tide. At low water they must be looked for in the deep holes, among the rocks. Wherever found the white-perch will not disappoint the angler, but is ever ready to respond to his baited hook. It rises pretty well to the artificial fly, especially when landlocked in ponds, or far up the streams. Trout tackle and trout flies are just right, on hooks Nos. 7 or 8; and as the most favorable time for fishing is toward dusk, light-colored flies are the best, as coachman, gray drake, red ibis, oriole, etc. I was once fishing for white-perch on Gunpowder River, in Maryland, with a companion who happened to lose one of his hooks through a defective snell, which, however, he soon recovered by catching the perch that had stolen it. We were perfectly sure that it was his, as he had tied his hooks himself with a peculiar shade of sewing silk. He then marked the fish by clipping off a portion of one of the spines of the dorsal fin, and returned it to the water, only to be retaken three times, twice by my friend and once by myself. The lips of the perch being then quite ragged from the frequent hooking, it was humanely killed and deposited in the basket. From my experience with both wild and domesticated fish I am quite sure that cold-blooded animals, like fishes and batrachians, are not very sensitive to pain. Owing to the very small brain and the gelatinous character of the spinal marrow of fishes, it is very doubtful if they suffer much, if any, pain from the infliction of so slight an injury as the pricking of a fish-hook. If it were otherwise, I do not think a hooked fish would offer so much resistance and pull so hard upon the hook if it caused much pain. Nor does it seem reasonable that a fish would repeatedly subject itself to the same experience if its mouth felt at all sore, as all experienced anglers know they do, time and again. The mouth and throat of a fish cannot be very sensitive when it is considered that it swallows, whole, such prey as sunfish and catfish fry, bristling with sharp fins and spines, and those of the catfish are always erect, even if swallowed head first. Marine fishes also swallow crabs, lobsters, prawns, besides mollusks, sea-urchins, and other creatures that would be exceedingly irritating and painful to a sensitive throat. [Illustration THE SEA-BASS] [_Centropristes striatus_] [Illustration THE MASCALONGE] [_Esox nobilior_] [Illustration THE PIKE] [_Esox lucius_] THE SEA-BASS (_Centropristes striatus_) The sea-bass is known in various localities as black sea-bass, black will, black harry, hannahills, humpback, and also by names belonging rightly to other well-known fishes, as blackfish, bluefish, and rock-bass. The name sea-bass, however, is in most general use, and is the most distinctive and appropriate. Linnæus described it briefly, in 1758, and named it _striatus_, or "striped." He afterward received specimens from South Carolina, which in 1766 he named _atraria_, or "blackish," but the older name must hold according to the law of priority. It is confined to the Atlantic coast, with range extending from Cape Cod to Florida, but it is most abundant along the coast of New Jersey. It has a robust body, its depth not quite a third of its length; the back is elevated over the shoulder, the "hump" being more prominent in males during the breeding season. The head is large and thick, with a large, oblique mouth, leathery lips, and projecting lower jaw. The fin rays are long and slender, and the caudal fin is double concave. Its color is bluish black, sometimes greenish black or dusky brown on the back and top of the head, lighter on the sides and belly. The edges of the scales being dark, give a mottled, streaked, or reticulated appearance. The dorsal fin has several series of bluish white elongated spots; the other fins are bluish or dusky, and are more or less mottled. Young specimens have a broad dusky band or stripe along the sides, which later becomes broken up, forming cross shades. The sea-bass, as its name implies, is a sea fish, seldom entering brackish water. It congregates in large schools about the offshore rocky reefs and shoals, and about old wrecks, feeding on crabs, shrimps, and other marine organisms, often in company with the tautog and porgy. It is a deep-water fish, and of course a bottom feeder. It spawns in summer, between May and August, depending on the temperature of the water, but usually in June. The eggs are quite small, about twenty-five to the inch, and hatch in from four to six days. Its usual weight is from one-half to two or three pounds, occasionally weighing ten or twelve pounds. It is very voracious and will take almost any kind of bait that is offered. It is taken in large numbers by market fishermen on hand-lines and clam bait. It commands a ready sale, being a good food-fish, with firm, flaky flesh of a fine savor, and is highly valued for chowders. It is a hard-pulling fish on the line, boring toward the bottom with vicious tugs. A light cane chum rod is very suitable, or perhaps the Little Giant rod is better. It is seven and one-half feet long and weighs eight ounces, and will bear the strain of such sinkers as must be used. The line should be braided linen of small caliber, and a multiplying reel should always be used. A short leader of three or four feet, and Sproat hooks, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0, on silkworm fibre and a sinker adapted to the strength of the tide, make up the rest of the tackle. As the fishing is done from an anchored boat a landing-net should be provided. With the tackle just mentioned, at slack tide, and with clam, shedder-crab, sandworms, or shrimp bait, the angler can enjoy a good measure of sport with the sea-bass. Where the tide runs very strong, compelling the use of heavy sinkers of from three to six ounces, a striped-bass rod should be employed, especially in water from fifteen to thirty feet deep. Great crowds of men, women, and children patronize the excursion boats from New York and Philadelphia, in the summer season, to catch bass, porgies, tautog, and flounders on the various fishing banks off the Jersey coast, where they use hand-lines and clam bait. While such fishing is greatly enjoyed by the uninitiated, it does not appeal to the angler. THE SOUTHERN SEA-BASS (_Centropristes philadelphicus_) This species was described by Linnæus in 1758, and named _philadelphicus_, under the impression that his specimen was from the vicinity of that city. Afterward he received specimens from the South Carolina coast, which, in 1766, he named _trifurca_, meaning "three-forked," in allusion to its "triple-tail." The older name, unfortunately, must stand. Its color is olive-gray, darkest on the back, whitish below, with seven oblique dusky and diffuse bars along the upper portion of the sides. The three-forked appearance of the caudal fin is more pronounced than in the northern sea-bass; otherwise there is no structural difference, except in coloration. Its habits are similar. The same remarks apply equally to the following species, except that it has a few less gill-rakers than the northern species. They may eventually all prove to be the same species, or geographical varieties. The directions as to fishing apply as well to both these southern forms as to the northern sea-bass. THE GULF SEA-BASS (_Centropristes ocyurus_) This species was described from the "snapper banks," off Pensacola, by Jordan and Evermann in 1886, who named it _ocyurus_, or "swift tail." It has not been recorded from any other locality. It agrees with the northern sea-bass, except as mentioned, and in its coloration, which is grayish or pale olive, darker on the back, with three longitudinal rows of black blotches along the sides. It is called "tally-wag" by the snapper fisherman. CHAPTER IV THE PIKE FAMILY (_Esocidæ_) The fishes of this family have a long body, not much compressed, and not elevated. The head is long, with a flattened and prolonged snout; a very large mouth filled with long and very sharp, cardlike teeth on the jaws and roof of the mouth, and with smaller teeth on the tongue. They have a single dorsal fin composed entirely of soft rays, and situated very far back and opposite to the anal fin, which is likewise composed of soft rays. The scales are small; the cheeks and gill-covers are more or less scaly; the head is naked above. All are greedy, voracious fishes, marauding tyrants, living almost entirely on other fishes. There is but one genus, _Esox_. _Esox nobilior._ The Mascalonge. Body elongate; head 3-2/3; depth 6; eye 5; B. 17 to 19; D. 17; A. 15; scales 150 along the lateral line; cheeks and opercles naked below, scaly above; in about 8 rows. [Illustration THE MASCALONGE OF THE WEEDS. TROLLING WITH HAND-LINE] _Esox lucius._ The Pike. Body elongate; head 3-1/3; depth 5; eye 6; B. 14 to 16; D. 16 or 17; A. 13 or 14; scales 125; cheeks entirely covered with scales; lower half of opercles naked, upper half with scales. _Esox reticulatus._ Eastern Pickerel. Body elongate; head 3-1/2; depth 6; eye 8; B. 14 to 16; D. 14; A. 13; scales 125; cheeks and opercles entirely covered with scales. _Esox vermiculatus._ The Western Pickerel. Body elongate; head 3-1/4; depth 5 to 6; eye 6; B. 12; D. 11 or 12; A. 11 or 12; scales 105 along the lateral line; cheeks and opercles entirely covered with scales. _Esox americanus._ The Banded Pickerel. Body elongate; head 3-1/2; depth 5-1/2; eye 5; B. 12 or 13; D. 11 or 12; A. 11 or 12; scales 105; cheeks and opercles entirely covered with scales. As some anglers find it difficult to distinguish a large pike from a mascalonge, or a pike from a pickerel, owing to the similar shape and appearance, the several species can be easily identified by means of the following artificial key: The mascalonge (_Esox nobilior_) has the upper part of both the cheeks and gill-covers scaly, while the lower half of both cheeks and gill-covers is naked; it has from 17 to 19 branchiostegal rays (the branchiostegals are the rays on the under side of the gill-cover, that, like the ribs of an umbrella, assist in opening and closing it during breathing). Its coloration is of a uniform grayish hue, or when marked with spots or bars they are always of a much darker color or shade than the ground color. The pike (_Esox lucius_) has the cheeks entirely scaly, but only the upper part of the gill-cover, the lower half being naked; it has from 14 to 16 branchiostegal rays; its coloration is a bluish or greenish gray, with elongated or bean-shaped spots covering the sides, and which are always of a lighter hue than the ground color. The eastern or reticulated pickerel (_Esox reticulatus_) has both the cheeks and the gill-covers entirely covered with scales; it has from 14 to 16 branchiostegal rays; its coloration is shades of green, with sides of golden lustre, and marked with dark reticulations, mostly horizontal. It is rarely or never found west of the Alleghanies. The little western pickerel (_Esox vermiculatus_) has both cheeks and gill-covers entirely scaly, as have all the pickerels; it has from 11 to 13, usually 12, branchiostegal rays; its coloration is greenish or grayish, with curved streaks on the sides forming bars or reticulations; the color is quite variable, sometimes plain olive. It is found only west of the Alleghanies. The banded or American pickerel (_Esox americanus_) has, like the other true pickerels, both the cheeks and the gill-covers entirely covered with scales; it has 12 or 13 branchiostegal rays; coloration dark green, sides with many distinct black curved transverse bars; a black bar below the eye, and one from the snout through the eye to the gill-cover. It is found only east of the Alleghanies. THE MASCALONGE (_Esox nobilior_) The specific name _nobilior_, long current for the mascalonge, and the one based on its earliest accurate description, was conferred by Rev. Zadoc Thompson in 1849 in "Notes on Certain Vermont Fishes," in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. III, published July 18, 1849, and later he described it fully in the "History of Vermont," 1853, Part I. It is an excellent and appropriate name, and one that has become familiar to anglers. I have retained it, inasmuch as it was discarded, I think, for a very insufficient reason. The specific name _masquinongy_, which has recently been given to this species in the books, is supposed to have been given to the mascalonge by Dr. Mitchill in 1824. His description, however, cannot now be found. It is alluded to by De Kay in his "Fishes of New York," in 1842, who gives its reference as "Mirror, 1824, page 297"; but I have searched for it in vain, as have others. De Kay merely says: "According to Mitchill, who describes a specimen 47.0 long and weighing thirty pounds, the fin rays are as follows: 'D. 21; P. 14; V. 11; A. 17; C. 26.' But this radial formula is just as applicable to Richardson's _E. lucius_: 'D. 20; P. 16; A. 18,' also given by De Kay." The size and weight of the alleged specimen of Mitchill would seem to indicate the mascalonge, but the great northern pickerel, _Esox lucius_, occasionally reaches a like size and weight. I once caught one weighing twenty-five pounds in northern Wisconsin, and saw several a little heavier, one of fully twenty-eight pounds. Dr. Kirtland, in 1838, had, previous to De Kay, applied Mitchill's name _masquinongy_ to a specimen from Lake Erie, and it is upon this evidence, principally, that this name has been adopted as the specific title of the mascalonge. But afterward Dr. Kirtland used Thompson's name _nobilis_ (meaning _nobilior_) and Le Sueur's name _estor_ for the mascalonge. He also subsequently described the mascalonge from Lake Erie as _atromaculatus_, and one from the Mahoning River, Ohio, as _ohiensis_. From this it would appear that Dr. Kirtland, although a good naturalist in his day, was not at all clear in his estimation of the mascalonge. There has been considerable controversy concerning the common or vernacular name of the mascalonge. Some claim it is from the French, and derived from the words "masque" and "allonge," which virtually mean "long face," and which is certainly nearer to the common pronunciation of mascalonge or muscalunge. Others claim it is an Indian name from the Ojibwa language, as "mash," meaning "strong," and "kinoje," meaning "pike." "Mash" is also said to mean "spotted" and "deformed." From mash and kinoje come "maskinonge," as it appears in the statutes of Canada. The name has been spelled in numerous ways, as evidenced in the Century Dictionary, which gives the following variations: maskalonge, mascalonge, maskalunge, maskallonge, masquallonge, masq'allonge, mascallonge, muscalonge, muskalonge, muskalinge, muskellunge, moskalonge, moscononge, maskinonge, maskanonge, maskenonge, maskenozha, maskinoje, and maskenonge, to which might be added muscalinga, mascalinga, etc. There is no authority or precedent for the name "muskellunge" as used by some writers and anglers, as neither the original French or Indian words have the letter "u" in either the first or last syllable. Moreover, the term "lunge" is in some sections applied to the lake trout. I am aware, of course, that the name has obtained considerable currency, but in much the same way that the black-bass is called "trout" in the South, and the pike-perch is denominated "salmon" in certain localities. Rev. Zadoc Thompson, who was the first to call attention to the scaling of the cheeks as a diagnostic character, gives the vernacular name "masquallonge," and attributes it to French derivation, to which opinion I am inclined. As the most prominent writers on fish and fishing give it as "mascalonge," that name should be universally adopted, no matter what its origin, or whether derived from the French Canadians or the Chippeway Indians; that question is more interesting to philologists than to anglers. As an instance of inconsistency, or of the irony of fate, the books give the scientific name of the subgenus as _mascalongus_, from the French, and the specific name as _masquinongy_, from the Ojibwa. The mascalonge is common in the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes, more abundant in the lakes of northern Wisconsin, less common in the upper Mississippi River, Chautauqua Lake. New York, and Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, and rare in the upper Ohio River and tributaries. It has a long body, somewhat compressed, its depth being about one-fifth of its length; the head is large, about a fourth of the length of the body, and flattened, with the lower jaw projecting. It has a terrible array of teeth of assorted sizes. On the edge of each side of the lower jaw are several long, bayonet-shaped teeth, from one-half to an inch apart; in the front part of the tip of the projecting lower jaw are a few short but sharp teeth, recurved; in the front part of the upper jaw are three clusters of long, fanglike teeth, standing out amidst the smaller, cardlike teeth; on the edge of the forward half of the upper lip is a row of small, but very sharp, recurved teeth; back of these on the roof of the mouth (vomer and palatines), and extending back from the fangs in front to the throat, are three rows of cardlike teeth, recurved and very sharp. The coloration and markings vary so much that several varieties have been needlessly established, as the variations are found in every locality, and do not seem to depend on habitat or environment. The usual color is dark gray, greenish or brownish, always darker on the back, lighter on the sides, and belly white or whitish. The fins usually have dusky or slate-colored spots or blotches; the lower fins and caudal fin are often reddish. The markings of the body vary a great deal. In the young the upper half of the body is covered with small, round black spots, which usually disappear or change their shape as they grow old. In mature fish the spots are more diffuse, sometimes enlarging to an inch or more in diameter, or by coalescing form vertical broad bands, while in others there are no distinct dark markings. And while all of these various markings are found in fish from the same locality there is no apparent structural difference. I have examined and compared specimens from the St. Lawrence and Indian rivers, New York. Lake Erie, the Wisconsin lakes, Lake Pepin, Chautauqua and Conneaut lakes, Scioto and Mahoning rivers, in Ohio, and have seen preserved heads of large ones from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and found that they all agree so well in the number of branchiostegals, squamation of cheeks and opercles, in dentition, fins, and in measurements, that they must all be considered as one and the same species. At the Chicago Columbian Exposition there were some twenty very large specimens of mounted skins from Canadian waters, in the exhibit of the Ottawa Museum, which showed well the variation in markings. Some still showed the dark spots on a gray ground; others were more or less distinctly barred with broad or narrow bands; others showed both bars and diffuse spots; and still others were of a uniform slate or grayish coloration, without markings of any kind. In the museum of the Cuvier Club, in Cincinnati, there are quite a number of mounted skins of mascalonge from the Wisconsin lakes, mostly large ones, that also show all of the various markings, as well as those of a uniform coloration. About 1890 I donated to the Cincinnati Society of Natural History a specimen from Lake Erie; and in 1892 I donated to the United States National Museum two specimens from Lake Erie, and one from a tributary of the Muskingum River, in Ohio. All of these Ohio fish were from eighteen inches to two feet long, and all showed similar markings, being profusely covered with round black spots from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in diameter. Where the spots become diffused, and the bands are inclined to spread and coalesce, they are always more distinct toward the tail. In a mascalonge of less than a foot in length the spots are very black, very round, and quite small, not exceeding a sixth or an eighth of an inch in diameter. Various appellations have been bestowed on the mascalonge to denote its rapacity, as the shark, wolf, or tiger of the waters, all of which are well merited by that fierce marauder. It subsists entirely on fish, frogs, snakes, and even the young of aquatic mammals and water fowl. Nothing in the shape of food comes amiss to him. He is solitary in his habits, lying concealed among the water plants and rushes at the edges of the streams or channels and along the shores, or beside shelving rocks or banks in clear lakes, from whence he darts open-mouthed upon the luckless fish that approaches his lair. The number of fishes swallowed by a mascalonge during a single summer is almost incredible; and they are not minnows and small fry alone, such as are devoured by other predaceous fishes, but such as are old and large enough to reproduce their kind. It is fortunate that the mascalonge is comparatively a rare fish. As it is now being artificially propagated in some states, great care and judgment should be exercised as to the waters planted, so as not to jeopardize other and better game-fishes. It spawns early in the spring and in very shallow water, where most of the eggs are devoured by frogs, turtles, fishes, and water fowl--a wise provision of nature when it is considered that the female deposits from one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand eggs. The eggs are quite small, about ten or twelve to an inch, and hatch in about two weeks. The mascalonge is the most valuable food-fish of its family, and is pronounced by some as being really excellent; but I consider it much inferior to the whitefish, lake-trout, pike-perch, black-bass, or brook-trout. While possessing no especial flavor, its flesh is firm and flaky, more so than that of the pike or pickerel, and it commands a ready sale in the markets. It grows occasionally to an enormous size. I have taken it up to forty pounds, good weight. The late Judge Potter, of Toledo, Ohio, an angler of the old school, informed me that he had seen, in early days, many that weighed from fifty to seventy-five pounds. Mr. L.H. McCormick, formerly of Oberlin College, Ohio, saw one taken in a pound net that weighed seventy-two pounds. The late Dr. Elisha Sterling, formerly of Cleveland. Ohio, a contemporary of Judge Potter and the late Dr. Garlick, the father of artificial fish-culture in America, told me of one he once speared in Lake Erie that weighed eighty pounds, and said that those of fifty to sixty pounds were common in the forties. The mascalonge is the best game-fish of its family. When of large size, from twenty to thirty pounds, it exhibits a bull-like ferocity when hooked, making furious dashes for liberty, and if not stopped in time will eventually take to the weeds. It exhibits great powers of endurance, but little finesse or cunning in its efforts to escape. It depends on main strength alone, swimming swiftly in straight lines, as might be inferred from its shape. Its long body does not admit of the quick doublings of the black-bass or brook-trout. If kept on the surface with a taut line it sometimes leaps into the air; but if allowed its own sweet will it bores toward the bottom, or endeavors to reach the refuge of weeds or rushes. One of less weight than twelve pounds, when hooked, can scarcely be distinguished from the pike or pickerel in its manner of resistance, and exhibits but little more gameness. A black-bass rod of eight or nine ounces is sufficient for the largest mascalonge one is likely to encounter in these days. I caught one on the St. Lawrence, many years ago, that weighed thirty-two pounds, on an eight-ounce Henshall rod, and gaffed it in twenty minutes. Others have done the same even with a lighter rod. But it must be remembered that the weight of the fish, added to his fierce lunges, is very trying to a light rod, and I should not recommend one of less weight than eight ounces, which will answer for all emergencies in skilled hands. A good multiplying reel, a braided silk or linen line, size E or F, and Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks Nos. 3-0 to 5-0 on gimp snells, with brass box-swivel for connecting snell and line, constitute the rest of the tackle. The best season for mascalonge fishing is in May or June, and in September and October, the latter months preferable. The most favorable hours are in the early morning and late afternoon. The middle of the day may be fished with a better prospect of success on cloudy, lowering days, with a brisk wind. The best bait is a large minnow, either alive or dead, though a frog answers very well; and in the absence of either, a trolling-spoon, No. 4, with a single hook, may be utilized for casting. Rowing along in water from five to ten feet deep, the bait should be cast as far as possible to the edge of weed patches, reeling it again very slowly, or if the bait is alive it may be allowed to swim outside of the water-plants for a short time. By moving along continuously, and making frequent casts, this method is much more successful than still-fishing. When the wind is just right, or when the current is strong enough and the wind not contrary, it is a good plan to allow the boat to drift while casting. As soon as a fish is struck and hooked the boat should be moved to deeper and open water at once, in order to give free play to the fish and lessen the probability of its taking to the weeds. In open water the angler has a better chance successfully to play and land his quarry, which should be kept on the surface as much as possible. He can be aided very much in his efforts by the careful and judicious management of the boat by a skilful oarsman. When the mascalonge shows signs of weakness and can be drawn alongside, it should be gaffed at once. Not by striking at it with quick and violent motions, which serve only to frighten the fish and endanger the angler's tackle, but the gaff should be kept below the fish until it can be drawn over it, and then by raising it slowly and cautiously, until near enough, when, by a quick upward and drawing motion, the point of the hook should be driven into the throat or breast of the fish, and by the same motion the fish should be lifted into the boat. It should then be killed by a smart stroke on the head, as a wound from its sharp teeth is no trifling matter. In the absence of a gaff-hook the fish should be more thoroughly exhausted before bringing it alongside the boat, when it should be struck a stunning blow on the head before being taken in. The bait or spoon may be trolled along the edges of the channel, just outside of the weed patches, from a moving boat, with a line of thirty to fifty yards. In trolling, the revolving spoon, glistening and shining, is the attractive lure, and any addition of a minnow, or strip of fish or pork-rind, or other bait, as is often resorted to by some, is entirely unnecessary. It adds nothing to the chances of hooking a fish, and should never be practised by the consistent angler. He may use pork-rind if he wishes, but let it be used alone, on its own merits. A spoon is bad enough in any case, but it only makes it more reprehensible and repulsive, to the angler at least, to handicap it with bait of any kind; even the bunch of feathers that usually adorns the spoon should be discarded, as it is of no practical use. Most mascalonge are taken, I am sorry to say, by trolling with a hand-line of heavy braided linen, size B or C, and a spoon of very large size, as large as No. 8, which seems to be the favorite size with hand-trollers. In this method of fishing the mascalonge hooks himself when he strikes the spoon. It is then drawn in, hand over hand, as the sailors say, with might and muscle. And as might be supposed, those who practise this method are loudest in their praise of the mascalonge as the "king of all game-fishes." A quick pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, with the hauling aboard as soon as possible of the struggling fish, amidst much splashing and floundering, seems to be their estimation of gameness in a fish. The foregoing remarks apply to fishing on lakes and quiet, weedy streams of the Northern states. In the clear and swifter waters of the upper Ohio, and its tributaries, the mascalonge lies in the deep pools during summer and fall, where it is taken by still-fishing. A large sucker, weighing from half a pound to a pound, is the favorite bait, with suitable rod and reel. The fish is given plenty of time to gorge the bait before striking, and this is quite important with so large a bait. Many large mascalonge, there called "pike," have been taken in this manner in those waters, events to belong remembered and talked about, while the head is carefully preserved for the admiration and envy of future generations of anglers. Once when returning from a fishing trip to northern Wisconsin when mascalonge were much more in evidence than at the present day, I was carrying the head of a forty-pounder that just filled an ordinary tin bucket. At Appleton, while waiting for the train to Green Bay, the big head was the centre of an admiring group of anglers. Then came the natural and inevitable query, "Where did you catch it?" In order to avoid a long recital, which only could have done justice to the subject, and expecting the train at any moment, I replied, "An Indian speared it on Lake St. Germain." They looked at me as if I had seven heads; then one said: "Well! well! It requires an awful lot of moral courage to make such an admission." But I killed it, all the same, on a nine-ounce rod, and my Indian canoe-man gaffed it. THE PIKE (_Esox lucius_) The pike is more generally known in the United States as "pickerel," and sometimes as the great northern pickerel to distinguish it from the pickerel, properly so-called. In England the young pike is a pickerel, an older one a jack, and the mature fish a pike. In England and continental Europe the pike (_E. lucius_) is the only species of the family inhabiting their waters, while there are five species of the family in America, which makes it all the more confusing when the name "pickerel" is applied indiscriminately to all,--even the mascalonge being sometimes alluded to as an "overgrown pickerel." The range of the pike in America is from Lake Champlain, the Great Lake region, and the upper Mississippi River, north to Alaska; it is rare in the Ohio Valley. Next to the mascalonge the pike is the most important and largest member of the pike family. It has a long body, somewhat compressed, its length being a little more than five times its depth. The head is large, somewhat more than a fourth of the length of the body, with a long, flattened, and projecting snout; the teeth are similar, but not quite so large or numerous as in the mascalonge. The coloration and markings of the pike are quite constant, not varying so much as in others of the family, and is very different from those of the mascalonge or any of the pickerels. The ground color is grayish or greenish gray, darker on the back and fading to silvery white on the belly; the sides, from head to tail, are profusely covered with irregular, oblong, or bean-shaped whitish spots or blotches, much lighter than the ground color; the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins are marked with dark spots or blotches. It is somewhat more gregarious, and is more of a rover than the mascalonge; otherwise its habits are very similar, and it coexists with that fish in many waters, especially in the region of the Great Lakes. It feeds on fish, frogs, and water-snakes. Its usual weight reaches fifteen pounds, though it occasionally grows to four feet in length and a weight of twenty-five or thirty pounds. As a food-fish it is variously estimated. Some consider it to be very good, and it sells well in the markets,--which, however, is not always a fair criterion. It is much better in the fall and winter than in summer. Most people who know it best, and I agree with them, think it inferior to any fresh-water fish for the table except the carp and sucker. Its flesh is soft and dry, and unless of large size is not flaky, and it is, moreover, very full of small bones. One of ten pounds, stuffed with a savory dressing and baked, is not unpalatable, but cannot be compared favorably with the whitefish, black-bass, or trout. The pike when of large size is a good game-fish. Its weight and strength, added to its bold rushes when hooked, are very trying to light tackle. One of fifteen pounds is worthy of the angler's most serious attention on an eight-ounce rod. Its manner of fighting is similar to that of the mascalonge, though in a lesser degree, and it does not continue its resistance so long. After a few frantic rushes it weakens very materially, and if kept away from weeds soon gives up the struggle for freedom. In England, where game-fishes are much scarcer than in this country, the pike is considered a fine game-fish and is much sought after by bait-fishers, and with a wonderful array of murderous traces, minnow-gangs, and spinning tackle. In the United States, where there are so many better game-fishes, it is not often made the object of special pursuit. Most pike are caught by anglers in northern waters when fishing for black-bass. Ordinary black-bass rods and tackle are very suitable for pike fishing, though where they run large, eight to fifteen pounds, an eight or nine-ounce rod is to be preferred to a lighter one. A good multiplying reel, a braided line, either silk or linen, size F, and Sproat hooks, Nos. 2-0 to 3-0, are better suited to large pike than black-bass. [Illustration THE EASTERN PICKEREL] [_Esox reticulatus_] [Illustration THE WESTERN PICKEREL] [_Esox vermiculatus_] [Illustration THE PIKE-PERCH] [_Stizostedion vitreum_] [Illustration THE YELLOW-PERCH] [_Perca flavescens_] A minnow, or a trolling-spoon of small size with a single Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hook, may be employed in casting from a boat along the edges of weed patches, lily-pads, and wild rice, and along the shoals and bars. The same tackle can be utilized for trolling in the same situations. Where the conditions are favorable it is advisable to allow the boat to drift, in order to dispense with the noise and confusion of rowing or paddling. The directions already given for black-bass fishing, as to playing and landing the fish, will answer just as well for the pike. As the pike seems to suggest the trolling-spoon, this is a good place to say a few words concerning that little-understood article of fishing tackle. In the first place, it should never have more than a _single_ hook, and that should never be handicapped by adding a minnow, frog, or strip of fish or bacon-skin, as is so often done. The hook should be left free to perform its function, untrammelled by extraneous and useless appendages. If the angler pins his faith to them, by all means give them a fair chance on a hook without a spoon; it is not only more logical, but more sportsmanlike. Give the fish a chance, also, and of two evils let it choose the least by using them separately. Seriously, the spoon is a most alluring and attractive bait in itself. Its bright and shining appearance when spinning and glancing through the water is well-nigh irresistible to a predaceous fish, and is in itself all that could be desired as an effective lure. The original trolling-spoon (made by Buell) was the bowl of a dessert spoon, with a hole in the broadest end for the line, and a single hook soldered to the narrow end. It is as effective as the best trolling-spoon made to-day. With a single hook, either loosely attached or soldered to the spoon, one is more apt to hook his fish, and more certain of landing it, to say nothing of the cruel and inhuman practice of using the triangle of three hooks usually attached to most trolling-spoons. Manufacturers generally affix a triangle of hooks to trolling-spoons, disguised by a bunch of red and white feathers that are worse than useless. The spoon is made of many shapes and of various sizes, and often of two or three spoons combined. They seem to vie with each other as to who can turn out the most ridiculous contrivance, for the farther it departs from the original spoon the more useless it becomes. Manufacturers are not all anglers, and endeavor to produce what is most novel and attractive to the prospective customer. Such appliances sell to the uninitiated and unwary, but do not catch many fish, or even anglers of experience. And the same remarks will apply in a measure to the gang or trace of several hooks, usually employed in trolling or spinning the minnow. A minnow, hooked through the lips--and it may be a dead one--with a single hook, will move more lifelike, and be really more attractive to the fish, than the whirling, wabbling one, bristling with a dozen hooks. It is cruel and heartless to employ so murderous a device. I have seen the mouths of bass and pike and lake-trout lacerated and mutilated, sometimes the lips and upper jaw torn completely off, by the triangle of the spoon or the half dozen or more hooks of the gang or trace. If their use cannot be dispensed with on the score of inutility, a single hook being far more successful, their employment should be relinquished in the name of humanity. The pike will not often rise to the artificial fly, but will take it if allowed to sink a foot or two after casting. Many years ago, in Wisconsin, I devised the "polka" black-bass fly, and on its first trial, at the very first cast, it was seized by a pike of six pounds. The polka has a body of red floss silk, with spotted wings of the guinea fowl. I have frequently taken the pike with other red-bodied flies, as the Abbey, red ibis, king of the water, and Montreal, but the polka was always the favorite. Flies with bodies of peacock harl, as coachman, Henshall, Governor Alvord, etc., are very useful, as well as some with yellow bodies, as professor, queen of the water, and Lord Baltimore. The afternoon hours, especially toward sundown and until dusk, are the most promising for fly-fishing. Large flies are also successfully used in trolling for pike, from a rather slow-moving boat. For fuller instructions for fly-fishing the reader is referred to those given for the black-bass, which will answer very well for the pike, especially where the two fishes inhabit the same waters. Fishing through the ice for pike or pickerel has quite a fascination for some persons, even for those who never fish in any other way. And there is a certain kind of enjoyment in it, though actual fishing, as we understand it, has but little to do with it. If the ice is glare and free of snow, one can vary the amusement with skating. The bracing, nipping air on a clear day, with the sun shining brightly on the winter landscape, has its charms, and fishing through the ice is a good pretext for a winter outing. A dozen or more holes are cut through the ice in a circle, its diameter extending over the feeding grounds of the pike, whether small or great in extent. A fire may be built in the centre, if far from the shore on a lake, or on the shore itself if convenient to the holes. The holes being cut and a fire made for comfort, the next thing to do is to place the "tip-ups," as they are called, and bait the hooks, when there is nothing more to be done but to fill one's pipe and wait by the fire for the anticipated event--the rising of a signal proclaiming a "bite." Tip-ups are made in several ways, but the simplest plan, which is as good as any, is to provide a piece of thin board, say two or three feet long and two or three inches wide. A few inches from one end a hole is bored, through which is thrust a round stick, like a section of a broom-handle, and long enough to extend well across the hole in the ice. A short line, usually three or four feet long, with suitable hook and sinker, is tied to the short end of the thin board, through a small hole bored for the purpose. The hook is then baited, placed in the water, and the thin board is laid down on its edge, with the short end at the middle of the hole in the ice, and the round stick straddling it. It will be readily understood that a fish pulling on the line at the short end of the thin board, or lever, will raise the long end, thus indicating to the watcher the looked-for event. The long end of the lever may be shaved to a point, to which a signal flag may be affixed. Where the fish are plentiful it will keep one pretty busy running from one hole to another to take off the pike or rebait the hooks. When residing at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I found that fishing through the ice for pike and yellow-perch was a favorite sport. I indulged in it once for pike and several times for perch, for the latter is a firm, sweet, and delicious pan-fish in the winter. Driving over La Belle Lake in my sleigh to the "pickerel grounds," where my man had cut the holes the day before, the tip-ups and lines were soon arranged and the hooks baited with live minnows. A fire was then built on the shore, near at hand, to warm the chilled fingers. It was pretty tame when considered from the angler's point of view; but with the keen, crisp winter air, and the bright sun sparkling on the pure white snow, on which I occasionally took a spin in the sleigh, it was quite an enjoyable experience. In the course of a few hours several pike were taken and left lying on the snow, where they soon became frozen stiff. Upon my arrival at home they were placed in a tub of cold water, when all but one or two revived and began to swim about; the latter were probably too thoroughly frozen or may have been dead before being frozen. Apropos of this: I had some minnows in a live box, at the edge of the lake near my home, that thawed out alive in the spring after being frozen all winter. They were evidently the same minnows, as there were no dead ones, and the live ones could hardly have got into the box from the lake. The mediocrity of the pike as a game-fish is doubtless a just estimation in a majority of cases, but once in a while one will exhibit game qualities that will surprise the most doubting and contemptuous angler, compelling his admiration, and forcing him to admit that there are exceptions to all rules, but more especially in fishing. I was once one of a party of black-bass fishers on a lake in Wisconsin. In one of the boats was a lady of Milwaukee, who was justly considered one of the most expert and level-headed anglers in the party. She always stood up in her boat, was a marvel in casting the minnow, and played a bass to a finish in a style both graceful and artistic after a short, sharp, and decisive contest. She used the lightest rods and tackle, and the best. On this occasion, after landing a number of gamy bass and logy pike, she hooked a pike of about six pounds that put her six-ounce rod to the severest test, and gave her twenty minutes of the liveliest work that a fish is capable of. It leaped repeatedly from the water, and rushed not only straight away, but twisted and turned and doubled in a manner that would have done credit to the gamest bass. Finally she brought it to the landing-net in triumph, though she was, to use her own expression, "completely tuckered out." I venture to say that no man of the party would have been successful in landing that pike, with the same tackle, in the same length of time. A woman who is an expert angler will risk her tackle to greater lengths than a man, and will take more chances in subduing a fish within a reasonable time. This is not because of recklessness, or because she does not understand or appreciate the tensile strength of her rod. On the contrary, she knows her tackle well, and has the utmost faith in its potentiality. I knew a lady friend who was never more than thirty minutes in bringing to gaff any salmon of from twenty-five to thirty pounds. And my Kentucky friend, Mrs. Bachmann (formerly Mrs. Stagg), killed her tarpon of two hundred and five pounds in eighty minutes. THE EASTERN PICKEREL (_Esox reticulatus_) The eastern pickerel, also called chain pickerel in the North, and jack in the South, was first described by Le Sueur, in 1818, from the Connecticut River. He named it _reticulatus_, owing to the "reticulations" or the netted character of the markings on the body. Its range extends from Maine along the coastwise streams to Florida and Louisiana. West of the Alleghanies it has been reported from the Ozark region of Missouri and Arkansas, but I am rather inclined to doubt it. In its general form the pickerel resembles a small pike, though it is more slender, has a larger eye, and its coloration is quite different. The ground color is either olive-brown or some shade of green, the sides with a golden lustre, and the belly white. The sides are marked with many dark lines and streaks, mostly oblique and horizontal, forming a kind of network. There is a dark vertical bar below the eye; the dorsal fin is plain; the lower fins sometimes reddish; the caudal fin occasionally has a few dark spots or blotches. In its habits of feeding and spawning it is similar to the pike, spawning in the early spring. It is found in weedy ponds in the North, and in the quiet, grassy reaches of southern streams. It feeds mostly on small fishes and frogs. It grows to a foot in length, usually, sometimes to two feet and weighing seven or eight pounds, though its usual maximum weight is three or four pounds. In the New England states it is regarded by many as not only a fine game-fish, but an excellent food-fish as well. Others despise it on both counts, and there you are. To many a Yankee boy fishing for pickerel was the highest ideal of angling, but with the larger experience of mature years his idol has been thrown from its pedestal, and he, too, has learned to look askance at the friend of his youth. But while the pickerel is not a game-fish of high degree, it is capable of furnishing a fair amount of sport with light black-bass tackle in waters not too weedy. Ordinary black-bass rods and tackle are quite suitable for pickerel fishing, either with bait or fly, though the hooks should be larger, about 1-0 to 2-0, on gimp snells or heavy silkworm fibre. Where the weeds are too thick to admit of playing the fish a reel can be dispensed with, and a plain, light bamboo or cane rod, in its natural state, can be substituted for the jointed rod. It should belong enough to furnish considerable elasticity, say twelve feet, as its flexibility must subserve, somewhat, the purposes of a reel. The pickerel will take a sunken fly in shallow water, after it has been fluttered on the surface awhile. The red ibis, soldier, Abbey, polka. Montreal, and coachman are all good pickerel flies, if cast toward the dusk of evening. Skittering is a favorite method of fishing for the pickerel in weedy ponds. It is practised with a long cane rod, and line of about the same length as the rod, with or without a reel. A spoon bait, frog, or a piece of white bacon-rind cut in the semblance of a fish, or a frog's hind legs, skinned, are skittered or fluttered on the surface near the lily-pads and pickerel weeds. The fish should be kept on the surface if possible, when hooked, and drawn into open water; otherwise it may become entangled in the weeds and lost. The pickerel may also be taken by still-fishing from a boat with the live minnow or frog. On open water, a very successful way is trolling with a small spoon and single hook, or a dead minnow. For these methods the reader is referred to pike or black-bass fishing on previous pages. I have found the pickerel as far south as eastern Florida, where it is known as "pike," though it is rarely met with, and owing to its rarity is held in pretty fair esteem as a game-fish. In the marshes and rice ditches of South Carolina, and some sluggish streams of south-east Georgia, it is rather more plentiful, though usually of inferior size and dusky coloration. I once caught several on the Cooper River in South Carolina when fishing with very light tackle for "bream," which were unusually active and strong, and which impressed me as entitled to a better reputation as a game-fish than is commonly accorded to it by anglers. On the whole, the eastern pickerel is not half a bad fish, as English anglers would say. One might go farther and fare worse. THE WESTERN PICKEREL (_Esox vermiculatus_) The western pickerel was first described by Le Sueur from the Wabash River. He named it _vermiculatus_, owing to the "wormlike" appearance of its markings. He collected it about 1818, but his description was not published until 1846. It inhabits the Mississippi Valley, south to Arkansas and Mississippi, and the tributaries of Lakes Erie and Michigan. It is not found east of the Alleghanies. It is formed on the same general lines as the other members of the pike family, but is rather more slender and rounder, with a shorter head, proportionally, but a larger eye. Its color is olive-green, or grayish green, darker on the back, and belly white. The sides are covered with many dark curved streaks, inextricably mixed, or forming reticulations. The coloration is quite variable in different waters. A dark vertical bar is usually present below the eye; the sides of the head are variegated. It is common in the grassy streams of the Middle West and weedy bayous of the South-west, never exceeding a foot in length. The late Dr. Elisha Sterling, of Cleveland, Ohio, once sent me a plaster cast of one not more than eight inches in length, with the ovaries exposed, showing the ripe ova. It is not of much importance as a game-fish or as a food-fish. It spawns in early spring, and feeds on small fish, frogs, and tadpoles. It may be fished for in the same way, and with the same tackle as recommended for crappies on a previous page. THE BANDED PICKEREL (_Esox americanus_) The banded pickerel, Long Island pickerel, or brook pickerel, as it is variously known, was one of the first of its family to be recognized. It was described by Gmelin, in 1788, from Long Island. New York. He named it _americanus_, or "American pike," as a variety of the European _Esox lucius_. It is found only east of the Alleghanies in coastwise streams from Massachusetts to Florida. It is almost a duplicate of the little western pickerel in its general form, and represents that species in eastern waters. The characteristics of fin rays, scales, and squamation of cheeks and gill-covers apply equally to both species. The ground color is dark green; belly white; sides with about twenty distinct, blackish, curved, vertical bars, often obscurely marked, but not distinctly reticulated. There is a black vertical bar below the eye, and a horizontal band extending from the snout, through the eye, to the gill-cover. The lower fins are often quite red. I have collected it on the east coast of Florida of a beautiful emerald-green coloration, without distinct dark markings, and with orange-colored lower fins--a most beautiful fish. Although an interesting little fish, it is of no importance to anglers and is merely mentioned here, with the little western pickerel, to enable the reader to identify the different members of the pike family. It spawns early in the spring. It seldom grows beyond a foot in length, and is usually much smaller. Fishing for it is on the same plane with sunfishing, and the lightest tackle should be employed. CHAPTER V THE PERCH FAMILY (_Percidæ_) Most of the species belonging to this family are the dwarf perches, the beautiful little darters of the clear streams. The only genera of importance as game-fishes are _Stizostedion_, the pike-perches, and _Perca_, the yellow-perch. They are characterized by an elongate, nearly round body; small, rough, and adherent scales; rather large mouth with sharp teeth; spines on opercle, and preopercle serrate; branchiostegals six or seven; two dorsal fins, the first composed of spines, the second of soft rays; the anal fin with two spines. GENUS STIZOSTEDION _Stizostedion vitreum._ The Pike-perch. Body elongate; back somewhat elevated; head 4; depth 5; eye 4; D. XIV-20; A. II, 12; scales 10-125-25; head and cheeks sparsely scaled; canine teeth on jaws and palatines; opercle with small spines; pyloric coeca 3. _Stizostedion canadense._ The Sauger. Body elongate and spindle-shaped; head 3-1/2; depth 4-1/2; eye 5; D. XIII-18; A. II, 12; scales 9-100-27; head and cheeks scaly; spines on opercle; head depressed and pointed; pyloric coeca 5 to 7. GENUS PERCA _Perca flavescens._ The Yellow-perch. Body oblong, somewhat compressed, the back elevated; head 3-1/4; depth 3-1/4; eye 5; D. XIV-15; A. II, 7; scales 6-75-17; top of head rough; profile convex from dorsal to occiput, thence concave to snout, which projects; cheeks scaly; opercles nearly naked; preopercle and shoulder girdle serrated; teeth in villiform bands; branchiostegals 7; scales strongly ctenoid. THE PIKE-PERCH (_Stizostedion vitreum_) The pike-perch or wall-eye was first described by Dr. Mitchill in 1818, from Cayuga Lake, New York. He named it _vitrea_ in allusion to its large vitreous or glassy eye. It would have been indeed fortunate if the name glass-eye or wall-eye, with or without the suffix perch, had been adopted; for this fine fish is a true perch, with nothing "pike-like" in form or habits, except its large mouth and canine teeth, and nothing "salmon-like" except its trimly-shaped body. But these fancied resemblances have caused it to be called in various localities wall-eyed pike, yellow pike, blue pike, glass-eyed pike, salmon, and jack salmon. It is also known in Canada as dorè and okow, and among the commercial fishermen as "pickerel." However, the names pike-perch and wall-eyed pike have been rather universally adopted, and it will probably be always known by these names. Pike-perch is the Anglicized form of _Lucioperca_, the Latin name of the genus in Europe. It is abundant in Canada and the Great Lake region, and fairly abundant in the upper Mississippi River and its tributaries, and especially in Lake Pepin. It is found also in the lake region of northern Minnesota, and in the lakes and streams of Wisconsin and Iowa. It is not uncommon in the upper Ohio River and tributaries, south to Tennessee. On the Atlantic slope it is more rarely found from Pennsylvania to Georgia, where it often exists in brackish water. I have taken it in my boyhood days at Ferry Bar, a point on the Patapsco River, near Baltimore. Maryland. Its range is being constantly extended by transplantation. The pike-perch is a very trimly-built and shapely fish. Its body is rather slender, not much compressed. The head is well shaped, neither too large nor too small, with a large mouth well filled with teeth, some quite long and sharp. The eye is very large and glassy. Like all the perches it has two dorsal fins, well separated; the caudal fin is forked. The scales are small and rough. The edge of the cheek-bone is toothed or serrated, and the edge of the gill-cover has one or more small spines. The color varies considerably in different localities, and even in the same waters. The usual color is olive, or greenish brown, mottled with brassy or yellowish blotches forming oblique but indistinct lines, or vermicular markings. The head is similarly colored and marked; the lower jaw is reddish; the belly and lower fins pinkish or yellowish; the first dorsal fin is not much marked, but has a large black blotch on its posterior border; the second dorsal fin is mottled with olive, brown, and yellow; the caudal fin is likewise mottled, with the tip of the lower lobe white or light colored. The pike-perch frequents waters of good depth, only entering the shallow portions of streams and lakes at spawning time, and at night when feeding. It prefers a bottom of rock or gravel in clear and cool water, and loves to lie in the deep pools at the foot of riffles, or at the entrance of streams; or where the current is strong and deep near mill-dams and under sunken logs, or shelving rocks and banks, and about the timbers of bridges in deep water. It is nocturnal in its habits, for which it is well fitted by its large and prominent eye, and seeks its prey, which consists mostly of small fishes, in shallow water. It spawns in the spring, and in lakes usually resorts to its spawning grounds in the winter, where it is caught through the ice in large numbers in certain localities, notably in Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, and in Lake Pepin and other northern lakes. It spawns in sand or gravel in shallow water. Its eggs are small, twelve to an inch, and average fifty thousand to a female. After spawning it retires to deeper water, and in summer locates in the deepest pools. During the spring freshets it sometimes ascends smaller streams in its search for food. Its usual weight does not exceed three or four pounds, though it often grows much larger, from ten to twenty pounds. I have seen preserved heads of fish that must have weighed thirty or forty pounds, which had been caught in Kentucky--in Tygert Creek and Kentucky River. It is highly prized as a food-fish, its flesh being white, firm, and flaky, and of an excellent flavor. It is a commercial fish of much importance, especially on Lake Erie, from whence it is shipped in large numbers to the city markets, where it always commands a ready sale, being in great demand during the Lenten season. The pike-perch is a good game-fish, taking live bait eagerly, and rising pretty well to the fly. When hooked it is a vigorous fighter, pulling strongly and lustily. It does not exhibit much dash or take line rapidly, but swims away rather slowly, but at the same time is constantly tugging and jerking on the line in such a manner as to require careful handling with light tackle. Ordinary black-bass rods and tackle are well suited for the pike-perch up to six or eight pounds, either for bait-fishing or fly-fishing. Where they are found in considerable numbers, and especially on lakes where pickerel or pike abound, gimp snells should be used instead of gut snells to withstand their sharp teeth; otherwise the tackle may be the same as recommended for black-bass fishing. The best bait is a live minnow, though crawfish are successfully used. On lakes it should be fished for in comparatively deep water, over pebbly or rocky bottom. On streams the likely places are in deep and swift water, at the foot of rapids, or on a rocky lee shore with a brisk wind, where it congregates in search of minnows that are rendered almost helpless by the churning water. Owing to its nocturnal habits, the hours from about sunset until dark are the most favorable. Night fishing is also quite successful should any one care for it. As a matter of experiment I fished Pewaukee Lake, in Wisconsin, one moonlit evening in summer, many years ago, in company with three other anglers, there being two to a boat. In a few hours twenty-two were landed to each boat, weighing from three to four pounds each. This was my only experience in fishing for pike-perch at night, but I have known many others to practise it very successfully. Fly-fishing is most successful from about sundown until dark, or later, and on cloudy days also during the afternoon. Two flies on a four-foot leader may be used, one of which should be a light-colored one, as the coachman, or white miller; the other may be any of the hackles or the stone fly, oriole, gray drake, polka, professor, or Montreal. The same instructions concerning fly-fishing for black-bass may be profitably followed for the pike-perch, allowing the flies to sink two or three feet after each cast, though it is a more uncertain fish to locate, being much given to roaming in its search for food at different seasons. Years ago I had fine sport on several occasions, about sundown, fly-fishing for pike-perch from the bridge over Neenah channel, the outlet of Lake Winnebago, in Wisconsin. It was really the best fishing I have ever had for this fish. All the conditions seemed to be just right, and they responded eagerly to the coachman and oriole at first, but at the approach of dusk they preferred the dusty miller and gray hackle. The fish averaged three pounds, and in the swift water were quite gamy. I have been very successful, on many occasions, fly-fishing on the Muskingum River, in Ohio, fishing just below the dams late in the afternoon; and also about the rocky tow-heads on the upper Ohio River,--the fish, however, averaging only about a pound. But taking everything into consideration, the character of the stream and its surroundings, I think I have had the most enjoyable experience with the pike-perch, both in fly-fishing and bait-fishing, on Rock River, Wisconsin, in the southern part of the state. It is a beautiful, rocky river in places, an ideal stream for wading. The fish also were of good size, running up to five or six pounds. In fishing for pike-perch in different parts of the country I have noticed its variableness of coloration, which might be inferred from some of its names, as gray pike, yellow pike, blue pike, white salmon, etc. As I remember them, those caught in brackish water in Maryland were quite greenish, with silvery reflections and with dark markings. On Lake Erie the coloration varies somewhat with age, the younger ones being known as blue pike, the mature fish as yellow pike, and the oldest and largest as gray pike. On the rivers of the Middle West that are subject to periods of high and muddy water they are much paler. On the many pine-fringed lakes in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota the variation in color is quite apparent, both as to the ground color and markings. The older fish are very dark and dull on the back, and the younger ones much brighter. THE SAUGER (_Stizostedion canadense_) The sauger was first described by C.H. Smith, in 1834, who named it _canadensis_, from having collected his type specimens in Canada. It is also known as jack, sand-pike, gray-pike, and rattlesnake pike. It is closely related to the pike-perch, though smaller and more slender, with a more pointed head and smaller eye. It is distributed through the Great Lake region and in the upper portions of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. It grows to a length of twelve to fifteen inches. Its color is paler than the pike-perch, grayish above, with brassy sides, which are marked by several blackish blotches or patches, hence "rattlesnake pike." It is not nearly so good a food-fish as the pike-perch, and is not of much importance as a game-fish. It may be fished for with the same tackle as that recommended for the calico-bass or crappie, in the same situations mentioned for the pike-perch. I have taken it with a gaudy fly on the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, in Ohio, and in the Big Sandy and Tygert Creek, in Kentucky; also by still-fishing and trolling on Lake Erie about the Bass Islands. The meaning or etymology of the name "sauger" is unknown. THE YELLOW-PERCH (_Perca flavescens_) The yellow-perch was first described by Dr. Mitchill in 1814, from the vicinity of New York. He named it _flavescens_, "yellowish," owing to its coloration. It is closely allied to the perch of Europe. It is commonly known as perch or yellow-perch, also as ringed-perch and raccoon-perch. It is abundant in the Great Lake region and in coastwise streams of the Atlantic slope from Nova Scotia to North Carolina. It is also common in some of the tributaries of the upper Mississippi River and in certain lakes in northern Indiana. It is a handsome fish, well proportioned, and of a lively disposition. It has a shapely body, with a depth of about one-third of its length, somewhat compressed, and with an arching back. The mouth is moderate in size, with bands of small, bristlelike teeth, but no canines, and has a projecting snout. The head is not quite one-third of the length of the body. Its back is dark olive, sides bright golden yellow, belly pale or pinkish, with half a dozen or more broad, dark, vertical bars. The lower fins are bright red or orange. While the coloration varies somewhat in different situations it is always brilliant, rendering it one of the handsomest fishes among the fresh-water species. The yellow-perch is gregarious, always in schools, and the fish of a school will be about of a uniform size, be that great or small. It frequents waters of a moderate depth in streams or lakes or ponds. In streams, early in the spring, it frequently resorts to the edge or foot of riffles, when feeding, but later prefers the deeper water under mill-dams and about the submerged timbers of bridges, and the still water under hollow banks, or in the eddies of old logs, rocks, etc. It is averse to a muddy bottom in fresh water, but along the eastern coast it is often found on the weedy shoals of shallow bays in brackish water. In my boyhood days it was a prime favorite with myself and companions. We sought it on the mud-flats, among the water-plants, of the Patapsco River, near Baltimore. It was there known as "yellow Ned," and was considered a good pan-fish. In Lake Michigan, after leaving its winter quarters in the spring, it fairly swarms about the piers and wharves of Chicago and other towns, where it is caught by thousands by men, women, and children with hand-lines, rods, and dip-nets. It is a very predaceous fish and feeds principally on small minnows and the young of other fishes, also on crawfish, tadpoles, small frogs, insects, etc. In large waters it grows to a pound or two in weight, sometimes more. Usually it is much smaller, a half-pound perch being a good-sized fish in most localities. In midsummer, in weedy ponds, it is not good; but at other seasons, or in clear, cold water, it is an excellent pan-fish, firm and flaky. In brackish water it is good at all seasons. Whenever it has a muddy taste, it should be skinned, by which the objectionable flavor is removed almost entirely, and owing to its adherent scales it is the best plan for dressing it. It spawns early in the spring, in March and April, though in very cold waters not until May. The eggs are about twelve to the inch, and are held together by a glutinous substance in long, ribbonlike masses from two to six feet in length, and from an inch to three or four inches wide. Light trout tackle, either for bait-fishing or fly-fishing, is suitable for the yellow-perch for those anglers who can appreciate the pleasure to be derived only by the use of appropriate and elegant tackle for any kind of fishing, and a pound perch is well worthy of such implements. With a fly-rod of a few ounces, a light click reel, an enamelled silk line, and a small leader and flies on hooks No. 7, the yellow-perch will not disappoint the most exacting angler who has a true love for the sport. Under such circumstances it is a good game-fish, eager to rise, bold to a degree, and fights to a finish. Most of the flies used for black-bass, as coachman, polka, oriole, professor, Abbey, etc., are successful, as well as the hackles of various shades, and occasionally red ibis and stone fly. The late afternoon hours are to be preferred for fly-fishing. The flies should be allowed to sink with each cast, after being fluttered on the surface a few seconds. In the absence of a more suitable rod, a light one of native cane, nine or ten feet long, will do good service without a reel. The line should be the smallest "sea-grass," or twisted silk. Hooks Nos. 5 or 6, on gut snells, with a small brass box-swivel for connecting snell and line, make up the rest of the tackle. The most taking bait is a small minnow, but grasshoppers, crickets, white grubs, or earthworms are good. In tidal waters the shrimp is preferred. But in the absence of any of these baits, cut-bait, either fish or flesh, may be used with good results, for the yellow-perch is not very particular or fastidious. Large perch are also easily taken by trolling with the minnow, or a very small spoon on lakes or ponds. If the spoon is employed, but a single hook should be used, and that not too large. I am not an advocate, however, for trolling for so small a fish, and merely mention it as one of the ways and means that may be followed. There are men who never rise above this method for any game-fish, but they are more to be pitied than blamed. They either lack the skill to practise more approved methods, or are too indolent to learn them. The yellow-perch has been introduced into some waters west of the Rockies. A few weighing about a pound were sent to me from a lake about forty miles west of Spokane, which were of exceptionally bright coloration and good flavor. In the same box were two pike of about four pounds each, and a large-mouth black-bass of eight pounds, dressed, and very fat, plump, and delicious. These fish were the result of a single plant by the United States Fish Commission some years ago. On the Missouri River, a few miles above the Great Falls, a large lake has been formed by an expansion of the river, caused by building a dam for an electric light plant. Several years ago some yellow-perch were placed in this lake, or in the river just above it, but by whom I have not been able to ascertain. At all events, the lake now swarms with perch, strings of one hundred or more not being an uncommon catch in a single day, as I am credibly informed. As the water above the forks of the Missouri River is too cold for the perch, and the water of the lake too warm for trout or grayling, there seems to be no probability of any harm resulting from the introduction of the yellow-perch, though it was not a wise thing to do. About the only fish in that portion of the Missouri, before the perch were planted just above the Great Falls, were ling, suckers, and catfish. In the many small lakes near Oconomowoc. Wisconsin, the yellow-perch thrives well. It is caught in the summer by men, women, and children with almost any kind of bait, and often with the rudest tackle. To the summer visitors it is a source of perennial delight, and an unfailing means of enjoyment to the juvenile anglers. In my day, Genesee Lake, a few miles from Oconomowoc, contained some of the largest perch of all the numerous lakes and lakelets. In this lake only the small-mouth bass and yellow-perch were found, no large-mouth bass or pike, and the bass and perch were of about the same size--two pounds. This uniformity of weight did not obtain in any of the other lakes. A basket of perch from Genesee Lake was a handsome sight, and the fish were unusually sweet and savory. During the winter the residents catch yellow-perch through holes cut in the ice in great numbers, in all of the lakes mentioned. It was here that I devised my "Oconomowoc" bass fly with creamy yellow body, hackle of hairs of deer's tail, cinnamon (woodcock) wings, and tail of ginger; but for the perch of Genesee I found that with a tail of scarlet wool it was more effective. Many a two-pound perch responded to that lure, in days long gone, and as Thoreau says, "It is a true fish, such as the angler loves to put into his basket or hang on top of his willow twig on shady afternoons." CHAPTER VI THE GRAYLING FAMILY (_Thymallidæ_) _Thymallus signifer._ Head 5-1/2; depth 4-2/3; eye 3; D. 24; A. II; scales 8-88 to 90-11; coeca 18; body elongate, compressed, highest under the anterior portion of the dorsal; head rather short, subconic, compressed, its upper outline continuous with anterior curve of the back; mouth moderate, the maxillary extending to below the middle of the eye; maxillary 6 (?) in head; jaws about equal; tongue, in the young, with teeth, which are usually absent in the adult; eye quite large, rather longer than snout; scales moderate; lateral line nearly straight; a small bare space behind isthmus; dorsal fin long and high, about 3-1/2 in length of body; adipose fin small; anal fin small; gill-rakers short and slender, about 12 below the angle. _Thymallus tricolor._ Head 5; depth 5-1/2; eye 4; D. 21 or 22; A. 10; scales 93 to 98; gill-rakers 7 + 12; maxillary 2-1/2 in head; dorsal fin 5-1/2 in length of body. Otherwise much as _T. signifer_. _Thymallus montanus._ Head 5; depth 4-1/2; eye 3-1/2; D. 18 to 21; A. 10 or 11; scales 8-82 to 85-10; gill-rakers 5 + 12; maxillary 3 in head; dorsal fin 4-1/2 in length of body. Other features much resembling _T. signifer_ and _T. tricolor_. Owing to the restricted area of its distribution, the "graceful, gliding grayling" is known to but comparatively few anglers in America. He who has been so fortunate as to have this beautiful fish respond to his deftly cast flies, will bear me out in the assertion that for courage, finesse, and all the qualities that constitute a true game-fish, the grayling is the equal of its congener, the trout. In France it is known as ombre, in Germany as asche, and in Norway as harren. Among all English-speaking people it is the grayling, though occasionally it is called umber in parts of England. All of these names are somewhat descriptive of its grayish, ashy, or bluish coloration. Gliding along in clear, swift water it seems, indeed, a gray shadow; but fresh out of its native element it becomes a creature of mother-of-pearl, so beautiful and varied are its tints. The graceful outlines and beautifully-moulded proportions of the grayling, together with the satiny sheen and delicate coloration of her adornment, have always impressed me as essentially feminine. The evanescent play of prismatic hues on her shapely and rounded sides, when fresh from the pure and crystal stream she loves so well, reminds one of changeable silk shot with all the colors of the rainbow. Her tall dorsal fin, with its rose-colored spots, she waves as gracefully and effectually as the nodding plume of a duchess. [Illustration THE ARCTIC GRAYLING] [_Thymallus signifer_] [Illustration THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING] [_Thymallus tricolor_] [Illustration THE MONTANA GRAYLING] [_Thymallus montanus_] The grayling was named by the ancients _Thymallus_, owing to a smell of thyme that was said to emanate from the fish when freshly caught. However that may have been in days of old, it is not so now, though an odor of cucumbers is sometimes perceptible when it is just out of the water. But the name, if not the odor, has endured to the present day, for _Thymallus_ is still its generic appellation. The graylings were formerly included in the salmon family, and are still so considered by European ichthyologists, who include them in the genus _Salmo_. Dr. Theodore Gill, however, has formed them into a separate family (_Thymallidæ_), owing to the peculiar structure of the skull, whereby the parietal bones meet at the median line, excluding the frontal bones from the supra-occipital; whereas in the other salmonids the parietals are separated by the intervention of the supra-occipital bone, which connects with the frontals. There are three species in America: one in the Arctic regions, one in Michigan, and one in Montana. To the untrained eye no great difference is apparent between these various species as to form and coloration, [1] and their habits are similar, all loving clear, cold, and swift water, with gravelly or sandy bottom. They feed on insects and their larvæ, small minnows, crustaceans, and such small organisms. They spawn in the spring. The eggs are smaller than trout eggs, running seven to the inch. They hatch in from ten days to two weeks, according to temperature of the water. THE ARCTIC GRAYLING (_Thymallus signifer_) The Arctic grayling was first described by Sir John Richardson, in 1823, from specimens collected at Winter Lake, near Fort Enterprise, in British America. He named it _signifer_, or "standard-bearer," in allusion to its tall, waving, gayly-colored dorsal fin. It is presumably the oldest and original species, and it is not unlikely that it was transported to Michigan and Montana on an ice-field during the glacial period. It is often called Bach's grayling, in honor of an officer of that name who took the first one on the fly, when with the Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, in 1819. It abounds in clear, cold streams of the Mackenzie and Yukon provinces in British America, and in Alaska up to the Arctic Ocean. This boreal grayling has a somewhat smaller head than the other species, its upper outline being continuous with the curve of the back. The mouth is small, extending to below the middle of the eye, which latter is larger than in the other graylings, while its dorsal fin is both longer and higher, and contains a few more rays. The sides are purplish gray, darker on the back; head brownish, a blue mark on each side of the lower jaw; the dorsal fins dark gray, splashed with a lighter shade, with rows of deep blue spots edged with red; ventral fins with red and white stripes. Along the sides are scattered a few irregularly-shaped black spots. A friend of mine, an ardent angler, returned recently from Cape Nome and the Yukon, in Alaska, where he resided for several years. He informed me that the grayling is very abundant in the streams of that region, and that he had taken thousands on the fly; but not knowing that they differed from the Montana grayling, he did not examine them closely. THE MICHIGAN GRAYLING (_Thymallus tricolor_) The Michigan grayling was first described by Professor E.D. Cope, in 1865, from specimens from the Au Sable River. He named it _tricolor_, on account of its handsomely-decorated fins and body. At that time it was abundant in the Au Sable, Manistee, Marquette, Jordan, Pigeon, and other rivers in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, and in Otter Creek, near Keweenah, in the upper peninsula. It has a somewhat larger head than the Arctic form, its length being about one-fifth of the length of the body; the outline of the latter does not differ except in not being so prominent over the shoulder. The coloration is purplish gray with silvery reflections, darker on the back, belly white and iridescent; sides of head with bright bluish and bronze lustre; sides of the body with small, black, irregular spots; ventral fins with oblique, rose-colored lines; dorsal with alternate dusky and rose-colored lines below, and alternate rows of dusky green and roseate spots above; caudal fin dusky with a middle roseate stripe. In 1870-1876 I visited most of the grayling streams in Michigan, and found it abundant, affording fine fishing. At that time it was also in the Boyne, and in Pine Lake and River. I also took it in Lake Michigan while fishing for cisco from the pier at Charlevoix. Fish running from a pound to a pound and a half were common, and occasionally one of two pounds was taken. It is sad to contemplate the gradual disappearance of this fish from the once densely populated streams of Michigan. At the present day the angler is fortunate, indeed, who succeeds in taking a brace of grayling where a few years ago his basket was soon filled. This deplorable state of affairs has been brought about by the axe of the lumberman, whose logs, descending the small streams on the spring rise, plough up the spawning beds, smothering the eggs and killing the helpless fry. As brook-trout spawn in the fall they escape this calamity, the fry being old enough in April to take pretty good care of themselves. The decrease of both trout and grayling is commonly attributed to overfishing; but while this may have its influence to a limited extent in lessening the numbers for a season, other causes must be looked for to account for the permanent depletion of certain waters. A stream or pond will support but a limited number of fish, the number depending on the supply of natural food for both young and mature. By the supply of food on one hand, and the natural enemies of the fish on the other, a certain balance is maintained which if disturbed by, say, overfishing one season, will be restored by natural laws the next. And this state of affairs will continue so long as the natural conditions of the waters remain undisturbed. By cutting down the pine trees at the sources of the streams and along the small tributaries, which are the spawning grounds of both trout and grayling, the natural conditions are changed. The scorching rays of the summer sun are admitted where once mosses and ferns and the trailing arbutus luxuriated in the shade of a dense growth of pines and hemlocks and firs. The soil becomes dry, the carpet of green shrivels and dies, and the myriads of insects that once bred and multiplied in the cool and grateful shade, and whose larvæ furnish the food for the baby fish, disappear. The brooks and rivulets diminish and vanish. A page has been torn from the book of nature, and the place that trout and grayling knew so well is known no more forever. THE MONTANA GRAYLING (_Thymallus montanus_) The Montana grayling was collected by Professor James W. Milner, of the United States Fish Commission, in 1872, from a tributary of the Missouri River, at Camp Baker, in Montana. He named it _montanus_, from the name of the state. Lewis and Clark, however, during their wonderful journey that blazed the western course of empire, described, but did not name it, seventy years before, from fish taken near the head waters of the Jefferson River. A few years ago (1898) it was my good fortune to be the first to call attention to this prior description. Knowing that Lewis and Clark ascended the Jefferson nearly to its source in the Rocky Mountains, in 1805, I thought it extremely probable that those remarkably close observers had mentioned the existence of this beautiful and well-marked species. Upon investigation I found my surmise to be correct. On page 545 of Dr. Elliott Coues's edition (1893) of "The Lewis and Clark Expedition," I found the following:-- "Toward evening we formed a drag of bushes, and in about two hours caught 528 very good fish, most of them large trout. Among them we observed for the first time ten or twelve trout of a white or silvery color, except on the back and head, where they are of a bluish cast; in appearance and shape they resemble exactly the speckled trout, except they are not so large, though the scales are much larger; the flavor is equally good." (In a foot-note Dr. Coues stated that this fish remained unidentified.) The locality where these fish were taken was near the head waters of the Jefferson River, where Lewis and Clark abandoned their canoes and crossed the Continental Divide on horses purchased from the Indians. At this point the grayling is abundant to-day, as I know from personal observation, and coexists with the red-throat trout almost to the exclusion of all other species. Lewis and Clark were both remarkable for clear and correct descriptions of the animals and plants met with during their journey, many of which were new to science; but as they neglected to give them scientific names, others have reaped the honors of many of their discoveries. I published my identification of the fish in question as being undoubtedly the grayling, and soon afterward received a letter from Dr. Coues, congratulating me and indorsing my opinion, which he said was certainly correct. The Montana grayling is found only in the tributaries of the Missouri River above the Great Falls. In Sheep and Tenderfoot creeks, tributaries of Smith River, in the Little Belt Mountains, it is fairly abundant, as it is likewise in the three forks of the Missouri,--the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers. Its ideal home is in several tributaries at the head of Red Rock Lake, swift gravelly streams, and especially in the upper reaches of the Madison above the upper cañon, where the water is rapid, though unbroken, the bottom being dark obsidian sand, with a succession of pools and shallows. I have taken fish weighing two pounds in Beaver Creek, in the upper cañon, which is also an ideal stream. Such situations are peculiarly adapted to the grayling, being preferred to the broken water of rocky streams so much favored by trout. The Montana grayling is a trimmer-built fish than its Michigan cousin, being not quite so deep, proportionally, and with larger scales. Its dorsal fin is about the same height, but with one or two less rays. Its back is gray, with purplish reflections; sides lighter, with lilac, pink, and silvery reflections; belly pearly white. It has a few irregularly-shaped black spots on the anterior part of the body, but none posteriorly as sometimes on the Michigan grayling. It has two oblong dark blotches in the cleft of the lower jaw, and a heavy dark line running from the ventrals to the pectoral fin; these markings are more pronounced in the male, being quite faint or wanting in the female. The dorsal fin has a rosy-red border, six or seven rows of roseate, roundish spots, ocellated with white, and gray blotches form lines between the rows of red spots; in the upper, posterior angle of the dorsal fin are several larger oblong rosy spots; the ventral fins have three rose-colored stripes along the rays; the pectoral and anal fins are plain; the caudal fin is forked. As a game-fish the grayling is fully the equal of the trout, though its way of taking the artificial fly is quite different, and the old hand at trout fishing must pay court to "the lady of the streams" with the greatest assiduity before he is successful in winning her attention to his lures. And even then he must become fully conversant with her coy and coquettish way of accepting his offer, though it be cast never so deftly. There is a rush and snap and vim in the rise of a trout to the fly that is lacking with the grayling. The trout often leaps above the water to seize the fly, while it is taken more quietly and deliberately, though just as eagerly, by the grayling from below. In other words, it is "sucked in," as English anglers term it, though that hardly expresses it, as the act is not so tame as might be inferred. On the contrary, the grayling rises from the bottom of a pool and darts upward like an arrow to seize the fly, though as a rule it does not break water, and is not so demonstrative as the trout; but it seldom misses the mark, if the fly is small enough, which the trout often does. Sometimes the grayling will rise a dozen times to a fly, and for some reason refuse it, but will take it at the very next cast. Just why this is so is one of the unanswerable problems that often vexes or confounds the angler. Presumably the fly is too large, or is not presented in just the right way to please her ladyship. But the angler should not despair under such circumstances, but remember the old couplet, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Moreover, he must remember that he is fishing for grayling, not for trout. He must not cast on a riffle, or at its head, but below, in the eddy or still water, where it is deepest. There lie the large fish, though small ones may be in the shallower water, and it is the latter that perplex one by their antics, oftentimes leaping over one's flies in play. Trout generally lie in ambush beneath the bank, shelving rocks, or roots, usually in shallow water, from whence they rush with tigerlike ferocity upon the fly, often leaping over it in their eagerness for the fancied prey. On the contrary, grayling lie on the bottom of pools, in swift water, entirely in the open. They are also gregarious, assembling in schools, while the trout is a lone watcher from his hidden lair. Some dry fly-fishers of England, echoing the opinion of Charles Cotton, term the grayling a "dead-hearted fish" that must be taken with a wet or sunken fly. This idea of its lack of gameness is implied in Tennyson's lines:-- "Here and there a lusty trout. And here and there a grayling." As the English grayling grows only to half of the weight of the trout, it suffers by comparison when killed on the heavy rods of our English brothers. Their assertion, also, that the grayling has a tender mouth, and must be handled gingerly, is another fallacy, inasmuch as it has as tough lips as the trout, but the smaller hooks of grayling flies do not hold so firmly as the larger and stronger hooks of trout flies. It must not be supposed that the grayling is not a leaping fish because it takes the fly from beneath the surface of the water. On the contrary, in its playful moods it may be seen leaping above the surface the same as a trout, and moreover it breaks water repeatedly after being hooked, which the trout seldom does. It puts up a stiff fight also beneath the surface, being much aided in its resistance by its tall dorsal fin. It is no disparagement, then, to the gamesome trout, to declare the grayling its equal when of similar size and weight. Grayling fishing has been practised in England for centuries. In addition to fly-fishing, swimming the maggot, where a tiny float is used, is a common method. An artificial bait, called the grasshopper, is likewise employed. While grayling are taken during the trout season, in spring and summer, the most successful season seems to be from September to December, when they are at their best, both as to gameness and condition. With English anglers the universal practice is to fish up-stream, as the fish are not so apt to see the angler, and that plan undoubtedly has its advantages in the clear and shallow streams of England. In fishing for grayling, however, it is advised by some of their best anglers to cast across the stream, instead of above, and allow the flies to float down. No reason is given for this deviation from the generally accepted method with trout; but I imagine that as grayling lie on the bottom of deep pools, it has been found by experience that they are not so apt to see the angler as other species in mid-water or near the surface, especially in the clear chalk streams. In America, the streams being deeper, the necessity for fishing up-stream is not so apparent. Fishing down-stream is by far the best plan, for obvious reasons, if the angler wades slowly and cautiously, so as not to roil the water. The principal reason is that one's line is always straight and taut in swift water, and the flies can be more easily controlled and floated down over the fish, which always heads up-stream. Upon hooking the fish it can be drawn to one side, whereby the other fish in the pool are not much more alarmed than in the case of casting up or across. Casting across seems to be really a concession to the advantage of fishing down-stream. The fly-rod, reel, line, and leader ordinarily employed for trout-fishing may be used also for grayling, though I would advise some modifications. While a first-class split-bamboo rod of three and a half or four ounces may be advantageously used by an angler who knows how to handle a very light rod, I prefer one of five or six ounces. Such a rod is certainly light enough to be used all day without fatigue, and it is well to have the resourceful reserve of an ounce or two for emergencies. In any case it should not exceed ten and one-half feet in length, if built on the modern plan, where most of the pliancy is in its upper two-thirds, the lower third being stiffish and springy, constituting its backbone. A very good rod can be constructed with ash butt, and lancewood, greenheart, or bethabara upper pieces, and one that will be almost as light as split-bamboo, and certainly more serviceable in the long run. I would also advise flush, non-dowelled joints, and reel-bands instead of a solid reel-seat, the latter being of no advantage and only adding to the weight of the rod; moreover, it is now put on the cheapest rods to make them sell. A plain groove for the reel, with bands, is very much better. As a matter of course the line should be of braided silk, enamelled, and suited to the weight of the rod, as small as size G, but not larger than size E. It may be level, but a tapered line is better for casting, and is also better adapted for the delicate leader that must be employed. A tapered leader six feet long is best, but should not be shorter than four feet. It must be made of the very best silkworm gut fibre, round, clear, and unstained. The distal end should be made of the finest drawn gut, known as gossamer, and taper to the larger or proximal end, which should be the smallest undrawn gut. In England the most delicate leaders and extremely small flies are employed for grayling. The flies are usually tied on Pennell hooks, turndown eye, sizes 0, 00, 000, Kendal scale, which are smaller than No. 12, Redditch scale, the latter being the smallest size commonly used in America. The favorite flies in England have yellowish--lemon to orange--bodies, and bodies of peacock harl, either green or bronze. Flies with purplish, black, or slate-colored bodies are more sparingly employed. They are either hackles or split-winged flies. The formulas for some of the favorites are as follows:-- _Red Tag._ Body bright green harl from the "moon" of a peacock's feather; hackle, bright red cock's hackle; tag, bright red wool; hook, No. 0, Kendal scale. _Orange Bumble._ Body, orange floss silk, ribbed with a strand of peacock's sword feather and fine flat gold tinsel; hackle, honey dun cock, wrapped all down the body; hook No. 0, Kendal scale. _Green Insect._ Body, bright green peacock's harl; hackled with a soft silver-gray hen's feather; hook No. 0, Kendal scale. _Bradshaw's Fancy._ Body, copper-colored peacock's harl; hackled with a feather from the neck of a Norwegian crow; tag, bright crimson wool or silk, with a couple of turns of the same at the head; tying silk, dark purple; hook No. 0, Kendal scale. _Claret Bumble._ Body, claret floss silk, ribbed with a strand of peacock's sword feather; medium blue dun cock's hackle; hook. No. 0, Kendal scale. Most of the foregoing are fancy flies, but are considered the best killers on English waters. In this country it has been demonstrated, also, that flies with bodies of peacock harl, or with yellowish bodies, have been more uniformly successful than others. From this it would appear that the predilection of grayling for certain colors in artificial flies is much the same both in this country and England. From my own experience I can recommend the following well-known flies, adding, however, that their construction should be a little different from the conventional trout flies of these names in having a red tag or tail of scarlet wool, instead of the usual tail, and in having narrow split wings instead of the regular style of full wings:-- Yellowish-bodied flies: professor, queen of the water, Oconomowoc, Lord Baltimore. Green-bodied flies: coachman, Henshall, and grizzly king. Other useful flies are black gnat, cinnamon, iron-blue dun, oriole, red ant, gray hackle, and black hackle. They should all be tied on Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, No. 12, Redditch or common scale. Two flies only should be used in a cast, and of different colors. Bearing in mind that the portions of a stream mostly used by grayling are the sandy and gravelly pools in swift, smooth water, they are fished for in much the same way as trout, except that the flies are allowed to sink below the surface, very much as in black-bass fishing. It is very important that the line and leader are always taut, inasmuch as the rise of the fish is not always seen, except as a quick flash or shadow beneath the surface. With a tight line the fish will be more apt to hook itself. With the small hooks of grayling flies, it is not wise for the angler to attempt to "strike," as in trout or black-bass fishing. Upon hooking the fish it should be led sidewise from the pool, if possible, so as not to disturb or frighten the others of the school; and for the same reason it should be kept near the surface until taken into the landing-net. Either a light trout bait-rod or the fly-rod may be employed for bait-fishing for grayling, with fine silk line, leader, and hooks Nos. 6 to 8 with a split-shot sinker a foot above the hook. English anglers use a small float, but in fishing down-stream it is not advisable, as the current prevents the bait from touching the bottom, and renders the use of a float for this purpose unnecessary. The bait should be kept from six inches to a foot above the bottom. The best bait is the larva of the caddis-fly, a small worm or caterpillar encased in a bag or covering composed of bits of bark, sticks, etc.; it is known in the Rocky Mountain region as the "rockworm." Earthworms, small grasshoppers, crickets, and grubs of various kinds are also useful. When it became known to fishculturists, about 1874, that the grayling existed in Michigan, attempts were made to propagate it artificially, but without success, as the same lines were pursued as with the brook-trout. It remained for the United States Fish Commission to successfully cope with the problem in Montana, under my supervision. Beginning with 1898, we have hatched millions at Bozeman Station and the auxiliary station near Red Rock Lake, at the head of the Jefferson River. We have also shipped millions of eggs to different parts of the Union, as far east as Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, mostly to United States Fish Commission stations, where they were hatched and planted in suitable streams. It is to be hoped that some of these plants will result in the permanent establishment of this beautiful and desirable fish in eastern waters. The eggs of the grayling are smaller than those of the trout, being but one-seventh of an inch in diameter. When first extruded they are amber-colored, owing to a large oil-drop, which renders them lighter than trout eggs, almost semi-buoyant, and for this reason are best hatched, or at least "eyed," in hatching jars. My plan is to keep them in the hatching jars until the eye-spots show, when they are removed to hatching-trays until incubation is complete. In a few days after extrusion the eggs become crystal-like or hyaline in color, when the embryo can be seen in motion. The period of incubation is from ten days to two weeks. The fry when hatched are very small, about the size of mosquito "wigglers" (larvæ). Their umbilical yolk-sac is absorbed in a few days, when it becomes imperative to supply them with stream water, which contains the small organisms (_Entomostraca_) on which they feed at first. Afterward they can be fed artificially the same as trout fry, which they soon outgrow. There is an erroneous opinion that has gained considerable currency among anglers to the effect that grayling and trout are antagonistic, and that to this cause is to be attributed the decrease of grayling in the waters of Michigan. My observations have led me to the conclusion that this opinion is not supported by any evidence whatever. When I fished the streams of that state, years ago, both trout and grayling were plentiful in the same waters, and were living in harmony as they had done from time immemorial. Their habits and choice of locality being different, the trout hiding under cover and the grayling lying in exposed pools, their struggle for existence or supremacy does not bring them much in opposition, or cause them to prey on each other or on their eggs or fry in an unusual degree, or to such an extent as to effect the marked decrease of either species. Honors are even. It is the same in Montana. In that state the red-throat trout and grayling seek out such portions of the streams as are best suited to them; but very often they are found together on neutral ground, where they live peaceably and not at variance with each other. As no disturbing element has yet been introduced, their numbers still bear the same relative proportion that has existed since the days of yore. Likewise in England, in such historic waters as the Wye, the Derwent, the Wharfe, or the Dove, hallowed by "meek Walton's heavenly memory," the grayling and trout still coexist in about the same relative proportion that has been maintained since and before the days of Dame Juliana Berners, Izaak Walton, and Charles Cotton in the fifteenth century. On those quiet streams no cause has ever been allowed to militate against the well-being of either species, or to disturb the natural conditions to any considerable extent. In a recent number of the _London Fishing Gazette_ is one of the best articles on the English grayling that I have ever seen. It is written by Mr. E.F. Goodwin, who is undoubtedly fully conversant with his theme and well acquainted with the habits of that fish. Among other things he says:-- "When in season I maintain that the grayling will give excellent sport on suitable tackle, is splendid eating, and is as handsome a fish as any angler need wish to gaze upon. What more can one want? How Charles Cotton could have written in such terms of condemnation of the sporting qualities of this fish as to call him 'one of the deadest-hearted fishes in the world, and the bigger he is the more easily taken,' passes my understanding, although we must remember that this remark was passed to 'Viator' on his catching a grayling in the early part of March, when the fish would be out of condition in all probability. I confess to a feeling of disappointment at the summary way in which Walton dismisses the grayling, showing that he did not think very highly of him either from an edible or sporting point of view. "Grayling will rise readily to the artificial fly, and although they will come again time after time if missed (or perhaps I should say if they miss the fly, which is more usual), they require the neatest and finest tackle and the most delicate handling to secure them; and as Francis truly says, 'when you have hooked a grayling, your next job is to land him.'--There is a lot of difference between the way a well-conditioned trout and grayling fight after being hooked, and this may account for some of the condemnation heaped upon the latter as to its non-sportive character; for although not so lively as the trout with its mad rushes for liberty, yet the kind of resistance is more dangerous to the hold you have on him, for the grayling tries the hold of the hook in every possible way, and from every possible point of that hold. To my mind a grayling is much more difficult to land than a trout, and the more I fish for grayling the more convinced I am of his gameness and sporting qualities. Certainly there are a great many more grayling lost after being hooked than trout, and this is accounted for principally not so much from the reputed tenderness of the mouth as from the fact of the fish not being so firmly hooked as the trout usually is. "The ideas of grayling not heading up-stream and of being deleterious to the trout have been perpetuated by author after author, just copying one another without really ascertaining the facts.... As regards the advisability of introducing grayling into a trout stream, that depends entirely upon the nature of the river. As far as my experience and observation go, grayling only become detrimental to the trout in that, being active and voracious feeders, they consume the food that otherwise would have belonged to and been partaken of by the trout. It is certain that these fish live together in general amity. The grayling is but seldom a fish eater, and therefore any accusation as to its being destructive to the fry of trout is untenable. That it, in the trout-spawning season, may help itself to what it can find of the superfluous ova which float down the stream no one can object to, but as to its burrowing in the redds and disturbing the hatching ova. I very much doubt it. Both the late Dr. Brunton and Dr. Hamilton were very strong in their assertion that this was a matter of impossibility with the grayling, and yet we are assured by Dr. James A. Henshall that the fry of grayling are as much addicted to cannibalism as the pike-perch fry." After giving a brief space to natural bait-fishing, he goes on to say: "But after all there is only one way in which this fish should be caught, and that is with the fly. This ground has been gone over so many times that it only remains for me to say that, the grayling being a bold and daring riser, never be discouraged if you fail to hook him, even if he rise at your fly time after time. He lies very low in the river when watching for his prey, and therefore is not so easily disturbed; and if you remain quite still when he has risen and missed the fly and gone down to his lair, he will surely rise again. His rise, too, is different to a trout. A trout, from lying close to the surface when feeding, takes without effort the flies floating over him, and also is easily scared. A grayling, from lying deep in the water, quite close to the bottom, comes up with great rapidity, and seldom takes the fly until it has passed him; and should he miss it, which often happens, disappears so quickly that he may well be compared to a shadow--hence the name of 'umber,' from _umbra_, a shadow. Should you hook him, up goes his great dorsal fin and down goes his head in his determination to get to his hiding-place, and it depends on his size and gameness, as well as the skill of the angler, whether he succeeds or not. I have often heard anglers complain that grayling are more difficult to hook than trout. Experienced anglers are all aware that grayling are not so easily hooked on the rise as trout, but he offers the best compensation in his power by consenting to rise over and over again until if you do not hook him the fault is yours, not his. When he rises at a passing fly he must ascend at lightning speed in order to cover the distance in time to catch it; having done so, he turns instantly head down and descends at the same speed. This is really the 'somersault' so well known to grayling fishers. With a long line it is next to impossible to strike a grayling on the instant, and a taut line in this fishing is of even greater importance than in trout-fishing." [Illustration THE MORE SPORTSMANLY WAY OF CATCHING MASCALONGE] I have given the above liberal quotations because the article agrees so well with my own practice in grayling fishing, and accords with the habits of the American graylings as I have observed them. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 1: SPECIFIC CHARACTERIZATIONS OF THE GRAYLINGS +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ | | T. signifer | T. tricolor | T. montanus | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Head in length | 5-1/2 | 5 | 5 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Depth in length | 4-2/3 | 5-1/2 | 4-1/2 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Eye in head | 3 | 4 | 3-1/2 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Maxillary in head | 6 (?) | 2-1/2 | 3 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Scales | 8-88 to 90-11 | 93-98 | 8-82 to 85-10 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Gill-rakers |12 below the angle| 7 + 12 | 5 + 12 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Dorsal rays | 20-24 | 21-22 | 18-21 | +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+ |Height of dorsal fin| 3-1/2 in length |5-1/2 in length|4-1/2 in length| +--------------------+------------------+---------------+---------------+] CHAPTER VII THE SALMON FAMILY (_Salmonidæ_) This is quite an extensive family, embracing the salmons, trouts, and whitefishes, and is characterized principally by an adipose fin and small, smooth scales. It is my province to consider only the Rocky Mountain whitefish and the cisco, as the salmons and trouts are described in another volume of this series. There are a number of whitefishes, but none of them can be considered game-fishes except the one about to be described, as they rarely or never take the fly or bait. _Coregonus williamsoni._ Rocky Mountain Whitefish. Head 4-1/2 to 5; depth 4 to 5; eye 4-2/3; D. 11 to 14; A. 11 to 13; scales 8 to 10-83 to 87-7 to 10; body oblong, little compressed; head short, conic, the profile rather abruptly decurved; snout compressed and somewhat pointed at tip, which is below the level of the eye; preorbital broad, 2/3 the width of the eye; maxillary short and very broad, reaching to the anterior margin of eye, and is contained 4 times in length of head; mandible 3 times; gill-rakers short and thick, 9 + 15; pectoral fin 1-1/5 in head; ventral 1-2/5; adipose fin large, extending behind the anal fin. _Coregonus williamsoni cis-montanus._ Montana Whitefish. Head 5; depth 5 to 5^1; pectoral fin 1^1 in head; ventral 1-4/5; scales 90. Otherwise like the typical form. _Argyrosomus artedi sisco._ Cisco. Head 4 to 5; depth 4 to 4-1/2; eye 4 to 5; D. 10; A. 12; scales 8-65 to 80-8; body long, slender and somewhat compressed; head long, pointed and compressed; mouth large, lower jaw somewhat projecting, maxillary reaching to pupil; mandible 2-1/3 in head; dorsal fin high, its rays rapidly shortened; caudal fin forked. THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHITEFISH (_Coregonus williamsoni_) This fine fish was first described from the Des Chutes River in Oregon by Dr. Charles Girard in 1856, who described most of the fishes collected during the Pacific Railroad Survey, and named the one under consideration in honor of Lieutenant R.S. Williamson, who had charge of one of the divisions of the Survey. Its general form is not unlike that of the grayling, which has led to the absurd opinion, held by some, that the grayling is a hybrid, or cross, between this whitefish and the red-throat trout, its body being rather long, nearly elliptical in outline, and somewhat compressed. It is found in the clear streams on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and on both sides of the Cascade Range. In the tributaries of the Missouri River in Montana it differs slightly from the typical form, and is known as the variety _cis-montanus_. It is bluish or greenish on the back, sides silvery, belly white. All of the fins are tipped with black; caudal and adipose fins are steel-blue. I know this fish only from the streams of Montana, where it coexists with the red-throat trout and grayling. It spawns in the fall. It feeds on insects and their larvæ, small crustaceans, and the eggs of other fishes. It grows to about a foot in length, usually, and to a pound in weight, though I have taken much larger specimens. It is a very fair food-fish,--as good, I think, as the red-throat trout, as its flesh is firmer and flaky, and devoid of any muddy or musky flavor. It rises to the artificial fly as readily as the trout or grayling, and to the same flies, though a little more partial to small, dark, or grayish ones, as black, brown, and gray hackles, black gnat, oriole, gray drake, etc. When the streams are higher and not so clear, lighter-colored flies are useful, as professor, coachman, Henshall, miller, etc. Light trout fly-rods and tackle are used both for fly and bait-fishing by Rocky Mountain anglers,--the bait, when used, being the larva of the caddis-fly, and known as "rockworm." Grasshoppers are employed in the late summer and fall. Fly-fishing, however, is the most successful method. Large baskets of whitefish are made in the three forks of the Missouri River, especially in the lower Gallatin River, where it is taken with the grayling, the red-throat trout not being so plentiful in that part of the stream. The tributaries of this river are also well supplied with whitefish. Bridger Creek, one of the tributaries of East Gallatin River, has some large whitefish. I have taken them in that stream up to two pounds; for gameness they were equal to trout of the same weight, and just as good for the table. They are at their best in the early fall months, before spawning, when they are fat and in fine fettle. At this season they must be looked for in deep holes, especially in August and September, when they are gregarious, and one's basket may be filled from a single hole when of considerable extent. Later they depart for the shallows and pair off for spawning, when they seldom rise to the fly. There is a sentiment among trout fishers, and among people generally in a trout region, that no other fish is quite so good to eat, or possessed of as much gameness, as the trout. While I concede beauty of form and coloration to the trout, far excelling all other fresh-water fishes, there are others equally as good for the table, or even better. When camping by mountain streams, freshly-caught trout, fried to crispness in bacon fat, has a happy combined trout-bacon flavor that is certainly delicious, especially when one has the sauce of a camping appetite to favor it; but under similar conditions the mountain whitefish, in my opinion, is fully as good. Nine out of ten persons who are prejudiced in favor of the trout will declare that it has no scales, thus showing a lack of comparison and observation. In the Rocky Mountain region, where there are so few species of fish for the angler, usually only trout, grayling, and whitefish, the latter should be better appreciated. THE CISCO (_Argyrosomus artedi sisco_) The cisco, or so-called "lake-herring," was first described by the French ichthyologist, Le Sueur, in 1818, from Lake Erie and the Niagara River. He named it in honor of Petrus Artedi, the associate of Linnæus, and the "Father of Ichthyology." The variety _sisco_ was described and named by Dr. David Starr Jordan, in 1875, from Lake Tippecanoe, Indiana. It was for a long time supposed to exist only in Lake Geneva. Wisconsin, except in the Great Lakes, and an absurd opinion was prevalent that there was an underground communication between that lake and Lake Superior by which the cisco entered it. Soon after Dr. Jordan had discovered it in Tippecanoe Lake I found it in several lakes in Wisconsin, as La Belle, Oconomowoc, and Okauchee. The cisco is somewhat smaller than the lake-herring, but otherwise it is about the same. It is almost elliptical in outline, the body being compressed. The mouth is rather large, with the jaws more projecting than in the lake white-fishes. The coloration is bluish or greenish on the back, with silvery sides and white belly. The scales are sprinkled with black specks. It is a very pretty fish, is gregarious, swimming in large schools, and feeds on the minute organisms found in lakes of good depth. It remains in deep water most of the year, but resorts to shallower water in the summer, preparatory to spawning. From the last of May to June, when the May-fly appears in vast swarms on the western lakes, the cisco approaches the surface to feed on them. It is at this time that they take an artificial fly of a grayish hue. It grows to a length of ten or twelve inches, and is highly esteemed as a food-fish. At Lake Geneva, when the May-fly appears, crowds of anglers assemble to cast the artificial fly and the natural "cisco-fly," as the May-fly is called. A very light trout fly-rod with corresponding tackle can be utilized for cisco, with gray hackle, gray drake, or green drake, on hooks Nos. 8 to 10. The fishing is done from boats or the shore. In using the natural fly the same sized hooks mentioned will answer. As the May-fly alights on every object, the boat and clothing of the angler as well, the supply of bait is constant and convenient. The cisco can be caught in winter, through the ice, in water from fifty to seventy-five feet deep, and many are taken in this way from the lakes near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. A small white or bright object is used as a decoy to attract the fish, which is kept in motion near the baited hook, and on a separate line. The bait may be a very small bit of white bacon or ham fat, or fish flesh, though insect larva is better. When the talismanic words, "The cisco is running," are pronounced, crowds of anglers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and all intermediate points, with a unanimity of purpose, rush as one man to the common centre of Lake Geneva, in eager anticipation of the brief but happy season of "ciscoing." Anglers of every degree--armed with implements of every description, from the artistic split-bamboo rod of four ounces to the plebeian cane pole or bucolic sapling of slender proportions, and with lines of enamelled silk, linen, or wrapping cord--vie with one another in good-natured rivalry in the capture of the silvery cisco. Very little skill is required to fill the creel, as the schools are on the surface of the water in myriads, and the most bungling cast may hook a fish. Though the etymology of the cisco is unknown, it is a veritable entity, whose name is legion during the month of June at Lake Geneva. The cisco is a localized variety of the so-called lake-herring of the Great Lakes, and holds the same relation to it that the landlocked salmon does to the Atlantic salmon. Being confined to small lakes, the cisco does not grow so large as the lake herring. Before the Chicago and Milwaukee railway was built, in Wisconsin, there was a plank road extending from Milwaukee to Watertown, and thirty miles west of Milwaukee this road crossed the outlet of Oconomowoc Lake. Within fifty yards or so of the bridge there stood a roadside tavern where the freight wagons stopped at noon on their way from Lake Michigan to Watertown. I have been informed by old residents of that section that in the fall of the year, about the spawning period of the cisco, boxes of fresh fish were frequently carried by these wagons, some of which were cleaned and dressed for dinner on the bank of the outlet of the lake, and the offal thrown into the stream. It is not unlikely, inasmuch as the fish were so recently caught, that the eggs and milt of the cisco thus became commingled, fertilizing the eggs, which were subsequently hatched. This opinion is supported by the fact that the cisco is found in that locality only in the chain of lakes composed of Oconomowoc, Okauchee, and La Belle lakes, all of which are connected by Oconomowoc River. It is possible that Lake Geneva was stocked in a similar manner from Racine or Kenosha. If it is objected that eggs from dead fish would not be fertilized, there is still a tenable theory: When the fish are taken from the nets alive, many of them are so ripe that the eggs and milt ooze from them. Under these circumstances some of the eggs would become fertilized without a doubt, and by adhering to the fish when placed in the boxes for transportation, they might be carried to the place mentioned, and there deposited in the stream in the manner related. CHAPTER VIII THE DRUM FAMILY (_Sciænidæ_) The drumfish or croaker family is quite a large one, comprising nearly one hundred and fifty species, inhabiting the sandy shores of the seas or the brackish water of the bays and estuaries, sometimes ascending tributary rivers to fresh water; the fresh-water drum, hereafter to be described, however, is the only species permanently residing in fresh water. The members of this family have usually an elongate body, with rough-edged (ctenoid) scales; the dorsal fin is deeply notched, or in some species separated into two fins, with the soft-rayed portion, or the second dorsal, composed of many rays, while the spiny-rayed portion has but few; some have barbels, but all have large ear-bones; the air-bladder is usually large and complicated, and is supposed to be the source of the drumming, croaking, or grunting sounds common to most of the species. _Cynoscion regalis._ The Weakfish. Body elongate, somewhat compressed; head 3-1/8; depth 4-1/4; eye 6; D. X-I, 27; A. II, 12; scales 6-56-11; mouth large, maxillary reaching beyond pupil; teeth sharp, in narrow bands, canines large; soft dorsal and anal fins scaly, the scales caducous; gill-rakers long and slender, _x_ + 11. _Cynoscion nothus._ The Bastard Weakfish. Body elongate, slightly compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 3-3/4; eye 4; D. X-I, 27; A. II, 9 or 10; scales 6-60-7; mouth moderate, maxillary reaching posterior margin of pupil; snout short; body rather deep and more compressed than above species; back somewhat elevated; caudal fin weakly double concave; gill-rakers long and slender, 4 + 9. _Menticirrhus saxatilis._ The Kingfish. Body elongate, but little compressed; head 4; depth 4-1/2; eye small 7; D. X-I, 26; A. I, 8; scales 7-53-9; mouth large, maxillary reaching middle of eye; spinous dorsal elevated; pectoral fins long; teeth villiform; snout long and bluntish; scales all ctenoid. _Micropogon undulatus._ The Croaker. Body rather robust, the back somewhat elevated and compressed; head 3; depth 3-1/3; eye 5; D. X-I, 28; A. II, 7; scales 9-54-12; mouth rather large, maxillary reaching front of eye; profile rounded; snout convex, prominent; preopercle strongly serrate; anal under middle of soft dorsal; caudal fin double truncate; gill-rakers very short and slender, 7 + 16. _Leiostomus xanthurus._ The Lafayette. Body oblong, ovate, the back compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 3; eye 3-1/2; D. X-I, 31; A. II, 12; back in front of dorsal high, convex and compressed to a sharp edge; profile steep and convex, depressed over the eyes; mouth small and inferior, maxillary reaching to below pupil; snout blunt; pharyngeals with three series of molars posteriorly; teeth in upper jaw minute, none in lower jaw in adult; gill-rakers short and slender, 8 + 22; caudal long and forked. THE WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion regalis_) The weakfish, or squeteague, was first described by Bloch and Schneider, in 1801, from the vicinity of New York. They named it _regalis_, or "royal." In the Southern states it is called gray-trout and sea-trout. The name weakfish is doubtless derived from the Dutch, and is said to have originally meant a soft fish. Jacob Steendam, in a poem in "Praise of New Netherland," in 1661, has "Weekvis, en Schol, en Carper, Bot, en Snoek," meaning weakfish, plaice, carp, turbot, and pike. The name squeteague is of Indian origin. The natural habitat of the weakfish is along the Atlantic coast south of Cape Cod, occasionally straying to the Gulf of Mexico. It is most abundant between Buzzards Bay and Chesapeake Bay. It is a handsome, shapely fish, resembling somewhat the salmon in outline. It has a robust body, with a depth of about one-fourth of its length. It has a long, pointed head, nearly as long as the depth of the body. The mouth is large, with projecting lower jaw. The teeth are sharp, in narrow bands, with several fanglike canines in front of the upper jaw. The dorsal fins are but slightly separated, and the caudal fin is almost square. The color of the back and top of the head is bluish or bluish gray, with silvery sides and white belly, and with purple and golden iridescence. A series of dark, diffused spots or blotches form transverse or oblique streaks, more pronounced on the upper part of the body, from whence they run downward and forward. The cheeks and gill-covers are silvery and chin yellowish; the ventral and anal fins are orange; dorsal fin dusky; pectoral fins yellowish; caudal fin with upper part dark and lower part yellowish. The weakfish is a warm-water fish, visiting the coast and bays during the spring, summer, and fall, though more abundant in the summer. They are surface feeders, and swim in large schools in quest of menhaden, scup, and other small fishes. They are more numerous some seasons than others, probably owing to certain conditions affecting their food, temperature of water, and the abundance or scarcity of their enemy, the bluefish. They seldom, if ever, ascend the streams to fresh water, but remain about the outer beaches, entering the inlets and estuaries on the flood tide in pursuit of their prey, and go out again with the ebb; at least this is the habit of the largest fish, known as "tide-runners." Smaller fish probably remain in the bays and bayous, resorting to deep holes at low water. Its breeding habits are not well understood, though it spawns in the bays in early summer, about May or June. The eggs are quite small, about thirty to the inch, are buoyant or floating, and hatch in a few days, usually in two. I have taken many hundreds in Chesapeake Bay in August, but do not remember ever catching one containing roe during that month. It is an excellent food-fish if perfectly fresh, but soon deteriorates, becoming quite soft and losing its characteristic flavor when out of the water a few hours. It is quite an important commercial fish during summer in the eastern markets. Small ones, below a pound in weight, are delicious pan-fish; larger ones should be baked. Its usual weight is two or three pounds, and its maximum ten or twelve; occasionally they are taken still heavier--twenty or twenty-five pounds. Being a surface feeder it is a good game-fish on light tackle, taking bait or an artificial fly with a rush and snap that reminds one of a trout, and for a short time it resists capture bravely. Its first spurt, when hooked, is a grand one, and when checked darts in various directions, making for the weeds if any are near, or toward the bottom, or rushing to the surface leaps out, shaking itself madly to dislodge the hook. It must be handled carefully and gingerly, for it has a tender mouth from which the hook is apt to be torn if too much strain is exerted at first. A very light striped-bass rod may be utilized, but the most suitable is the "Little Giant" rod of seven and one-half feet and eight ounces in ash and lancewood. A good multiplying reel with fifty yards of braided linen line, size G, a three-foot leader, and snelled hooks, Sproat the best. Nos. 1-0 to 3-0 for the tide-runners, and Nos. 1 or 2 for school fish, together with a landing-net, constitute the rest of the tackle. The most satisfactory mode of fishing for weakfish is from a boat anchored near the channel, or tied to a pier or wharf in a tideway. The time for fishing is on the flood tide, from half flood to half ebb, as the tide-runners are going in or out in large schools. As little noise as possible should be made by any necessary movements in the boat, as the fish are easily frightened. Long casts should be made toward the advancing or retreating fish, and the bait kept in motion by being reeled in. No sinker or float is required, as the bait must be kept near the surface. Menhaden or minnows, shedder-crab, lobster, bloodworms, clam, and shrimp are all good natural baits. A small spinner, or a small mother-of-pearl squid, if reeled in rapidly, often proves very taking; also a large, gaudy fly, as the red ibis, soldier, silver doctor, Jock Scott, royal coachman, etc., can be used with good effect when the fish are running strongly and in goodly numbers. Still-fishing, with a float, and a sinker adapted to the strength of the tidal current, can be practised in the eddies of the tide, or at slack water near deep holes, using the natural baits mentioned. Another method is casting with heavy hand-line in the surf from the outside beaches, using block tin or bone squids, and hauling the fish in, when hooked, by main strength. The largest fish are taken in this way; but while it is in a degree exciting, it can only be said to be fishing, not angling. Many anglers, however, prefer it to any other mode of fishing. Another favorite method, but a tame one, is drifting with the wind and tide, following a school of fish and taking them by trolling with hand-line. If suitable rods and tackle were used, it would not be objectionable. Next to the striped-bass the weakfish is the most important game-fish of the East Coast, and to judge from the greater number of anglers who pursue "weakfishing," it is far and away the favorite with the majority. The estuaries and bays of the Jersey coast, Long Island, and Staten Island, and along the Sound, afford good fishing in the season and at favorable stages of the tide. These localities are more frequented by anglers than any other section of the East Coast. While ideal angling can only be found on inland waters in casting the fly for salmon, black-bass, or trout, amidst the rural and pastoral scenes of hill and hollow, with the birds and sweet-scented blossoms ever near the rippling streams--a full measure of enjoyment is vouchsafed to the salt-water angler in the exhilarating sail to the fishing-banks, the sunlit crests of the incoming tide, and the health-giving ozone of the chlorinated breeze. Then follows the ready response of the gamy weakfish to the angler's lure, the brave fight and happy landing of the prize. This is surely sport galore, and not to be gainsaid by the most prejudiced. THE BASTARD WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion nothus_) The bastard weakfish was first described by Dr. Holbrook, in 1860, from the coast of South Carolina. He named it _nothus_, meaning "bastard," in contradistinction to the well-known weakfish just described. It is a rare fish of the South Atlantic coast, preferring deep water, but otherwise of similar habits, and of the same general form as the weakfish of the northern waters. It differs from it in coloration, and has somewhat smaller scales, a smaller mouth, and more compressed body, which is also a little deeper and more elevated. Its color is grayish-silvery, thickly sprinkled with small, dark specks on the upper half of the body, and silvery below, a row of dark spots marking the division. There is another species inhabiting the Gulf coast which will be noticed later. Whenever met with they can be taken by the same methods and with the same tackle as recommended for the northern weakfish. THE KINGFISH (_Menticirrhus saxatilis_) The kingfish is also known as barb and sea mink in the North, and in the South as whiting. It was first described by Bloch and Schneider, in 1801, from the vicinity of New York. They named it _saxatilis_, meaning "living among rocks," which by the way it does not do, as it prefers hard, sandy shoals. Its range extends along the Atlantic coast south of Buzzards Bay, occasionally straying to the Gulf of Mexico. It is most abundant, however, between Montauk Point and Cape Hatteras. It has a long, rather round body, not much compressed, its depth being nearly a fourth of its length. The head is long, with a blunt snout projecting beyond the mouth, which is small, with tough, leathery lips, and with a single barbel on the chin. Both jaws have bands of small, brushlike teeth, the outer ones in the upper jaw somewhat longer. The upper angle of the caudal fin is sharp, the lower angle rounded. Its color is gray with steely lustre on the back, fading gradually to the belly, which is bluish white. There are several dark, oblique bands, running from the back downward and forward, and one extending from the nape downward, forming a broad "V" with the one next to it; along the border of the belly is a horizontal dark streak running from the middle of the body to the tail. The kingfish is a bottom feeder, and as might be inferred from the character of the teeth is partial to crabs, shrimps, young lobsters, and mussels, but does not object to the sand-lance and other small fishes, and sandworms, and is found on the hard, sandy shoals where such organisms abound. It visits the shores from spring until November, but is more abundant in the summer, when it enters the bays and rivers. It is usually found in deep water, feeding along the channels. Although it seems to consort a good deal with the weakfish, its habits of feeding are quite different from that fish. It spawns in the summer, earlier or later, according to the temperature of the water, though but little is known of its breeding habits. Its flesh is flaky, of firm texture, and has a delicious flavor when perfectly fresh, which, however, is lost when out of the water a short time. It is of small size, usually weighing from a half pound to two pounds, though occasionally reaching five or six pounds. But although so small it is justly esteemed and in great demand, the smaller ones as pan-fishes, for breakfast, and the larger ones for chowders, for which it is unexcelled by any other fish. For its size, the kingfish is considered the gamest of all salt-water fishes. It bites savagely, suddenly, and with a vim and purpose that are sometimes startling to the unwary angler. And when he takes the proffered bait he stands not upon the order of going, but goes at once, and with a dash that is remarkable for its length in so small a fish. When checked, he darts from side to side with amazing quickness, or makes straight for the surface, when the angler is surprised to find him of so small a size. He is _multum in parvo_,--a large soul in a small body. In sheltered estuaries and bays where the tide does not run strongly or swiftly, or during the stages of slack water, the most suitable tackle consists of a black-bass bait-rod and reel, one hundred yards of fine braided linen line, a three-foot leader, and Sproat hooks, Nos. 1 or 1-0, on stout gut snells, the leader being connected with the line by a brass box-swivel or swivel-sinker of small size. Where the rush of the tide is greater, a natural bamboo chum rod or the Little Giant rod is appropriate, as a heavy sinker must be used to keep the bait near the bottom. To meet the varying conditions of the tide, sinkers of different weights are needed, and a landing-net should not be forgotten when the rod is a light one. The fishing is done from a boat anchored near the edge of the channels or in the vicinity of hard shoals of sand, ledges of rocks, or near oyster bars, in water of pretty good depth. The bait may be shedder-crab, clam, blood-worm, or shrimp. All are good, but crab is, perhaps, the best, and should be kept in motion. The northern kingfish must not be confounded with the kingfish of the Florida Keys, which is a fish of the mackerel tribe, akin to the Spanish mackerel, a game-fish of high order, growing to a weight of forty pounds. I was amused several years ago when a correspondent applied to the angling editor of one of the sportsman's journals for information concerning the kingfish of Florida. The editor, not knowing any better, confounded it with the northern kingfish, and recommended the usual means of capture for that fish. I wondered, at the time, how the inquiring angler succeeded with the nimble acrobat of the coral reefs, still-fishing, with such tackle. There are two closely allied species--the Carolina whiting (_Menticirrhus americanus_) and the surf or silver whiting (_Menticirrhus littoralis_), which differ somewhat in coloration and in some unimportant structural differences; otherwise they are very similar to the kingfish. The former inhabits the deeper water, while the latter frequents the shallow sandy shores of the southern coast from Carolina to Texas. Their feeding habits are similar to those of the kingfish, and in their season they can be captured in the same way. THE CROAKER (_Micropogon undulatus_) The croaker was described by Linnæus, in 1766, from South Carolina. He named it _undulatus_, "undulating or wavy," owing to the undulating character of the markings on the body and fins. Its range extends along the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico from the Middle states to Texas, though it is more abundant from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida. The outline of the body is somewhat elliptical and compressed, not much elevated on the back, but with rather a regular curve from the snout to the tail; its depth is less than a third of its length. The head is about as long as the depth of the body, with a prominent, somewhat blunt snout, and a rather large mouth, with small barbels beneath the lower jaw. [Illustration THE WEAKFISH] [_Cynoscion regalis_] [Illustration THE KINGFISH] [_Menticirrhus saxatilis_] [Illustration THE GERMAN CARP] [_Cyprinus carpio_] The border of the cheek-bones is strongly toothed. The teeth of the jaws are in brushlike bands, with somewhat longer ones in the upper jaw. There are two dorsal fins, slightly connected; the caudal fin is double concave or trifurcate. The back is dusky gray with silvery lustre, sides silvery or brassy, belly white and iridescent. There are a number of dusky or cloudy vertical or oblique bands, and the upper part of the body is profusely sprinkled with numerous dark spots, irregularly placed, in undulating lines. A dusky spot is at the base of the pectoral fin; the dorsal fins are marked with dark spots, which form lines along the soft dorsal fin. The croaker frequents grassy situations in the brackish water of bays and bayous, feeding on crabs, shrimps, and other crustaceans, and small fishes. It grows to a length of ten or twelve inches, and is a good pan-fish when perfectly fresh. It spawns in the autumn. On the grassy flats of the Patapsco and other tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay I have caught countless numbers of the "crocus," as we boys called it. Just under the gill-cover, nearly always, we found a parasitic crustacean or sea-louse, a half inch in length, resembling the land crustacean known as the wood-louse, or sow-bug,--probably an isopod. A very light rod, a fine linen line, snelled hooks Nos. 1 to 3, and a small sinker or brass swivel for connecting line and snell are all that are needed for the croaker, as a reel is not necessary. The boat is anchored on grassy flats in water from six to twelve feet in depth. Shrimp is the best bait, though cut-bait of clam or fish is good. A float may be used to keep the bait from the bottom in still water. While this fish and the next, the spot or Lafayette, are usually classed as small fry, and particularly suited to boy anglers, they are such good pan-fish that many "grown-ups" are quite enthusiastic in their capture. They hold about the same relation to the more important game-fishes of the coast that the sunfishes do to the black-bass, trout, pike, etc., of inland waters. When no better fishing offers they will fill the void very satisfactorily when light and suitable tackle is employed. THE LAFAYETTE (_Leiostomus xanthurus_) The Lafayette, spot, or goody, as it is variously called, was described by Lacépéde, in 1802, from South Carolina. He named it _xanthurus_, meaning "yellow tail," under the impression that its caudal fin was yellow,--which, however, it is not. Its range extends from Cape Cod to Texas, though it is most abundant from New Jersey to Florida. It is found throughout its range in brackish-water bays and bayous, and is somewhat similar in appearance to the croaker. It has a short, deep body; the back in front of the dorsal fin is compressed to a sharp edge or "razor-back"; the outline of the back is arched, highest over the shoulder, with a steep profile from thence to the snout; the depth of the body is more than a third of its length. The head is not so long as the depth of the body; the snout is blunt and prominent; the mouth is small. There are few or no teeth in the lower jaw, while those in the upper jaw are quite small. The throat is well armed with molars and brushlike teeth. There are two dorsal fins, slightly connected; the caudal fin is forked. It is bluish or dusky above, with silvery sides and white belly; when fresh from the water it is very iridescent. It has about fifteen narrow, dark, wavy bands extending obliquely downward and forward, from the back to below the lateral line; the fins are olivaceous and plain; it has a very prominent and distinct round black spot just above the base of the pectoral fin, which has given rise to the name spot in some localities. Like the croaker, the Lafayette resorts to grassy and weedy situations in the brackish-water bays, estuaries, and tributaries. In Florida it is present all the year, but does not enter northern waters until summer and autumn, when it is often found in company with the croaker or white-perch. It feeds on shrimps and other small crustaceans and small mollusks. It spawns in southern waters in the fall. Although but a small fish, growing to eight or ten inches in length, and usually to but six inches, it is a great favorite as a pan-fish, as when perfectly fresh it is a delicious tidbit or _bonne-bouche_ of most excellent flavor. The same tackle recommended for the croaker is well adapted for the spot, though the hooks should be smaller, Nos. 4 to 6. It is found in the same situations as the croaker, and often in shallow water, or about the piling of bridges and wharves, wherever shrimps abound. My method, many years ago, was to use a light cane rod, ten or twelve feet in length, and a fine line of about the same length, very small hooks, about No. 8, with bait of shrimp, cut clam, oyster, sandworm, or earthworm. I used no float, but held the rod elevated sufficiently to keep the bait from touching the bottom, thus maintaining a taut line, so that the slightest nibble of the fish could be felt, when I would endeavor to hook it at once, for it is as well versed in bait-stealing as the cunner. It is only necessary to refer to the many names by which this little fish is known in various sections of the country to prove its popularity. Some of these are the spot, goody, Cape May goody, and Lafayette of northern waters, the roach and chub of Carolina, and the chopa blanca (white bream) and besugo (sea-bream) of the Portuguese and Spanish fishermen of Florida. It appeared in unusually large numbers in northern waters about the time that Lafayette visited this country in 1834, hence one of its numerous names. Years ago I have seen crowds of men, women, and boys occupying front seats on the wood-wharves of Baltimore harbor engaged in fishing for spots and croakers, on Saturday afternoons, and many a boy was tardy at Sunday-school the next morning through picking out the bones from his Sunday breakfast. CHAPTER IX THE DRUM FAMILY (_CONTINUED_) (_Sciænidæ_) The most conspicuous and characteristic features by which the members of this family may be known were given in the preceding chapter, where the brackish-water and salt-water species were described. There is but one species found in fresh water, a description of which follows. _Aplodinotus grunniens._ The Fresh-water Drum. Body oblong, much elevated, and compressed; profile long and steep; snout blunt; head 3-1/3; depth 2-3/4; eye moderate; D. X, 30; A. II, 7; scales 9-55-13; mouth small, low, and horizontal, lower jaw included; teeth in villiform bands, pharyngeals with coarse, blunt, paved teeth; preopercle slightly serrate; the dorsal fins somewhat connected; scaly sheaths at base of spiny portion of dorsal and anal fins; second anal spine very large; gill-rakers short, 6 + 14; pyloric coeca 7; caudal fin double truncate. THE FRESH-WATER DRUMFISH (_Aplodinotus grunniens_) This well-known fish of the Middle West is also known as lake-sheepshead on the Great Lakes, white-perch on the Ohio River, gaspergou in Louisiana, and as bubbler, croaker, thunder-pumper, and other names in various sections of the country. It was first described by Rafinesque, in 1819, from the Ohio River. He named it _grunniens_, meaning "grunting," from the grunting sound it makes, in common with other members of the drum family, when taken from the water. It inhabits the Great Lakes and other smaller lakes in the vicinity, extending along the Mississippi Valley to Louisiana. Texas, and Mexico. The fresh-water drum is somewhat elliptical in outline, with quite a hump over the shoulders, with a depth of about one-third of its length, while its head constitutes more than a fourth of the length of the body. The single dorsal fin has the appearance of two. The ear-bones (otoliths) are quite large and resemble porcelain in their peculiar whiteness, and have a semblance of the letter "L" seemingly cut on them. From this circumstance they are known as "lucky-stones," and are often carried by boys as pocket-pieces. It is of a grayish silvery hue, dark on the back, fading to white on the belly. In the lakes of the North it has several oblique dusky streaks or bands, resembling in a minor degree those of the sheepshead of the coastwise streams and bays. In southern waters the streaks are not so apparent, and it is called white-perch, owing to its silvery appearance. It is a bottom fish, feeding mostly on mollusks, which it crushes with the blunt teeth of the throat. It also feeds on small fishes, crawfish, and other small organisms. Its spawning habits are unknown, but it probably spawns in the spring and summer. On the Great Lakes it grows to an enormous size, occasionally reaching fifty or sixty pounds, though as usually taken by anglers it is from three to ten pounds in weight. It is of no value as a food-fish in that region, being seldom eaten and heartily despised. On the Ohio and lower Mississippi rivers its weight is much less, from one to six pounds, and it is there considered a good pan-fish, selling readily in the markets. There is no doubt but that it is of better flavor in southern waters when of small size. As a commercial fish it is taken in nets in the North, and in fyke-nets in the southern extent of its range. On northern lakes it is often taken by anglers when fishing for black-bass, and being a strong, vigorous fish with the family habit of boring toward the bottom when hooked, it furnishes fair sport, and with considerable jeopardy to light tackle, when of large size. The angler is at first elated with what he imagines to be a fine bass until its identity is established, when his enthusiasm gives place to infinite disgust. And this is one reason why it is despised in northern waters, and very unjustly, too, for it is game enough, so far as resistance is concerned, and is entitled to that much credit. In southern waters it bites freely at small minnows, crawfish, or mussels, and is there better appreciated and has a fair reputation as a game-fish. I have enjoyed fishing for it with light tackle on White and St. Francis rivers in Arkansas, and some of the streams in Mississippi. Light black-bass tackle is quite suitable for it. CHAPTER X THE MINNOW FAMILY (_Cyprinidæ_) This family of fresh-water fishes numbers probably a thousand species, mostly of small size in America and known universally as "minnows." In the eastern hemisphere the species grow larger, and of these, two have been introduced into America,--the German carp and the goldfish. _Cyprinus carpio._ The German Carp. Body robust, compressed, heavy anteriorly; head 4-1/2; depth 3-1/2; scales (normally) 5-38-5; mouth moderate, with four long barbels; teeth molar, 1, 1, 3-3, 1, 1; dorsal fin elongate, dorsal and anal fins each preceded by a serrated spine. D. III, 20; A. III, 5. THE GERMAN CARP (_Cyprinus carpio_) The carp was described and named by Linnæus in 1758. Its original home was in China, and from thence it was introduced into Europe, and from there to America. Since the introduction of the carp into the United States, some thirty years ago, it may now be said to inhabit every state in the Union, having escaped from the ponds in which it was placed at first, into almost every stream, especially in the Mississippi Valley. The dorsal fin is single, extending from the middle of the back nearly to the tail, highest in front. In the typical scale-carp the scales are large, there being about thirty-eight along the lateral line, with five rows above it and five rows below. But domestication has greatly altered the squamation; thus in the leather-carp the body is naked, with the exception of a few very large ones on the back; in the mirror-carp there are a few rows of very large scales. The coloration is as variable as its scales. It is usually of some shade of olive or brown, with golden lustre, darkest on the back, with the belly whitish or yellowish. In Europe the carp hibernates, or remains dormant during the winter, burying itself in the mud of the bottom with its tail only exposed. In America it seems to have abandoned this habit almost entirely, especially in the more southern waters. It is not strictly, if at all, a herbivorous fish as has been alleged, but stirs up the bottom of ponds in search of minute animal organisms, rendering the water foul and muddy. It also devours the spawn of other fishes, though some persons contend that it does not, which is absurd, when it is considered that almost all fishes are addicted to this natural vice. I know from my own observation that the carp is not exempt from the habit. It grows to a length of two feet under favorable conditions. One of twenty-four inches will weigh about ten pounds. As a food-fish it ranks below the buffalo or sucker. It sells readily, however, to negroes. Chinese, and Polish Jews of the cities. I have no love for the German carp, but as it is now so plentiful in most waters, especially in the Mississippi Valley, and is constantly increasing in numbers, it may be well enough to devote a small space to it as a game-fish. It is a very poor fish at best, and as the poor we have always with us, we will never be rid of it. In England, where it has existed for centuries, it is considered a very shy and uncertain fish to catch; and the larger the fish, the more difficult to circumvent. The best success, and the best is very poor, is met with on small, stagnant ponds, with comparatively small fish. English anglers use a small quill float and split-shot sinker, allowing the bait to just touch the bottom. They then stick the butt of the rod in the ground and retire out of sight of the fish, watching the float meanwhile. They use for bait, worms, maggots, and pastes of various kinds, and usually ground-bait the "swims" to be fished, a day in advance. Where the carp are large, five or six pounds, the rod, reel, and line recommended for black-bass fishing will subserve a good purpose. A leader three feet long, stained mud color, must be used, with small hooks, Nos. 7 or 8, tied on gut snells. One of the best baits is a red earthworm. I think the hook can hardly be too small; Nos. 10 or 12 would probably be more successful than larger ones, as the fish is apt to eject the bait at once upon feeling the hook concealed in it. And this is especially important if such baits as bread paste, hard-boiled potato, or boiled grain are employed. The carp has a peculiar mouth, and feeds much like the sucker. It draws in mud and water and food together, strains the water through the gills, expelling it by the gill-openings, and probably macerates the residue by means of the tongue and the cushiony lining of the buccal cavity before swallowing it. During this process of mouthing the bait the fish is very likely to discover the hook, if large, and eject it. When once hooked, the fish is not to be lightly esteemed. The angler will have all he can attend to with a light rod in a weedy pond, or even in clear water if the fish is of large size. As most other game-fishes may in time disappear before the Asiatic carp, the analogue of the Mongolian boxer, it may be well and prudent to learn some of the ways to outwit him. In China and Japan the carp is considered before any other fish for food, and is emblematic of strength, vigor, and other good qualities. It is a custom in Japanese households, upon the birth of a male child, to hoist a flag representing a carp, in order that he may grow in strength and all manly attributes. In England the carp is not much liked. On the continent of Europe it is considered a good food-fish, but it is confined in clear running water to deprive it of its earthy flavor before it is marketed or eaten. It is likewise kept within proper bounds, although it has been cultivated for centuries. In the United States, however, it has spread over the Mississippi Valley and elsewhere from overflowed ponds until it bids fair to become a nuisance, inasmuch as our waters seem to be particularly suited to it. As there are so many better species of food-fishes in this country, both in fresh and salt water, there was no excuse or necessity for its introduction, which I consider as great a calamity as that of the English sparrow or the Shanghai chicken, and adding a third foreign evil that we will never be rid of. I have experimented with carp fishing, but I think the results were never twice alike. A great deal depends on the condition of the water. In ponds that are kept constantly muddy by the rooting of the carp, it is difficult for them to see the bait, and they must then depend on the olfactory sense to find it. This may take a longer time than the patience of the angler will admit. When the water is clear, as on a stream, the carp is too apt to see the angler, and being naturally a shy fish will not go near the bait under these circumstances. There is then nothing to do but to fix the rod in the bank and lie down beside it, or behind a bush or screen, until the moving of the float announces the hooking of the fish. By using a small float, fine line, and very small hooks, and a variety of baits, as earthworms, boiled grain or vegetables, pastes of various kinds, and a good stock of patience, one may eventually succeed in taking a few fish; but the game is hardly worth the candle. As the fish has its advocates, however, I add the following account of angling for carp in England, where it has been acclimated for several centuries. The directions given are abridged from Cornwall Simeon, a writer on natural history and angling:-- "The tackle required will simply be a long rod, a reel containing not less than fifty yards of fineish line, a fine but sound casting-line nearly as long as the rod, hooks of about No. 9 size tied on gut to match, and a small, unpretending float, besides a good lump of the crumb of new bread, and a landing-net. Select a quiet, shallow part of the pond, especially if the weather be hot, and near its edge stick a few small bushes as a screen. Then plumb the depth of the water, and cover the whole of your hook, leaving not the slightest part visible, with a piece of bread kneaded into paste, and setting the float two or three feet _farther from the bait_ than the depth of the water, throw it well out, drawing in afterward all the slack of your line. You may then rest your rod on a forked stick, and sitting down, smoke your pipe if you like, and proceed to ground-bait the place by filliping in bread pills all round your bait and pretty wide of it. The two great objects should be not to alarm the carp and to get them to feed. They are very timid, and if they once take fright at anything and leave a place in consequence, it will generally be a good while before they will return to it. For this reason I prefer not to throw in any ground-bait when fishing for them until all my preparations are made and the actual bait is in the water. When they begin to come to the bread, if the bottom is at all muddy and the water not too deep, you will see lines of mud stirred up by them as they come on, nuzzling in it like so many pigs. You have then only to keep quiet and bide your time. The float will give you sufficient warning when to strike, and you should only do so when the carp is going well and steadily away with it. If your tackle is sound, and you are not intoo great a hurry, you may make pretty sure of landing him." CHAPTER XI THE CATFISH FAMILY (_Siluridæ_) The catfish family is represented by many species in the United States. They have the body entirely naked, barbels about the mouth, and an adipose fin, after the fashion of the fishes of the salmon family. They vary greatly in size, from the little stone-cat of three inches to the immense Mississippi-cat of nearly two hundred pounds. But one species will be noticed. _Ictalurus punctatus._ The Channel-catfish. Body elongate, slender, compressed posteriorly; head 4; depth 5; eye large; D. I, 6; A. 25 to 30; head slender and conical; mouth small, upper jaw longest; barbels long, the longest reaching considerably beyond the gill opening; humeral process long and slender; caudal fin long and deeply forked. THE CHANNEL-CATFISH (_Ictalurus punctatus_) The channel-cat was first described by Rafinesque, in 1820, from the Ohio River. He named it _punctatus_, or "spotted," owing to the black spots on its sides. It is also known as white-cat and blue-cat in various parts of its range. It is found in rivers of the Great Lake region and Mississippi Valley, and in the streams tributary to the Gulf of Mexico. [Illustration THE CHANNEL-CATFISH] [_Ictalurus punctatus_] [Illustration THE SHEEPSHEAD] [_Archosargus probatocephalus_] [Illustration THE CUNNER] [_Tautogolabrus adspersus_] It is the most trimly-built of all the catfishes, with a long, slender body and small head. It is olivaceous or slate color above, sides pale and silvery, with small, round, dark spots; belly white; fins usually with dark edgings. Unlike most of the catfishes the channel-cat is found only in clear or swift streams, never in still, muddy situations. It is a clean, wholesome fish, and feeds mostly on minnows and crawfish. It is a good food-fish, the flesh being white and firm and of a rich flavor. It grows to a weight of twenty pounds, occasionally, though usually to five or six pounds. The channel-cat is a very fine game-fish. It takes the live minnow readily, also shedder crawfish, and will not refuse earthworms, cut butcher meat or liver. When hooked it is second to no other fish of its size as a bold, strong fighter beneath the surface. The angler who has "tackled," in a literal sense, a channel-cat of five pounds, on a light rod, can vouch for its gameness. As it coexists with the black-bass in streams in the Mississippi Valley, and is usually taken by the angler when angling for that fish, the rod, reel, line, and hook recommended for the black-bass will be found eminently serviceable for the channel-cat. It is fond of the deep pools below mill-dams, and in the channels of streams off gravelly or rocky shoals, and near shelving banks and rocks. The method of casting the minnow for black-bass answers well for the channel-cat, though the casts should not be so frequently made, and more time should be allowed for the display of the minnow in mid-water. Still-fishing with a small, live minnow for bait is the plan generally followed; and as the bait should be left to its own devices for several minutes at a time, a light float is sometimes useful for keeping it off the bottom. When crawfish, cut-bait, or worms are used, the float must always be employed for the same reason. The fish should be given several seconds to gorge the bait, and then hooked by an upward, short, and quick movement of the tip of the rod. When hooked it should feel constantly the strain of the bent rod, and no more line given than is actually necessary; otherwise the struggle will last a long time. No half-hearted measures will answer for the channel-cat, which has a wonderful amount of vitality. He must be subdued by the determined opposition of a good rod and a strong arm. There are a number of other catfishes that are taken by angling, but none are worthy of the name of game-fishes, though as food they are nearly all to be commended. There are two other species of channel-cats, though neither is quite so good either as game-fishes or for food. They are the blue-cat, also known as chuckle-head cat (_Ictalurus furcatus_), which may be known by its more extensive anal fin, which has from thirty to thirty-five rays, and its bluish silvery color, and with but few if any spots. The other is the willow-cat, or eel-cat (_Ictalurus anguilla_), of a pale yellowish or olivaceous color, without spots. Both of these fishes are found in southern waters from Ohio to Louisiana. The channel-cats are often called forked-tail cats, as they are the only catfishes that have the caudal fin deeply forked. I think no one appreciates the gameness of the channel-catfish, or has such a just estimation of its toothsomeness, as the Kentucky darky. He will sit all day long, a monument of patience, on a log or rock at the edge of a "cat-hole" of the stream, with hickory pole, strong line and hook, and a bottle cork for a float. He baits his hook with a piece of liver or a shedder crawfish--"soft craw," he calls it, and only uses minnows when the other baits fail. Apropos of this love for the channel-cat may be related the true incident of the "cornfield" darky who, while fishing for cats, had the luck to hook a fine black-bass, which was landed after a "strenuous" struggle, to the envy of his companions. After surveying it with evident admiration awhile, he unhooked it, and with a profound sigh he deliberately threw it back into the stream to the amazement and disgust of the others. "Good Lawd, Jeff," exclaimed one, "w'at yo' done do dat fur? dat sholy wa' a good bass; must a weighed more'n a couple o'poun's!" He surveyed the group with supreme contempt for a moment before he replied, "W'en I go a-cattin'. I go a-cattin'." What greater tribute to the channel-cat than this! On the other hand I was once fly-fishing on a black-bass stream in Kentucky, with a friend from Ohio who was casting the minnow. Having each made a good basket we were ready to quit, as the evening shadows were lengthening and the air was becoming decidedly cool. I was taking my rod apart, but my friend wanted to make "just one more cast," which happened to be on an inviting-looking "cat-hole." As I was tying the strings of my rod case I heard him exclaim joyfully. "I've got the boss bass of the season!" Turning, I perceived him wildly dancing on the edge of the pool, his rod bent to an alarming curve, and the strain on his line evidently near the danger point. I watched in vain for the leap of the bass, and then concluded he had business on hand for an uncertain period, for I felt sure that he had hooked a channel-cat of considerable avoirdupois. The fight was well sustained, and a gallant one on both sides; but it seemed impossible for the light rod to bring the fish near enough to slip the landing-net under it. Finally he backed away from the stream, drawing the fish close to the shore, where I netted it--a channel-cat of five pounds. When my friend saw what it was, he was the most disappointed and disgusted man in Kentucky. "Great Scott!" he yelled. "I nearly ruined my rod for a confounded catfish."--"Well," said I, "you had your fun; he put up a good fight; what more do you want?"--"Want! want!" he angrily cried, "I want to stamp the life out of the horrid brute; and I'll do it, too!" But I unhooked the fish and strung it on a willow branch. I had it stuffed and baked for our dinner next day, when he acknowledged that it was the best fish he ever ate, and was entirely consoled for the strain to his rod, to say nothing of his temper, and ever after had a better opinion of the channel-cat. [Illustration FISHING FOR CUNNERS] CHAPTER XII THE SHEEPSHEAD FAMILY (_Sparidæ_) This family embraces the sheepshead, porgies, and sea-breams. It is characterized principally by a heavy, compressed body, strong jaws and teeth, the front ones incisor-like and broad, and flat, grinding teeth or molars in the back of the mouth, like a pavement of small, rounded pebbles, for crushing the shells of mollusks. _Archosargus probatocephalus._ The Sheepshead. Body short, deep, and compressed, with large scales; head 3-1/2; depth 2 to 2-1/2; eye 4; D. XII, 10 or 12; A. III, 10 or 11; scales 8-48-15; mouth large, nearly horizontal, maxillary 2-2/3 in head; incisors 3/4, entire in adult; molars in 3 series above and 2 below; gill-rakers about 3 + 6; dorsal and anal spines notably heteracanthous; frontal bone between the eyes convex and honeycombed; occipital crest broad and honeycombed. _Stenotomus chrysops._ The Scup. Body ovate-elliptical; head 3-1/2; depth 2; eye 4; D. XII, 12; A. III, 11; scales 8-50-16; profile steep; nape convex; a strong depression in front of the eye; snout short; temporal crest obsolete; incisor teeth narrow; molars in 2 rows above; gill-rakers small, about 6 + 10; caudal fin forked; top of head, snout, orbitals, and chin naked; a scaly sheath at base of soft dorsal and anal fins; scales on cheeks. THE SHEEPSHEAD (_Archosargus probatocephalus_) In his account of the fishes in the vicinity of New York, in 1788, Schöpf, a surgeon in the British army, placed the sheepshead in the European genus _Sparus_, but gave it no specific name. From his description the ichthyologist Walbaum, in 1792, named it _probatocephalus_, which being translated means "sheep head." This fish inhabits the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Cape Cod to Texas, where it is common during the summer months, but it is especially abundant in the bays of Florida during the entire year. Its body is nearly half as deep as long, is much compressed, and elevated and arched over the shoulder. The head is large, about a third of the length of the body, with a steep profile, rounded in front of the eyes, which with its incisor teeth bears a slight resemblance to the profile of a sheep. The mouth is large, with strong incisor teeth in front, and several series of molar teeth in both jaws. The general tint is dusky gray, with silvery lustre, paling to the belly; about half a dozen broad, black bars cross the body, from above downward, very distinct in the young, but becoming fainter with age. As might be inferred from the character of its teeth, the sheepshead resorts to mussel shoals, oyster bars, bridge piers, and old wrecks, where mussels and barnacles abound, and on which it feeds, pinching them from their beds with its strong incisor teeth and crushing them with its molars. It is gregarious, feeding in schools, especially in southern waters, several hundred having been taken on a single tide at places in Florida. It appears in northern waters in June and disappears in the fall, probably wintering at great depths of the sea contiguous to the coast. Its usual maximum weight in northern waters is from three to six pounds, though occasionally reaching ten, fifteen, or even twenty pounds, though these heavy fish are exceedingly rare. Its average size in Florida is less than in the North. It is highly esteemed on the East Coast as a dinner fish, baked or boiled, and owing to its fine flavor has been called the turbot of America, though it is really much superior, in northern waters, to that vaunted aldermanic delicacy. In Florida, however, it is very lightly esteemed as a food-fish, and is seldom eaten where other and better fishes are available. Perhaps its abundance has something to do with its depreciation, though I am convinced, from numerous trials and tests, that it is not so good a fish in southern waters as in the North, having a sharp, saline taste that is not agreeable to most palates. While confined to salt and brackish waters in the North, it often ascends the rivers of Florida to fresh water. I have seen it in the large springs, the head waters of several rivers on the Gulf coast, its barred sides being plainly discernible on the bottom at a depth of fifty or seventy-five feet, in the clear and crystal-like water. The difference in flavor between the sheepshead of the North and South may perhaps be due to the character of their food. It is especially noticeable that fishes of the salt water that pass the winter season in the deep sea, as the salmon, shad, etc., possess a more superior flavor than those that feed constantly and during the entire year along the shores. While nothing is really known concerning the spawning habits of the sheepshead in northern waters, it probably spawns in early summer. From my own knowledge I can say that it spawns in Florida, on the Gulf coast, during March and April. Its eggs are very small, about thirty to the inch, are buoyant or floating, and hatch in two days. A good rod for sheepshead fishing is the natural bamboo rod, known as the striped-bass chum rod. It is light, and strong enough to withstand the vicious tugs, spurts, and especially the propensity of boring toward the bottom, that is characteristic of this fish. A rod of steel, or lancewood, or ash and greenheart, or bethabara, though heavier, is better and stronger. It should be about eight feet in length, with double guides. A multiplying reel carrying sixty yards of braided linen line, size E or F, Sproat hooks, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0 on gimp snells, with sinkers, and a wide-mouthed landing-net, make up the rest of the tackle. The short barb, with cutting edges, of the Sproat hook renders it superior to the Virginia. Chestertown, or blackfish hooks formerly so much in vogue for the sheepshead. A brass box-swivel is necessary for connecting the line with the snell of the hook. While the sheepshead often bites at all stages of the tide, the most favorable time is about slack water; from that stage, to half flood or half ebb, good success may usually be expected. The largest fish are taken from a boat anchored over or near mussel shoals or oyster beds. Smaller ones can be caught from old wharves or bridges whose piling is studded with barnacles and mussels, and about which shrimp abound. During slack water a light sinker is sufficient; but when the tide runs strongly, heavier ones must be used, as it is imperative to keep the bait near the bottom, especially if fishing from a boat. If fishing from a wharf, it does not matter so much, provided the bait is deep enough to prevent the fish from seeing the angler. While this is a precaution that must be observed with all fishes, I do not think the sheepshead is so shy a fish as some maintain; at least I have never found it so. The best bait is shedder-crab, fiddlers, or hermit crabs. Clam bait, though, is cheaper and more universally used in the North. In Florida the fiddlers can be scooped up by the peck on the inside beaches of the bays, and contiguous to good sheepshead fishing. If the clam is large, the meat should be cut up for bait; but if quite small, or if mussels are used, the shells may be merely cracked or smashed, and put on the hook entire. The latter is the mode where the fish are scarce or shy, but I prefer to use the meat only, discarding the shells; in the case of fiddlers, when very small, they should be used _au naturel_, or whole. The bait should be cast and allowed to sink, and the line reeled enough to keep the bait off the bottom, but close to it. A taut line should be maintained always, so as to feel the slightest nibble. If crab bait, or cut clam, is used, the fish should be hooked, if possible, at the first bite, however slight, by a quick and somewhat vigorous upward jerk of the tip, otherwise the sheepshead is apt to nip off the bait; or if sufficient force is not used, the hook fails to enter the well-armed mouth. One or other of these contingencies is almost sure to follow, if the fish be not hooked. A small sheepshead is a more adroit stealer of bait than the cunner. It has a way of deftly pinching the bait from the hook without much, if any, disturbance. When small clams or mussels are used in the cracked shells, it is thought best by some anglers to give the fish a little time to "shuck" the bait before jerking on the rod. But my advice is to yank him just as quickly as if crab bait were employed. To hesitate is to be defrauded of either the fish or the bait. When the fish is hooked he should be kept from the bottom by the spring of the rod, and brought as near the surface as possible. When line is given during his frantic rushes, the spring and resistance of the rod should never be lessened. Once on the surface he is easily kept there until conquered; but if allowed to descend to the bottom, he is pretty hard to manage, as his resistance then is very much greater, and he endeavors to tear out the hook by forcing his jaws among the rocks and débris or weeds. He should always be taken into the landing-net, and care must be observed to avoid his strong and sharp fins when removing the hook. In Florida the sheepshead is almost gregarious, congregating about oyster bars, old wharves, and near inlets in great numbers. At Colonel Summerlin's wharf, at Punta Rassa, I knew of a man, fishing for market, I presume, who took several hundred on a single tide. The wharf just across the bay at Sanibel Island is also a famous locality for sheepshead. The largest I ever caught in that state was just inside of Little Gasparilla inlet, near a steep bank on the north side. The settlers of Florida take them in cast-nets, and the commercial fishermen in haul seines; the latter either ship them on ice, or salt them along with mullet, as they take salt well. With the exception of the mullet, the sheepshead is the most abundant fish of both the east and west coasts of Florida, but it is seldom found in the dense salt water along the keys at the southern end of the peninsula, as it is essentially a brackish-water fish. The angler need never repine for a lack of sport in the "flowery state" if he is fond of "sheepsheading," and he will have no difficulty in securing bait, for the fiddlers are to be found in myriads convenient to good fishing grounds. THE SCUP (_Stenotomus chrysops_) Another fish of the _Sparidæ_ family is the scup, or porgy, which was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from specimens sent to him from South Carolina by Dr. Garden. He named it _chrysops_, or "golden eye." The names scup and porgy are derived from the Indian name scuppaug. The porgy is mentioned, like the cunner, in deference to the ladies and the rising generation of anglers, to whom it is fair game on the summer excursions to the seashore. It is confined to the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to South Carolina, being especially abundant in northern waters. A kindred species, the fair maid (_Stenotomus aculeatus_), is common from Cape Hatteras southward, there taking the place of the northern scup. The porgy is a short, deep, and compressed fish, rather elliptical in outline, its depth being nearly half of its length, and with the back elevated over the nape. Its head is of moderate size, with a steep profile, depressed in front of the small eye. The mouth is rather small and the snout short. Its incisor teeth are very narrow and rather conical or pointed, resembling canines; there are two rows of molar teeth in the upper jaw. The color is brownish on the top of the head and back with greenish and golden reflections, and bright and silvery below; the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins are dusky or mottled, and the pectoral fin yellowish. The scup appears along the shores of the East Coast about the first of May, sometimes earlier, and continues until late in the fall, when it retires to its winter quarters in the depths of the sea. It is a bottom fish, feeding on crustaceans and small mollusks, and is found wherever they abound on the outer shoals. It usually spawns in June; the eggs are quite small, measuring about twenty-five to the inch; they are buoyant or floating, and hatch in four or five days. When perfectly fresh it is an excellent pan-fish, its flesh being firm, white, flaky, and of a fine, sweet flavor, but owing to its abundance is not properly appreciated. It grows to a foot or more in length, weighing a pound or two, though its usual maximum length is ten inches, and weight half a pound. Very rarely the oldest fish sometimes reach a length of fifteen to eighteen inches, weighing from two to four pounds. The scup is usually taken by hand-line and clam bait on the fishing banks from the excursion steamers; but fishing from small boats anchored over the shoals, with suitable tackle, is more sportsmanlike. It is a very free-biting fish, but is not possessed of much gameness, though the pleasure of angling for it is much enhanced by the employment of light tackle. A trout bait-rod is quite in order for the scup, though a light natural cane rod about ten feet long, fitted with reel seat and guides, will answer a good purpose. A small multiplying reel is not essential, though it is an advantage in accommodating the line to different depths; and then a larger fish than the scup may be hooked. The line should be of small size, Sproat hooks Nos. 6 to 8 on gut snells, with leader three feet long, connected to the line by a swivel-sinker, and of a weight adapted to the strength of the tide. A float may be used in shallow water to keep the bait from the bottom when clam or shrimp is used. In localities where tautog, sea-bass, or weakfish are likely to be met with, a heavier rod, like the Little Giant, or a light striped-bass rod, may be of an advantage to one not accustomed to lighter rods, and the hook may be a trifle larger. CHAPTER XIII CUNNER, FLOUNDER, SMELT _Tautogolabrus adspersus._ The Cunner. Family _Labridæ_, the Wrasse fishes. Body oblong, not elevated, slender and compressed, with cycloid scales; lateral line well developed; mouth moderate, terminal; premaxillaries protractile; maxillaries without supplemental bone, slipping under edge of preorbital; head pointed; snout moderate; maxillary reaching front of eye; preopercle serrate; opercles scaly; interopercle naked; head 3-1/4; depth 3-1/4; D. XVIII, 10; A. III, 9; scales 6-46-12; 5 canines in front of upper jaw, about 4 in the lower; bands of small concave teeth behind canines; preopercle with 5 rows of small scales; opercle with 4 rows, rest of head naked; gill-rakers very short, about 6 + 11. _Pseudopleuronectes americanus._ The Flatfish or Flounder. Family _Pleuronectidæ_, the Flatfishes. Head 4; depth 2-1/4; D. 65; A. 48; scales 83; body elliptical, an angle above the eye; head covered above with imbricated ctenoid scales, blind side of head nearly naked; body dextral; teeth compressed, incisor-like, widened toward tips, closely set, forming a continuous cutting edge; right side of each jaw toothless; highest dorsal rays less than length of pectorals, and more than half the length of head; anal spines present. _Osmerus mordax._ The Smelt. The American smelt belongs to the family _Argentinidæ_. The body is long and slender; head 4; depth 6-1/2; eye 4; D. 10; A. 15; P. 13; scales 68; head and mouth large; small teeth along the edge of the maxillary; strong, fanglike teeth on tongue and front of vomer; cardiform teeth on palatines, pterygoids, and hyoid bone; mandible with moderate teeth, its tip projecting; maxillary reaching middle of eye; scales deciduous; dorsal fin rather posterior, the ventrals under its front. THE CUNNER (_Tautogolabrus adspersus_) The cunner was named _adspersus_, meaning "besprinkled," by Walbaum, in 1792, from the description of Schöpf, who simply gave its common name, burgall, in his "History of New York Fishes," in 1788. Its specific name is in allusion to the fancied mottled markings. It belongs to the _Labridæ_ family. Its habitat is the North Atlantic coast from Labrador to Sandy Hook, not appearing much farther south. The cunner is known by various other names, as burgall, chogset, blue-perch, etc. It has an oblong and rather robust body, its depth being about a third of its length. Its head is about as long as the depth of the body and pointed, with a mouth of moderate size, well filled with unequal, conical, and sharp teeth, in several series. The coloration is variable, though usually bluish, more or less mixed with bronze or brown, with brassy sides and pale belly; sometimes brassy spots on the head and back; young examples exhibit dark blotches and markings. It resorts to the same feeding grounds as the tautog, and about old wharves and bridges where shrimp and barnacles abound, and in such situations is always abundant. It spawns in the early summer, about June. Its eggs are small, about twenty-five to the inch, and hatch in four or five days. It grows to about a pound in weight, though it usually does not exceed half that amount. [Illustration THE FLOUNDER] [_Pseudopleuronectes americanus_] [Illustration THE SMELT] [_Osmerus mordax_] [Illustration THE SPANISH MACKEREL] [_Scomberomorus maculatus_] While it is generally considered worthless, or at best a poor food-fish, it is really a pretty fair pan-fish, and if it were not so common would be found oftener on the table of fish lovers. As a game-fish it is anathema with most anglers. It is despised because it responds so readily to the angler's lures, taking the bait intended for larger and more desirable fish. But on this very account it is ever dear to the heart of the juvenile fisherman, who glories in his string of cunners with as much pride and enthusiasm as his larger brothers with their tautog, sea-bass, or striped-bass. It can be caught with almost any kind of tackle or bait. The cunner has no particular vanity in the way of either. A piece of liver on an ungainly hook and twine string is as welcome as the choicest shrimp on one of Harrison's best Sproat hooks on a snell of the finest silkworm fibre. My heart goes out to the boy angler with his cane pole and cut-bait, fishing for cunners. And should he in time become the most finished salmon fisher, he will look back to his cunner days as conducive of more real pleasure than any he may have found since. The cunner is here recorded for the urchin with the cane pole. THE FLOUNDER (_Pseudopleuronectes americanus_) There are quite a number of flounders, or flatfishes, on the East Coast, but the one best known to juvenile anglers is the one with the long name recorded above. It belongs to the flatfish family _Pleuronectidæ_, and was noticed by Schöpf as early as 1788, and from his description was named by Walbaum _Pleuronectes americanus_, which means, literally, "the American side-swimmer." It inhabits the North Atlantic coast from Labrador to the Chesapeake Bay, and is abundant in all the bays and estuaries of the Middle states, where it is variously known as flatfish, flounder, winter flounder, mud-dab, etc. Its body is elliptical in outline, about twice as long as broad, and very much compressed or flat. The head is small, less than a fourth of the length of the body, with a small mouth containing closely set, incisor-like teeth. As usual with all of the flatfishes, the dorsal and anal fins are very long, horizontally, the color on the exposed or right side is rusty brown, obscurely mottled, with the under or left side white. The flounder is partial to sheltered coves and quiet bays, preferring bottoms of sand or mud, though sometimes it is found in rocky situations. It is sedentary in its habits, partially burying itself in the sand or mud, where it remains during the entire year, feeding on minute shells, crustaceans, worms, etc. It spawns in the spring, during March and April. The eggs are very small, about thirty to the inch; and unlike those of most marine fishes they do not float, but are heavy enough to sink, forming bunches or clusters on the bottom, adhering to the weeds, etc., where they hatch in from two to three weeks. The fry swim upright, like other fishes, with an eye on each side of the head, but as they grow older they incline to one side, the under eye moving gradually to the upper side, so that at the age of three or four months both eyes are on the upper side, as the result of a twisting of the bones of the head. The right side, being constantly exposed to the light, becomes darker or colored, while the left side, being deprived of light, becomes pure white. It is an excellent food-fish, its flesh being firm, white, and of good flavor; and as it is easily procured in winter when other fishes are comparatively scarce, it is a favorite at that season. It rarely grows to more than a foot in length or a pound in weight. As it can be caught in early spring, late fall, and winter, when other fishes are absent or not inclined to bite, the angler with light tackle may obtain considerable sport with this fish, as it will eagerly take almost any kind of natural bait. A bait-rod used for trout or black-bass or a light cane rod can be utilized, with very fine linen line, a three-foot leader, and hooks Nos. 7 or 8, on gut snells; a reel is not necessary, but is convenient. Using as light a sinker as possible, with clam or sandworm bait, the angler may be assured of success. The fishing may be done from a boat anchored at low tide on muddy or grassy flats, or from wharves or piers favorably located. THE SMELT (_Osmerus mordax_) The smelts were formerly classed with the salmon family, but are now placed in a separate one, _Argentinidæ_, in which are included a number of allied species. To all external appearances the smelt is a true salmonid, and differs from the trouts and salmon chiefly in the form of the stomach and its appendages. The American or Atlantic smelt was first described by Dr. Mitchill, in 1815, from the vicinity of New York; he named it _mordax_, or "biting." Its habitat is along the Atlantic coast from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Virginia, but it is most abundant northward. It islandlocked in a number of northern lakes. The smelt is a very pretty, graceful fish, with a long, slender body, long, pointed head, and large mouth, with a somewhat projecting lower jaw. The small adipose fin, which is peculiar to all of the salmonids, is situated far back, opposite the end of the anal fin; the caudal fin is deeply forked. Its color is pale olive-green above, silvery below, translucent, with an obscure, longitudinal, broad, satin-like band along the sides. The fins are greenish, with a few punctulations. The smelt enters the tidal rivers and brackish bays in the fall and winter in countless myriads, preparatory to spawning. It feeds principally on the small fry of other fishes, mostly at night, and along the shores in shallow water. It spawns in March, in both fresh and brackish water. The eggs are small, about twenty to the inch, and are adhesive. A medium-sized fish yields fifty thousand eggs, which hatch in two or three weeks, according to the temperature of the water, though usually in from sixteen to eighteen days. Though small, it is highly prized as a food-fish, having a delicate and delicious flavor. When fresh it emits an odor resembling that of cucumbers. Its usual size is from five to nine inches and weighing from two to four ounces, though occasionally reaching a foot or more in length. The smaller fish are more prized, the largest having a rank oily flavor. It is caught in large seines by fishermen and shipped fresh to the markets, and in winter is taken in great numbers with hook and line through the ice. Smelt fishing is a very popular pastime along the East Coast in the fall and winter, as it is at a time when not many other fishes are to be caught. In the inland lakes it is, as has just been mentioned, caught with hook and line through holes cut in the ice; but this is tame sport compared with fishing in open water with very light tackle. The angler can utilize his trout fly or bait-rod, or if he prefers, a very light natural cane rod eight or ten feet long. A reel is not necessary. The line should be of the smallest size, linen or silk, though silk lines soon rot in salt water. A fine leader three or four feet long, with hooks Nos. 3 to 6, on single gut snells, are next in order. When the fish are swimming in schools near the surface, especially at night, a sinker need not be used; under other circumstances, and when the tide is strong, one of suitable weight should be added. The fishing is usually best on the flood tide, and almost any kind of bait will answer; but shrimp is best, though sandworms, very small minnows, or even earthworms are useful. Given the proper time and place, and with tackle and bait in readiness, it only remains to cast the baited hook, retrieve the fish, and so on _ad infinitum_. CHAPTER XIV THE MACKEREL FAMILY (_Scombridæ_) The fishes of this family are all pelagic, and most of them are highly valued for food. They are characterized by an elongate body, more or less compressed; pointed head; large mouth; sharp teeth; two dorsal fins; the anal and second dorsal fins are similar in shape and size, and both are followed by detached finlets; the caudal fin is widely forked or falcate, its pedicle very slender and with a sharp keel; scales small and smooth. _Scomberomorus maculatus._ The Spanish Mackerel. Body elongate, covered with rudimentary scales, which do not form a distinct corselet; head pointed, short and small; mouth wide; strong teeth in jaws, knife-shaped; sandlike teeth on vomer and palatines; gill-rakers 2 + 11; caudal peduncle with a single keel; head 4-1/2; depth 4-1/2; D. XVII-18-IX; A. II-17-IX; eye 4-3/4; soft dorsal inserted in advance of anal, somewhat; lateral line undulating, with about 175 pores; spots bronze. _Scomberomorus regalis._ The Cero. Body rather elongate, its dorsal and ventral curves about equal; mouth large, maxillary reaching to below the eye; angle of preopercle produced backward; pectorals scaly; caudal less widely forked than _maculatus_; teeth triangular, compressed, about 40 in each jaw; pectorals scaly; spots and stripes brownish; head 4-1/4; depth 4-1/2; D. XVII-I, 15-VIII; A. II, 14-VIII. _Sarda sarda._ The Bonito. Body elongate, moderately compressed, robust; head 3-3/4; depth 4; D. XXI-I, 13-VIII; A. I, 13-VII; P. 10; scales small, those of the pectoral region forming a distinct corselet; teeth moderate, slightly compressed, about 40 in each jaw; mouth large, maxillary reaching beyond orbit; lateral line slightly undulating, with nowhere a decided curve. THE SPANISH MACKEREL (_Scomberomorus maculatus_) The Spanish mackerel was first described by Dr. Mitchill, in 1815, from the vicinity of New York. He named it _maculatus_, or "spotted," owing to the large bronze spots on its sides. It is common to the southern portions of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico, ranging in summer as far north as Cape Cod, and is one of the trimmest and most graceful fishes known, as well as one of the most beautiful both in form and coloration. It is especially adapted for rapid and sustained motion. Its long, graceful, and elliptical body is four times its depth. The head is as long as the depth of the body, with a large mouth, and sharp, lancet-shaped teeth in both jaws. It has two dorsal fins; the second dorsal and anal fins are nearly opposite each other, are similar in outline, and are each followed by nine detached finlets; the caudal fin is widely forked, the lobes being long and pointed or crescent-shaped. Its color is silvery, bluish or greenish above, paling to white on the belly, with iridescent reflections; the sides are dotted with some thirty bronze or golden spots, a fourth of an inch or more in diameter; the first dorsal fin is dark in front, whitish behind; the second dorsal is yellowish; the anal fin is pale; the pectoral fin is yellow, bordered with black; the caudal fin is dusky. The Spanish mackerel is gregarious and migratory, swimming in large schools, and feeding at the surface on pilchards, anchovies, and sardines in Florida, and on silversides and menhaden in northern waters. When feeding, the schools are constantly leaping above the surface, and the flashing of their silvery forms in the bright sunlight is a beautiful and inspiriting sight, enhanced by the flocks of gulls and terns whirling and darting above the schools, eager for such stray morsels and fragments as they are able to seize. In the Gulf of Mexico it often feeds in company with the salt-water trout, and in northern waters with the bluefish and weakfish. It is a fish of the warm seas, approaching the shores for spawning and feeding when the temperature becomes suitable. It appears on the Gulf coast of Florida in March and April, though I have observed it as early as January in forward seasons. Its advent on the Atlantic coast is later, progressing gradually northward, reaching the vicinity of New York in July and August, and disappearing in October or November. Its breeding season in the Gulf of Mexico is in the early spring, and as late as August or September at the northern extent of its range. Its spawning may cover a period of many weeks, as the fish do not all mature at one and the same time. The eggs are quite small, about twenty-five to the inch, float at the surface, and hatch in a single day. The newly hatched fry are very small, about the tenth of an inch long, but in a year will have attained a length of six inches. The average weight of a mature fish is from two to four pounds, rarely exceeding six or eight pounds. The Spanish mackerel is held in the highest esteem as a food-fish, being considered one of the very best, second only to the pompano of the Gulf or the whitefish of the Great Lakes. It has a mackerel flavor, but one peculiarly its own for richness and sapidity of savor. It is a game-fish of high degree, and worthy of the angler's highest regard. Its manner of fighting, when hooked, is mostly on the surface of the water, darting here and there with dazzling rapidity, in straight and curving lines, leaping into air, and bounding over the water with a velocity and nimbleness that is difficult to follow with the eye in the bright sunlight. In northern waters it is usually taken by trolling with a small mother-of-pearl squid, or one of block tin, using a long hand-line, as the fish is rather shy and difficult to approach with a boat. In Florida, however, great sport can be had with a light rod, both in fly-fishing and bait-fishing, from the sand-spits at the entrance to deep inlets, and from the long piers and wharves that extend to deep water. The angling is done in March and April, when the fish are running into the bays in great schools on the flood tide, often in company with the salt-water trout. A black-bass or trout fly-rod of seven or eight ounces is very suitable for fly-fishing, with a click reel and a braided linen line of pretty large size, say D or E, in order to give weight enough for casting. The enamelled silk line is, of course, better, but it does not last long in salt water. Any bright or gaudy fly will answer, on hooks Nos. 1 to 3, though yellowish or grayish flies are perhaps more attractive. A single fly only should be used, with a three or four foot leader. Black-bass rods and tackle are just right for bait-fishing for the Spanish mackerel, except that a braided linen line, and not a silk line, should be used for reasons just given. The best bait is a small, bright fish, three or four inches long, either mullet or anchovy, hooked through the lips. A small pearl squid, or a very small trolling-spoon or spinner, may be used instead, but the minnow is far and away the most attractive lure. The bait is cast as far as possible toward the school as it is running past the point of an inlet or the end of a pier, and reeled in slowly, but rapidly enough to keep the bait on or near the surface, no sinker being employed. If the fishing is done from a pier, a very long-handled landing-net must be provided. The best plan is to fish from a small boat moored to the pier, as the angler is not so likely to be seen by the fish, and they are more easily landed. The same method is pursued in fly-fishing in the general features, except that the fly is allowed to sink after fluttering it awhile on the surface; no other special suggestions are needed. I have found the following flies useful: gray drake, green drake, red ibis, oriole, professor, and silver doctor, in black-bass patterns, on hooks Nos. 1 to 3. THE CERO (_Scomberomorus regalis_) The cero, or sierra, was described by Bloch, in 1795, from a drawing of a specimen from the West Indies, by Plumier. He named it _regalis_, meaning "royal" or "regal." It belongs to the West Indian fauna of fishes, and is common from Florida to Brazil. Occasionally it strays in the summer as far north as Massachusetts. It is closely allied to the Spanish mackerel, and resembles it in form, but differs very much in coloration and size, being more sombre and much larger. Its color is brownish on the back, with silvery sides and belly; it is marked with two dusky longitudinal stripes, and several rows of dark spots, not bronze or golden as in the Spanish mackerel. I have met with the cero only along the Florida reefs and keys. It does not swim in such large schools as the Spanish mackerel, and does not accompany it in its wanderings into the bays or along the shores, but seeks the same localities, and is of similar habits, as the kingfish-mackerel. It feeds entirely on fishes. Its breeding habits have not been studied, though they are doubtless not unlike those of the Spanish mackerel, except as to the locality and season of depositing its eggs. Its usual weight is five or six pounds, though it sometimes grows to five feet in length and twenty pounds or more in weight. I have taken it with bone and block-tin squids, trolling from a yacht, and also from an anchored boat with rod and line, by casting mullet or sardines for bait. A striped-bass rod and tackle are suitable, as it is a strong and powerful fish, making extraordinary leaps when hooked. For its weight I know of no gamer fish, but my experience in rod-fishing has been somewhat limited, being confined to the capture of half a dozen fish. I was once yachting along the Florida keys, and while anchored near Bahia Honda I put off in the dinghy to cast mullet bait for cero and kingfish (_Scomberomorus cavalla_). The latter is a near relative of the cero, and they resemble each other so closely that it is often difficult to distinguish between them. The kingfish is rather more slender, the adult fish being of a uniform slaty hue, usually without spots or markings of any kind, and grows to a larger size, often to fifty pounds or more. It is fully described in another volume of this series. On the occasion referred to I captured a number of kingfish and two ceros of about the same relative weight, from eight to ten pounds. The conditions were quite favorable to compare their gameness, but I was unable to perceive any difference in this respect. Both fish took the bait with a rush, and when hooked exhibited game qualities of the highest order, leaping continuously and to a height of five or six feet. Their swift rushes, as they cut through the water with incredible swiftness, and for which they are especially built, were very trying to my light striped-bass rod. I lost a number of fish that shook out the hook when leaping. I used the Sproat bend, No. 7-0, but 5-0 would be large enough for the average-sized cero. My line was a braided linen, size E, to which the snelled hook was attached by a small brass box-swivel; but knobbed hooks, if they can be obtained of suitable size, are to be preferred. [Illustration THE BONITO] [_Sarda sarda_] [Illustration THE NIGGER-FISH] [_Bodianus fulvus_] [Illustration THE POMPANO] [_Trachinotus carolinus_] The market fishermen of Key West troll for kingfish and cero in their schooner smacks, using coarse hand-laid cotton lines, and codfish or other large hooks as mentioned. The bait is usually a piece of white bacon-rind, cut in an elliptical shape to resemble a fish, and strung along the shank of the hook, and fastened at the top by a piece of fine copper wire. This rude device is very successful, as they take hundreds of fish in a few days, of a size running from ten to fifty pounds. The cero and the kingfish are favorite food-fishes in Key West, where large quantities are consumed; and years ago many were carried to Havana by the smacks, until a prohibitive duty was imposed by the Spanish governor-general, in order to favor Spanish fishermen. Under the changed conditions that now exist in Cuba this trade will doubtless be resumed. Both the cero and kingfish are excellent food-fishes, with a flavor much like that of the Spanish mackerel, but more pronounced,--that is, not so delicate and delicious, but more pungent. Northern anglers who go to Florida in quest of the tarpon will find in the cero and kingfish game-fishes of great merit on light tackle. THE BONITO (_Sarda sarda_) The bonito is a very handsome and gamy fish belonging to the mackerel family. It was named _sarda_ by Bloch, in 1793, from its being taken in the vicinity of Sardinia. It inhabits both coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. It is not uncommon from the region of Cape Cod southward to Florida and the West Indies, where it is more abundant. It has a long, graceful body, nearly round, its depth a fourth of its length. It is elliptical in outline, tapering to a very slender caudal pedicle, which is strongly keeled. The mouth is large, with strong, conical teeth. The caudal fin is deeply forked, or swallow-like. Its color is dark steel-blue above, silvery below, with white belly. There are numerous dark oblique stripes running from the back downward and forward, by which it is easily recognized. The ventral fins are whitish, the other fins are bluish black. The bonito is a pelagic fish, approaching the shores in search of food, which consists of small fishes almost entirely. It grows to a length of three or four feet, though it is usually taken of ten or twelve pounds in weight. It does not rank high as a food-fish, having rather dark flesh of a strong mackerel flavor, rather too pungent to be agreeable, but it is liked generally by sailors. There is another fish of the Atlantic coast (_Gymnosarda pelamis_), of the mackerel family, that is known as the oceanic bonito. It may be distinguished by its stripes being horizontal, instead of oblique; it is rather rare. The bonito is taken only by trolling with a small fish for bait, or a block-tin, bone, or shell squid, from a sailing vessel, and with bluefish tackle. It is frequently caught by the Key West fishermen when trolling for kingfish with a bait of bacon-rind. It is a powerful fish, and withal a very game one, being a swift swimmer, and must be handled very carefully when hooked. The line should be a heavy one of braided linen or cotton, and a foot or two of brass or copper wire should be used as a snell to withstand its sharp and numerous teeth. A Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hook, No. 7-0, is about right when bait is used, and one of similar size with artificial squids, or spinners. I was once trolling in the vicinity of the Dry Tortugas, and in a short time took four bonitos of about twelve pounds each. As the yacht was going at a spanking rate with a beam wind, the strain on the line was tremendous, and in each case the vessel had to be luffed up into the wind to enable me to land them. As one fish was more than enough for the crew, and as I had occasion to land at Fort Jefferson, on Garden Key, I resolved to donate the others to the garrison of the fortress. On going ashore I found the "garrison" to consist of one man, the corporal in charge of the property. He said he did not think he alone could get away with the fish, but as the lighthouse keeper of the fort would return from Loggerhead Key in the afternoon, he thought that they, together with his dog, might manage to dispose of them. Afterward he informed me that he and the light-keeper had finished one bonito, and the dog, whose name was Bonaparte, had made way with the others, or as he expressed it: "Bone eet two," and said this without any intent to pun on bon-i-to; he thought that I was amused at the capacity of Bonaparte as an ichthyophagist, being unconscious of his play on the words which caused my merriment. CHAPTER XV THE GROUPER FAMILY (_Serranidæ_) The fishes of this family are characterized by an oblong body, more or less compressed, covered with adherent scales of moderate or small size, which are usually ctenoid; the dorsal and ventral outlines do not usually correspond; premaxillaries protractile; teeth all conical or pointed, in bands, present on jaws, vomer, and palatines; pseudobranchiæ large; gill-membranes separate, free from isthmus; cheeks and opercles scaly; preopercle usually serrate; opercle ending in one or two flat spines; lateral line not extending on the caudal fin; lower pharyngeals narrow, with pointed teeth; gill-rakers armed with teeth. _Mycteroperca microlepis._ The Gag. Body comparatively elongate and compressed; head 2-1/2; depth 3-1/2; eye 6; D. XI, 16 to 19; A. III, 11; scales 24-140-50; pores about 90; dorsal fin single, its spines slender and weak; head long and pointed; mouth large, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; teeth in narrow bands, each jaw with two canines; gill-rakers few, 12 on lower part of anterior arch; scales very small, chiefly cycloid; preopercle with a shallow emargination above the angle, with radiating serræ; caudal lunate; lower jaw projecting. _Mycteroperca falcata phenax._ The Scamp. Body elongate; head 3; depth 3-1/2; D. XI, 18; A. III, 11; eye 5; scales 24-135-43; dorsal fin single, the spines slender and weak; head pointed; mouth large, the maxillary reaching posterior border of the eye; teeth in narrow bands, each jaw with two strong canines, nearly vertical; preopercle finely serrate, a notch above the angle; scales mostly cycloid; outer rays of caudal produced. _Mycteroperca venenosa._ The Yellow-finned Grouper. Body elongate; head 3; depth 3-1/4; eye 7; scales 24-125-_x_; D. XI, 16; A. III, 11; head rather blunt; mouth large, the maxillary reaching much beyond the eye; teeth in narrow bands, each jaw with two strong canines, not directed forward; preopercle without salient angle, its emargination slight; dorsal fin single, its spines not very weak; caudal fin lunate; anal rounded. _Epinephelus adscensionis._ The Rock Hind. Body robust, little compressed; head 2-1/2; depth 3; eye 6; scales 12-100-40; D. XI, 17; A. III, 7; head subconic, acute; anterior profile straight; mouth large, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; lower jaw strongly projecting; teeth in broad bands, the canines short and stout, those of the lower jaw the largest; preopercle finely serrate, convex, with but slight emargination; scales strongly ctenoid; dorsal fin single, its spines strong; caudal fin slightly rounded; gill-rakers short and thick. _Epinephelus guttatus._ The Red Hind. Body rather slender, moderately compressed, the back somewhat elevated; head 2-1/2; depth 3-1/3; eye 4-1/3; scales 19-100-x; D. XI, 16; A. III, 8; head long and pointed; mouth moderate, the maxillary reaching below posterior margin of eye; lower jaw rather weak, its tip little projecting; teeth rather strong, in moderate bands, both jaws with two curved canines, those in upper jaw largest; preopercle weakly serrate, with a salient angle, which is armed with stronger teeth; caudal fin rounded. Petrometopon cruentatus. The Coney. Body oblong, rather deep and compressed; head 2-1/2; depth 2-3/4; eye 5; scales 8-90-30; D. IX, 14; A. III, 8; head moderate, a little acute anteriorly, profile nearly straight; mouth large, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; lower jaw not strongly projecting; teeth in narrow bands, the depressible teeth of the inner series very long and slender, those of the lower jaw and front of upper especially enlarged, longer than the small, subequal canines; preopercle convex, very weakly serrate, its posterior angle obliquely subtruncate, without salient angle or distinct emargination; opercle with three distinct spines; scales rather large, and mostly strongly ctenoid; dorsal fin single, its spines rather slender and pungent; anal fin rounded; pectorals long; caudal fin very convex. _Bodianus fulvus._ The Nigger-fish. Body oblong, moderately compressed; head 2-2/3; depth 3; eye 5; scales 9-100-33; D. IX, 14 to 16; A. III, 8 or 9; head rather pointed, with curved profile; mouth moderate, the maxillary reaching beyond the eye; lower jaw strongly projecting; teeth in narrow bands, rather large, the depressible teeth rather small, canines small, subequal; preopercle with weak serrations, its outline convex, with a shallow emargination; opercle with three distinct spines; dorsal fin single, with slender and pungent spines; scales rather large, mostly strongly ctenoid; caudal fin truncate, its angles slightly rounded; pectorals long; ventrals short. _Diplectrum formosum._ The Sand-fish. Body elongate, the profile strongly arched above the eyes; head 3; depth 3-1/2; eye 5; scales 9-85-22; mouth large, maxillary reaching middle of eye; lower jaw slightly projecting; canine teeth small; preopercle finely serrate at upper margin; preopercle with two clusters of divergent spines; opercular flap short and sharp; top of cranium smooth and very convex; 11 rows of scales on cheeks; fins, except caudal, scaleless; 15 scales before dorsal; dorsal fin single, with low spines, the first three graduated; caudal deeply lunate, the upper lobe the longest, sometimes ending in a long filament. THE GAG (_Mycteroperca microlepis_) The gag is one of the series of fishes known as groupers in Florida, of which there are quite a number. It was first described by Goode and Bean, in 1879, from West Florida; they named it _microlepis_, or "small scale," as its scales are of less size than the other species of the same genus. It is known only from the South Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, from North Carolina south to Pensacola. It has a rather long, shapely body, with pointed head and an evenly curved profile. Its mouth is large, with projecting lower jaw. Both jaws are armed with narrow bands of sharp teeth and two canines, the upper ones directed forward. The predominating hue of the gag is brownish or brownish gray, with lighter sides, in deep-water specimens; those of shallow water, especially in grassy situations, are greenish or olivaceous, mottled with a darker shade, and more or less clouded. Very small and indistinct dusky spots sometimes cover the entire body, and a faint mustache is usually present. The dorsal fin is olive; the top of the soft dorsal fin rays is darker, with white edge; the caudal fin is bluish black, with white edge. It is a voracious fish, feeding on small fishes and crustaceans, and grows to a large size; twenty or thirty, or even fifty, pounds in weight is not uncommon, though usually taken of from six to ten pounds. It resorts, when large, to the banks and rocky reefs in deep water. Those of less size frequent the inshore waters. It is a fine food-fish, and a very game one on the rod. A light striped-bass rod, or the natural bamboo chum rod, with good multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line, size E, and Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, Nos. 3-0 or 4-0, on gimp snells, with a brass box-swivel for connecting snell and line, and a sinker adapted to the strength of the tide, make up the tackle for the gag. A large landing-net or a gaff-hook should not be forgotten. Rod fishing is done in comparatively deep water on the rocky reefs or shelly banks along the keys, from an anchored boat. Any natural bait, as a small fish, crab, crawfish, or conch, will answer, though a small fish, as the mullet, sardine, or anchovy, is the best. When of large size the gag is a very gamy fish, and must be handled very carefully to preserve one's tackle intact. It is taken more frequently by trolling with a strong hand-line from a sailing yacht, in the same way as trolling for bluefish. A small silvery fish is the best lure, though a strong spinner or a shell or block-tin squid answers well. Even a piece of bacon-rind cut in the semblance of a fish proves very attractive, in the manner commonly used by the fishermen of Key West in trolling for the kingfish. The largest groupers can be taken on rocky bottom in the deep holes about the inlets. On the south-east coast, Indian River Inlet, under the mangroves, and Jupiter Inlet, both afford good grouper fishing. Farther south, at Hillsboro and New River inlets, and in the deep holes about the passes between the Florida Keys, from Cape Florida to Key West, groupers are more or less abundant. The first gag I ever caught was in the winter of 1877, while trolling off Cape Florida; it was a big one, too, weighing about fifty pounds. "What is it?" asked a Kentucky boy who was with me. I was compelled to look it up in my books before replying that I thought it was a "scamp," as it agreed pretty well with the description of that grouper, though I was not fully satisfied that my identification was correct, and less so, when in about an hour we caught a real scamp. This was some two years before the gag was described as a new species by Drs. Goode and Bean, from Pensacola. As I had no means of preserving the fish, it was baked for our dinner, and proved to be very good indeed. In fishing for groupers the angler must keep them well in hand so as to prevent their getting into the holes and crevices of the rocks, as they are sure to do if given the chance, and from where it is almost impossible to dislodge them. They should be brought to the surface, or near it, as soon as possible after hooking them, and kept there until ready for the landing-net or gaff-hook. Most people in Florida fish for groupers with hand-lines, but with the tackle recommended the fish will be more easily subdued and landed, and the pleasure much enhanced, to say nothing of the question of sportsmanship as between the two methods. THE SCAMP (_Mycteroperca falcata phenax_) The scamp is a grouper that resembles very much the gag. It was first described by the Cuban ichthyologist Poey, in 1860, from Cuban waters. He named it _falcata_, or "scythe-shaped," from the curving of the caudal fin. The form common to Florida is a variety or subspecies, that differs principally in the angle of the canine teeth and to some extent in coloration. The variety was first described by Jordan and Swain, in 1884, who named it _phenax_, meaning "deceptive," and equivalent to "scamp." It is abundant along the Florida Keys and the offshore "snapper banks," from Key West to Pensacola; those of smaller size frequent inshore waters. It resembles the gag very much in its general appearance and in the shape of its body, with a somewhat larger mouth and more projecting lower jaw, also a larger caudal fin, which is more crescentic or scythe-shaped. The depth of its body is about a third of its length. The teeth are in narrow bands, with two canines in each jaw, but these are not so strong as in the Cuban form, and those in the upper jaw are not directed so much forward, nor the lower ones so much backward. The caudal fin is concave or crescentic, and the scales are larger than those of the gag. The color is pinkish gray above, paler purplish gray below; the upper part of the body and head is covered with small, rounded, irregular dark brown spots; the sides and caudal fin with larger and longer pale brownish blotches, somewhat reticulate; fins dusky, some edged with white. Its habits are similar to those of the gag, just described, in whose company it is found. It grows to a length of two feet or more, and to ten pounds or more in weight. The remarks concerning the tackle and fishing for the gag apply equally as well for the scamp. This fish, with the gag, is sometimes taken on the snapper banks by the red-snapper fishermen, though it is not shipped to the northern markets as it does not bear transportation so well as the red-snapper, and is sold for home consumption or eaten by the crews. I first saw this fish as has just been related, in 1877, when it was caught by a Kentucky friend, and it had very much the same appearance as the gag. We then decided that both fish were scamps, my friend remarking that "The only difference is that this fellow seems to be more of a scamp than the other one," an opinion I fully indorsed. The scamp does not stray so far north as the gag, being confined to subtropical regions. It is regularly taken to the Key West market by the commercial fisherman, where it commands a ready sale, being well esteemed as a food-fish. The first specimens I afterward preserved were secured from this source. THE YELLOW-FINNED GROUPER (_Mycteroperca venenosa_) This grouper was first noticed by Catesby, in 1743, from the Bahamas, and was named by Linnæus, in 1758, who bestowed the specific title _venenosa_, or "venomous," as its flesh was said by Catesby to be poisonous at certain times. It is common at the Bahamas, and from the Florida Keys southward to the West Indies, and perhaps to South America. Its form is very similar to the gag and scamp; its depth is a third of its length. Its head is as long as the depth of the body, and rather blunt, with the profile somewhat uneven, but curved; the mouth is large, with narrow bands of teeth, and two canines in each jaw which are not directed forward. Not much is known concerning this fish, as its flesh is reputed to be poisonous at times, and it is seldom eaten. Its coloration is quite varied and beautiful; it is olive-green on the back, pearly bluish below, breast rosy. The upper parts are marked with broad reticulations and curved blotches of bright light green, which are especially distinct on the top of the head; the entire body and head are covered with orange-brown spots of various sizes with dark centres; the iris of the eye is orange, as is the inside of the mouth; the dorsal fin is olive-brown, with whitish blotches and a few dark spots; the pectoral fin is yellow, and all other fins have black edges. Its habits are similar to those of the other groupers. It grows to three feet in length, and frequents rocky situations. THE ROCK HIND (_Epinephelus adscensionis_) This grouper is one of the most bizarre and gayly colored in the family _Serranidæ_. It was first accurately described by Osbeck, in 1757, from Ascension Island, which accounts for its specific name, _adscensionis_, as bestowed by him. It is very widely distributed over both hemispheres, being known from Ascension and St. Helena Islands, Cape of Good Hope, and is abundant from the Florida Keys to Brazil. In outline it resembles the other groupers, having a robust body, but little compressed; its depth is a third of its length, its head is as long as the depth of the body, is pointed, with a profile straight from the snout to the nape, thence curved regularly to the tail. The mouth is large, with the lower jaw more prominent or projecting than in any of the other groupers; the teeth are in broad bands, with short and stout canines. Its ground color is olivaceous gray, with darker clouds; the head and entire body are profusely covered with red or orange spots of varying size, those on the lower part of the body the largest, nearly as large as the pupil of the eye; parts of the body and fins have irregularly-shaped, whitish spots or blotches; there are several ill-defined, clouded, blackish, vertical, or oblique blotches across the body, some of them extending upward on to the dorsal fin, with the interspaces lighter; the fins are likewise spotted with red and white. The groupers known as "hinds," as the red, rock, brown, speckled, spotted, or John Paw hinds, are so named from being spotted, and resembling somewhat in this way the hind or female red deer. They are all good food-fishes, and are found regularly in the Key West market, though not so plentiful as the snappers, grunts, etc., but bringing a better price. The rock hind, as might be inferred from its name, frequents rocky situations about the channels between the keys, feeding mostly on small fishes and marine invertebrates. It grows to a length of eighteen inches. Its spawning habits have not been studied, though it probably spawns in the spring. A light bait-rod, similar to a black-bass rod, with corresponding tackle, with hooks Nos. 2-0 to 3-0, on gimp snells, will answer for this fish, using sardines or anchovies, which are abundant along the shores, for bait. THE RED HIND (_Epinephelus guttatus_) This beautiful grouper rivals the rock hind in its gay and varied coloration. There is some uncertainty about the correct specific name of this well-marked species. The last name to be adopted is _guttatus_, meaning "spotted," conferred by Linnæus in 1758, based on the early and vague descriptions of Marcgrave and others on specimens from Brazil and the West Indies. It belongs to the West Indian fauna, its range extending from the Florida Keys to South America; it occasionally strays north in the summer to the Carolina coast. It resembles the other groupers in its general form, but is more slender, has a larger eye, and its lower jaw does not project so much. The depth of its body is a little more than a third of its length. Its head is long and pointed, considerably longer than the depth of its body, with a mouth of moderate size, and a weak lower jaw, which projects but slightly; the eye is very large; the teeth are in bands, with two curved canines in each. The pattern of the coloration and the markings are similar to those of the rock hind, but differ in color. The upper part of the body is grayish or yellowish olive, the belly reddish; the entire head and body are profusely covered with scarlet spots of nearly uniform size, except those on the breast and belly, which are a little larger; there are a few spots, both red and whitish, on the bases of the fins; there are three broad, oblique, obscure bands running upward and backward on the sides, extending on to the dorsal fin; the upper fins are edged with black; the pectoral fin is reddish yellow. The red hind, like the rock hind, frequents rocky places and feeds mostly on small fishes. It grows to a length of about eighteen inches, and is an excellent food-fish. Not much is known concerning its breeding habits, though it probably spawns in the spring. The same tackle recommended for the rock hind, and the same baits, will do as well for the red hind, as they are found together. THE CONEY (_Petrometopon cruentatus_) This beautiful fish is allied to the groupers, and belongs to the family _Serranidæ_, previously described. It was described and named by Lacépéde from a drawing by Plumier, made from a specimen from Martinique. Lacépéde recorded it in his "Natural History of Fishes," 1803, conferring on it the name _cruentatus_, meaning "dyed with blood," in allusion to its red spots. It belongs to the West Indian fauna, with a range extending from the Florida Keys to Brazil; it is quite common about Key West, being seen in the markets every day. The body has the somewhat elliptical outline of the other groupers, but is more oblong and deeper, its depth being more than a third of its length. The head is moderate in size, rather pointed, its length less than the depth of the body; the mouth is large, with the lower jaw projecting but slightly; the teeth are in narrow bands, the inner series long, slender, and depressible; the canines small. Its ground color is reddish gray, a little paler below; the head and body are covered with bright vermilion spots, larger and brighter anteriorly. It frequents rocky situations, like the coney of Holy Writ. It is highly esteemed as a food-fish, but is of smaller size than the groupers previously described, seldom growing beyond a foot in length or a pound in weight. It probably spawns in the spring. It is quite a gamy fish for its size on light tackle. It is usually taken by the market fishermen on the same tackle as the grunts, snappers, porgies, etc., among the rocks of the channels, in rather deep water, with fish bait. It is well worth catching, if only to admire its graceful shape and brilliant coloration. For the coney, black-bass rods, braided linen line, size F, with Sproat hooks, No. 2-0 or 3-0, on gimp snells, and sinker adapted to the strength of the tide, with the smallest fish for bait, will answer admirably. The little whirligig mullet, or spiny crawfish, or even cut-fish bait, are all good baits to use as occasion may demand. THE NIGGER-FISH (_Bodianus fulvus_) It is difficult to account for names, we know; but just why this handsome fish should be called "nigger-fish" is hard to imagine. It is sometimes called yellow-fish, a better and more descriptive name, but no doubt nigger-fish it always will be. It differs from the other groupers in the less number of spiny rays in the dorsal fin; otherwise it is much the same. It was described by Linnæus, in 1758, from the account of the "yellow-fish" by Catesby, in 1743, from the Bahamas. Linnæus named it _fulvus_, or "tawny," from its coloration. This is also a fish belonging to the West Indian fauna, its range extending from the Bahamas and the Florida Keys to South America. [Illustration CATCHING SPANISH MACKEREL ON THE EDGE OF THE GULF STREAM] The outline of body of the nigger-fish is similar to that of the hinds, being nearly elliptical, and with a depth of a third of its length, and moderately compressed. The head is long and pointed, longer than the depth of the body, with an evenly curved profile from the snout to the dorsal fin; the lower jaw projects very much; the mouth is large, with narrow bands of teeth, and small canines. Its general color is yellow, darker or orange-red on the back, with two black spots on the tail; there are a few violet spots about the eye, and some blue spots on the head and anterior half of the body, those on the head with dark margins; the head, and pectoral and dorsal fins, are reddish. The nigger-fish is found in the deeper channels in rocky situations. It feeds on small fishes principally. It is not very common, and is much prized as a food-fish by the people of Key West. The common varieties are the red and brown nigger-fishes, which differ only in coloration from the yellow ones. It is taken with the other channel fishes, and with the same baits and similar tackle, by the market fishermen; but the angler should utilize his black-bass rod, with braided linen line, size F, and hooks No. 2-0 on gimp snells. As it is a bottom feeder a sinker must be used to keep the bait at the proper depth. For baits, any small fish or sea-crawfish or prawns or shrimps will answer. I was once fishing for channel fishes in sight of Key West, and having just landed a nigger-fish. I asked my boatman, a Bahama negro, why it was so called. He answered in the lingo peculiar to both white and black Bahamians:-- "Vell, maybe it's along of its yaller and red color, for niggers is right fond of yaller and red; but vether that's the horigin of its fust name is 'ard to tell. Now, Hamericans calls us Bahama people conchs 'cause we eats conchs, but nigger-fish don't eat niggers, no more does jellyfish eat jelly. I think they are called nigger-fish 'cause they is so 'andsome." THE SAND-FISH (_Diplectrum formosum_) The sand-fish, or, as it is sometimes called, the squirrel-fish, also belongs to the family _Serranidæ_. It was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from Dr. Garden's specimens from South Carolina; he named it _formosa_, or "handsome," from its pretty form and coloration. It inhabits the Atlantic coast from South Carolina to South America, and is common to both coasts of Florida, and especially about the keys. It has a rather elliptical body in outline; its depth is less than a third of its length, being elongate and rather slender as compared with other allied species. The head is as long as the depth of the body, with an arched profile above the eyes; the mouth is large, the lower jaw projecting a little; the upper border of the cheek-bone is serrated, with two clusters of small, sharp spines; the teeth are in narrow bands; the canine teeth are small. Its color is light brown above, silvery white below; there are several dark and broad vertical bars across the body, and a dark blotch at the base of the caudal fin; the body has eight narrow bright blue longitudinal stripes, which are more distinct above, and paler below; the head is yellow, with several wavy blue stripes below the eye and several between the eyes; the upper fins have blue and yellow stripes, and the caudal fin has yellow spots surrounded by bluish markings. It frequents sandy shoals, and also rocky shores, feeding on small fishes and crustaceans. It is a good pan-fish, growing to about a foot in length, but usually to six or eight inches. The same tackle and baits used for the hinds, coney, and nigger-fish will also answer well for the sand-fish, which consists of black-bass rod, braided linen line, size F, hooks No. 1 or 1-0, and suitable sinker and swivel. It is a good game-fish for its size on the light tackle just mentioned, and is well worth a trial on account of its beauty, and excellence for the table, even if its gameness is not considered. While engaged in a scientific expedition to Florida many years ago, my vessel ran aground one afternoon in Barnes Sound, south-west of Biscayne Bay. The bottom was a sandy marl and quite soft, so that we were unable to use the setting poles to any advantage in moving the boat. I observed quite a school of fish surrounding the vessel, which proved to be sand-fish. I put out a stake to mark the stage of the tide, and while waiting for the flood tide I put in the time fishing, and soon had enough sand-fish for supper and breakfast. This was rather fortunate, as we were still aground the next morning, for strange to say the depth of the water had neither increased nor diminished for sixteen hours; there was no tide in that remote corner of the universe. We then took out the ballast of about a ton of pig-iron and put it in the dory we had intow. This lightened up the vessel enough to enable us to shove her off into deeper water. I think we never enjoyed any fish quite so much as those delicious little sand-fish, and it has ever since been one of my favorite fishes. CHAPTER XVI THE CAVALLI FAMILY (_Carangidæ_) The members of this family differ from the true mackerels by a less number of spines in the first dorsal fin, and in having but two spines in the anal fin, and no detached finlets; also in having smaller teeth. Some of the species are described in another volume of this series, to which the reader is referred. _Carangus chrysos._ The Runner. Body oblong, moderately elevated, the dorsal and ventral outlines about equally arched; head 3-3/4; depth 3-1/4; eye 3-1/2; lateral line with 50 scutes; D. VIII-I, 24; A. II-I, 19; profile forms a uniform curve; snout rather sharp; mouth moderate, slightly oblique, maxillary reaching middle of orbit; teeth comparatively large; a single series in lower jaw; upper jaw with an inner series of smaller teeth; no canines; teeth on vomer, palatines, and tongue; gill-rakers long and numerous; pectoral fin not longer than head; scales moderate; cheeks and breast scaly; black opercular spot. _Carangus latus._ The Horse-eye Jack. Moderately deep; head 3-3/4; depth 2-1/2; scutes 30; D. VIII-I, 20; A. II-I, 17; head bluntish; profile curved; mouth moderate; lower jaw prominent; villiform teeth on upper jaw, vomer, palatines, and tongue; weak canines in lower jaw; breast scaly; maxillary reaching posterior edge of pupil; pectoral fin about as long as head; cheeks and upper part of opercles scaly; gill-rakers rather long, about 12 below the angle. _Trachinotus carolinus._ The Pompano. Body oblong, comparatively robust; head 4; depth 2-1/3; eye 4-1/2; scales small and smooth; D. VI-I, 25; A. II-I, 23; profile of head evenly convex; snout bluntly rounded; mouth small, maxillary reaching middle of eye; jaws without teeth in the adult; maxillary without supplemental bone; dorsal and anal fins falcate, anterior rays nearly reaching middle of fins when depressed; dorsal lobe 4-1/2 in body; anal 5-1/2; dorsal lobe pale. THE RUNNER (_Carangus chrysos_) The runner was first described by Dr. S.L. Mitchill, in 1815, from the vicinity of New York. He named it _chrysos_, meaning "gold," from the golden sheen of its sides. It inhabits the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to Brazil, but is most abundant on southern shores and in the Gulf of Mexico. It has an oblong body, its depth a little less than a third of its length, with the dorsal and ventral curves about equal. The head is shorter than the depth of the body, with a uniformly curved profile and rather sharp snout. The mouth is moderate in size and low, with a single series of teeth in the lower jaw, and two in the upper one, but no canines; there are also small teeth on the roof of the mouth and tongue. Its colour is greenish olive on the back, and golden yellow or silvery below; there is a black blotch on the border of the gill-cover; the fins are all plain. The runner, as its name indicates, is a great forager, and is the swiftest and most graceful of all the jacks or cavallies. It ranges farther northward than the other species of the genus. It frequents the reefs and the shores of the keys and mainland of Florida in search of food, which consists of small fishes, as sardines, anchovies, mullets, etc., crustaceans, and other small organisms. It is the best of the jacks as a food-fish, and is in great favor at Key West. For its size it is also the gamest, but as it rarely exceeds a foot in length it is not so much sought, generally, as the larger jacks. It is, however, a great favorite with the juvenile anglers at Key West, as it can be taken from the wharves with almost any kind of bait. On account of its activity and gameness it furnishes fine sport on light tackle, and under these conditions is worthy the attention of the angler. A light black-bass rod, braided linen line, size G, hooks No. 1 or 1-0 on gimp snells, a light multiplying reel and sinker adapted to the tidal current, comprise a good outfit for the runner, which is also known as hard-tail and jurel in some localities. About Key West and the neighboring keys the best bait is the little whirligig mullet (_Querimana gyrans_), which whirls on the surface in large schools, or cut bait or shrimps may be used to advantage. The author of a recently published book on the fishes of Florida makes the following queer statement, "It seems to me the runners are hybrids from the crevalle and bluefish species or families, as they certainly resemble both of those fishes." It would be strange did they not resemble the fishes named, as all are of the mackerel tribe, and all are distinguished by having falcate anal and dorsal fins of about the same relative size, and placed about opposite each other, and also have swallow-shaped caudal fins with slender caudal pedicle; but there the greatest resemblance ends. I have never seen a hybrid among fishes in the natural state. They can be produced by the fishculturist between kindred species, but there is no especial benefit to be derived from such experiments. Hybrids, or so-called mules, are infertile, and incapable of reproducing their kind. THE HORSE-EYE JACK (_Carangus latus_) The horse-eye jack was first described by Louis Agassiz, in 1829, from Brazil, who named it _latus_, or "broad," owing to its short and deep form. It differs from the runner mostly in being deeper in body, and in its large eye. It has a few less soft rays in the dorsal and anal fins, and but thirty-five bony scutes along the lateral line; otherwise it is very similar. Its color is bluish above and golden or silvery below, and it has a black spot on the margin of the gill-cover, but of less size than that of the runner. While it is similar in habits to the runner, it has a more extended range, inhabiting all warm seas. The horse-eye jack grows to a larger size than the runner, but is not nearly so good a food-fish, though nearly its equal as a game-fish. Its flesh is reputed to be poisonous at certain seasons in the tropics, and whether true or not, it is not held in much favor, though it is caught by boys at the wharves of Key West, and I presume is eaten. The same tackle and baits recommended for the runner can be utilized for the horse-eye jack. THE POMPANO (_Trachinotus carolinus_) The pompano was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from Dr. Garden's specimens from South Carolina, which accounts for its specific name. It is abundant on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, to which it is mostly confined, though it occasionally strays north to Cape Cod in summer, and rarely to the West Indies. It has a short, deep body, being nearly half as deep as long, oblong and robust. Its head is short, about half as long as the depth of the body, with a small, low mouth, and with few or no teeth in the jaws; the snout is blunt, the profile from end of snout to the eye about vertical, and from thence to the dorsal fin is regularly arched. The color is bluish above and golden or silvery below; the pectoral and anal fins are yellow, shaded with blue; caudal fin with bluish reflections. The pompano frequents the sandy beaches of the keys and islands of the Gulf coast, mostly the outside shores, where it feeds on beach-fleas and the beautiful little mollusks known as "pompano-shells," also on small shrimps and other shore-loving organisms. I consider the pompano to be the best food-fish in either salt or fresh water--the prince of food-fishes, it is incomparable. It is caught principally in haul seines by the fishermen on the flood tide. On the Atlantic coast it is abundant at Jupiter inlet and at Lake Worth, but not so plentiful as about the outside and inside beaches of the islands about Charlotte Harbor on the Gulf coast. In the summer it strays northward to the Carolina coasts. Its usual weight is a pound or two, rarely exceeding eighteen inches in length or four pounds in weight. It is often confounded with several other species, as the permit (_Trachinotus goodei_), which reaches three feet in length and twenty-five or thirty pounds in weight; also with the gaff top-sail pompano (_Trachinotus glaucus_), and the round pompano (_Trachinotus falcatus_), both of which grow larger than the true pompano and are often sold for the genuine article by dealers; but no one who has eaten a true pompano can be deceived by these other species. It spawns in the summer. It is difficult to take the pompano with the hook except on the flood tide, when it is running in schools, feeding along the shores, though it is occasionally caught by still-fishing in the bays with bait of beach-fleas or cut clam. The tackle should be very light and the hook small, Nos. 6 or 8, on fine gut snells. When hooked it is a game-fish of more than ordinary cunning and cleverness, and one of two pounds will tax the angler's skill on a six-ounce rod. They can be taken in the surf of the outside beaches of the islands, on the flood tide, with beach-flea bait, by casting it into the schools with a fly-rod; and this is the best form of fishing for this grand fish. The hooked pompano frequently breaks water among its other manoeuvres to escape the angler, and as a leaper at other times has quite a reputation. I have often had them leap into my boat, both when anchored and moving, but usually when sailing near a school. The name pompano is probably derived from the Spanish word _pampana_, a "vine leaf," owing to its shape resembling somewhat a leaf of some kind of vine; the books say a "grape leaf," to which the pompano has a remote resemblance if the extended fins are taken into account. There is another Spanish word _pampano_, more nearly resembling pompano in sound and spelling. It means "a young vine branch or tendril," and if the aquatic capers and aerial saltations of the pompano when hooked are to be brought into the comparison, they cannot be exceeded by that most intricate dance, the "grape-vine twist," even when performed by the most agile plantation negro. But seriously, when its size is considered, one would have to go far afield, or rather search the waters under the earth, for a better fish for the angler or the epicure. I have seen more pompano about the beaches of Big and Little Gasparilla Keys of Charlotte Harbor, on the Gulf coast, than elsewhere in Florida. On their outside beaches, during the flood tide, the beach-fleas and pompano-shells come rolling in on every wave. The little mollusks disappear beneath the sand in the twinkling of an eye, but the crustaceans are again carried out by the receding wave. And this continues during the first half of the flood tide, during which time schools of pompano are feeding on them. On one such occasion myself and a friend were "flea-fishing" for pompano; that is, we were using fly-rods and very small hooks baited with beach-fleas, which we cast in the same manner as artificial flies. My friend, fishing at the water's edge, often forgot in his eagerness to step back to avoid each "ninth wave," which would wet him to his knees. However, in that warm, sunny clime the involuntary bath did him no harm, and he had his compensation in a basket of fine pompano, which were duly planked for dinner and eaten, bones and all,--for their bones are very soft and semi-cartilaginous. The head of a broiled or planked pompano is a _bonne-bouche_ that once eaten will ever be held in grateful and gratified remembrance. CHAPTER XVII THE CHANNEL FISHES The channels among the reefs and keys from Cape Florida to Key West and vicinity abound with a number of percoid, or perchlike, fishes, belonging to several families. They are mostly of small size, comparatively, but afford good bottom fishing. They are all good food-fishes and find a ready sale in the markets of Key West. Most of them are remarkable for their gay and brilliant coloration. The coralline formation of the keys and reefs renders the use of seines and nets impossible, so that all of the fishing for market is done with hook and line,--usually with sea-crawfish bait, though a few are taken in traps formed of heavy wire. The fishes consist of grunts, snappers, groupers, porgies, etc., and are carried to market alive in the wells of the small vessels known as "smackees." A fleet of larger vessels, mostly schooner-rigged, troll along the keys and reefs for the larger surface-feeding fishes, as kingfish, cero, Spanish mackerel, bonitos, large groupers and snappers, etc. The troll is usually a piece of bacon-skin cut of an elliptical shape to simulate a fish, and is impaled on a codfish hook with a snell of copper wire, and a laid cotton codfish line of a size nearly as large as a lead-pencil. The hooking and hauling aboard of the fish, while under sail, so disables it that it is killed by a blow on the head and carried to market on ice. As all of the grunts, snappers, porgies, and other channel fishes grow only to a foot or two in length, the same tackle may answer for all. The fishing is done in water of varying depth, from a few feet to twenty or more, from an anchored boat. The best plan for the angler who is visiting Key West for the first time is to go out with a market fisherman in his boat and learn by ocular evidence the _modus operandi_ of channel fishing. After that he will be prepared to follow his own devices and fish in the same or an improved way. A stiffish black-bass rod, or the Little Giant rod of seven and one-half feet and eight ounces, a modification of the Henshall black-bass rod, are quite suitable, though the market fishermen use hand-lines altogether. The rest of the tackle needed is a multiplying reel, a braided linen line, size E or F, Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks of various sizes, from Nos. 1 to 3-0, according to the size of the mouths of the different fishes, though No. 1-0 will be found to be a good average size. Sinkers of different weights, from one to six ounces, to meet the strength of the tide, and a strong landing-net must be added. The hooks should be tied on single, strong silkworm fibre. The best bait is the sea-crawfish (_Palinurus_), or spiny lobster, which grows to the size of the common lobster, and is found in the crevices of the coral reefs or among the rocks and shells at the bottom, from whence it is taken by the fish spear called "grains." The flesh is taken from the shell and cut up for bait, and the shell itself is tied to a line and sunk near the bottom to attract the fish. Shrimps are also good bait, as are any of the small fishes, or conchs cut into suitable sizes. Any of the various crabs can also be utilized. The large conchs _Strombus_ and _Pyrula_ are good, and a large one will furnish bait for a whole day. BAIT FISHES For the information of anglers who would like to know something of the small fishes used for bait, their names at least, I think it not out of place to mention them here. The mullet is one of the fishes most frequently utilized. There are several species belonging to the family _Mugilidæ_: the common mullet (_Mugil cephalus_), the white mullet (_Mugil curema_), both of which are abundant in Florida, especially the first named. There is a somewhat rare species along the coasts, but common at Key West, the fan-tail mullet (_Mugil trichodon_). A very abundant but very small species, and one that makes a capital bait for fishes with small mouths, is the whirligig mullet (_Querimana gyrans_). There are several species of sardines belonging to the herring family (_Clupeidæ_). They may be found in all bays along the coasts, going in and out of the inlets with the tide. The most common species are the silver sardine (_Sardinella humeralis_), which has a dark spot at the base of the pectoral fin, and the striped sardine (Sardinella sardina), which has faint streaks along the sides. The anchovies belong to the family _Engraulididæ_, and may be distinguished by their very wide mouths, which open back to the gill-cover. The species all look very much alike; the most common ones are the banded anchovy (_Stolephorus perfasciatus_), with narrow silvery longitudinal band, and from two to three inches long; the big anchovy (_Stolephorus brownii_), which is deeper and grows larger, from four to six inches in length; these two species are mostly confined to the south and west coasts. Another species, also abundant on the east coast, is the silver anchovy (_Stolephorus mitchilli_), which is more silvery or translucent in appearance than the others, with yellowish fins and dotted body. There are a number of crabs that are excellent baits, as the hermit crab (_Eupagurus_), which lives in the cast-off shells of univalve mollusks; fiddler crab (_Gelasimus_), which abounds in myriads on the inside shores of the bays; the spider crab (_Libinia_), which is quite common in shallow water, sometimes covered with bits of weeds, shells, etc.; the common crab (_Cancer_); the lady crab (_Platyonichus_), beautifully spotted; the stone crab (_Menippe_), quite a large crab, with very large claws; the mud crab (_Panopeus_), a small crab and a very good bait. There are a number of crustaceans, commonly called beach-fleas, that are good baits for small-mouthed fishes along the Florida coasts, among which may be mentioned the beach-flea (_Orchestia_); the sand-bug (_Hippa_); the gribble (_Limnoria_); also the shrimp (_Gammarus_); and the prawn (_Palæmonetes_). THE GRUNT FAMILY (_Hæmulidæ_) The grunts have an oblong body, more or less elevated and compressed; head large, its sides usually scaly; mouth low and horizontal, usually curved; sharp or pointed teeth; dorsal fin single, with a marked angle at the junction of the spiny and soft portions; the dorsal spines ten or twelve; anal fin with three spines, the second one the largest; caudal fin concave. The coloration is bizarre and usually brilliant, with the lips and inside of the mouth bright red or scarlet. They are all good pan-fishes, and from their habit of emitting vocal sounds when caught are called "grunts." They feed on crustaceans, small fishes, and the innumerable marine invertebrates that inhabit the coral reefs and coralline rocks. _Hæmulon plumieri._ The Common Grunt. Body moderately elongate; the back elevated and somewhat compressed; head long, the sharp snout projecting; head 2-2/3; depth 2-2/3; eye 5; D. XII, 16; A. III, 8; scales 5-50-17; anterior profile more or less S-shaped; the nape gibbous; mouth very large, the gape curved, maxillary reaching beyond front of eye; lower jaw slightly included; teeth strong, in broad bands, those of the outer series enlarged; antrorse teeth of posterior part of both jaws strong; interorbital space convex; preorbital rather deep; preopercle finely serrate; scales above lateral line much enlarged anteriorly. _Hæmulon sciurus._ The Yellow Grunt. Body oblong, the back not much elevated; head 2-3/4; depth 2-3/5; eye 4; scales 7-53-14; D. XII, 16; A. III, 8; interorbital space convex; preopercle finely serrate; profile nearly straight; snout moderately acute; mouth large, the gape curved, the maxillary reaching a little past front of pupil; lower jaw slightly included; teeth strong; upper jaw in front with about 3 strong canines on each side; front teeth of lower jaw rather strong; blue stripes on body. _Hæmulon album._ The Margate-fish. Body comparatively deep, the back much elevated and compressed; the anterior profile steep; head 3; depth 2-2/3; eye 6; scales 7-46-16; D. XII, 16; A. III, 7; snout pointed; mouth large, the maxillary extending to front of eye; lower jaw included; teeth not very large, in narrow bands; interorbital space strongly convex; preorbital deep; preopercle finely serrate; soft part of anal and dorsal fins covered with thin, translucent scales. _Hæmulon parra._ The Sailor's Choice. Body comparatively deep, the back compressed and arched; anterior profile rather steep and convex; head 3; depth 2-2/3; eye 4; scales 5-50-14; D. XII, 17; A. III, 7; mouth rather small, the maxillary extending to front of eye; teeth in bands, rather strong, the outer large, antrorse teeth of lower jaw well developed; preopercle finely serrate; lower jaw slightly included; interorbital space convex; preorbital rather deep. _Orthopristis chrysopterus._ The Pig-fish. Body ovate-elliptical, somewhat elevated at shoulders, considerably compressed; head 3-1/8; depth 2-3/4; eye 5; scales 10-60-19; D. XII, 16; A. III, 12; snout long and sharp; jaws equal, each with a narrow band of slender teeth, the outer above a little larger; mouth small, the maxillary not reaching to eye; preopercle very slightly serrate above; snout and lower jaw naked, rest of head scaly; dorsal and anal spines enclosed in a deep, scaly sheath; soft rays naked. Anisotremus virginicus. The Pork-fish. Body ovate, the back very much elevated; the anterior profile steep; very much arched at nape; head 3-1/8; depth 2-1/10; eye 4; scales 11-56-17; D. XII, 17; A. III, 10; mouth small, the maxillary extending to anterior nostril; jaws subequal; outer row of teeth enlarged; about 6 gill-rakers. [Illustration THE BLACK GRUNT] [_Hæmulon plumieri_] [Illustration THE RED SNAPPER] [_Lutianus aya_] THE BLACK GRUNT (_Hæmulon plumieri_) The black or common grunt is the most abundant and one of the most popular food-fishes in the vicinity of Key West. It was named by Lacépéde, in 1802, in honor of Father Plumier, an early naturalist, who sent drawings of the fishes of Martinique to the museums of Europe. It belongs to the West Indian fauna, and is abundant near Key West, and not uncommon about the rocks and reefs at the lower end of Tampa Bay and other rocky localities on the Gulf coast of Florida. On the Atlantic coast it is found as far north as Cape Hatteras. The depth of the body is a little more than a third of its length, compressed, with elevated shoulder. The head is as long as the depth of the body, with a large, curved mouth and a pointed and projecting snout. The profile is concave in front of the eye. The jaws are armed with bands of strong and conical teeth, the outer ones largest and the rear ones curving forward. Its color is bluish gray, with the bases of the scales bronze, tinged with olive, forming oblique stripes running upward and backward. The head is golden bronze, with many bright blue stripes, very distinct, a few of which extend to the shoulder. The inside of the mouth is scarlet, becoming lighter, or yellowish, on the jaws. The dorsal fin is grayish, with a yellow border on the spinous portion; the anal fin is gray tinged with yellow; the ventral fins are bluish gray; the pectoral fins are gray with a dusky bar at the base; the caudal fin is plain gray. The common grunt grows usually to a foot in length, though more are caught under that size than over. It is often called "sow grunt" by the market fishermen, in contradistinction to the "boar grunt," as the yellow grunt is often designated by them, wrongly supposing one to be the male and the other the female. While the general remarks on its feeding habits, as given in the paragraph relating to the family characteristics of the grunts, are correct, it may be stated that they are essentially carnivorous, devouring small fishes, crustaceans, and other marine invertebrates that abound on the coralline reefs. They spawn late in the summer, on the rocky shoals and hard, sandy bars, congregating at such times in large schools. As a food-fish it is held in greater esteem than any other fish in the Key West market, and selling from a nickel to a dime for a bunch of about half a dozen, it forms the staple breakfast dish of all Key Westers, who are inordinately fond of it. While assistant chief of the fisheries department of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893, I had among other visitors a young lady friend from Key West, who never before had been away from her island home, having been educated at the convent of Key West. She could not find words to express her delight at scenes so entirely new and novel, and said that some things gave her a better idea of heaven; but there was one thing, she said, that was lacking amidst all the wonders and delights from the four quarters of the globe, and without which everything else paled into insignificance,--"fried grunts for breakfast." I made her happy by escorting her to the Aquarium and showing her the live grunts swimming in a tank, seemingly as much at home as on the coral reefs of Florida. The methods of angling, and the tackle and baits used for grunts, are given in the opening paragraphs of this chapter, to which the reader is referred. THE YELLOW GRUNT (_Hæmulon sciurus_) The yellow grunt was first noticed by Bloch, in 1790, from the West Indies; but owing to a mistake as to its proper identification it was named _sciurus_, meaning "squirrel," by Shaw, in 1803, based on Bloch's description and figure. The name squirrel is in allusion to the grunting noise it emits when captured, which is compared to the barking of that animal. It is abundant in the West Indies and south to Brazil, and is quite common about Key West. The yellow grunt is very similar to the common grunt in the conformation of its body and fins, but has a rather curved profile instead of a depression in front of the eye. The teeth are similar, with about three strong canines on each side. The scales on the upper part of the body are relatively smaller than in the black grunt. Its color is uniformly brassy yellow, with about a dozen longitudinal and distinct stripes of sky-blue, somewhat wavy, extending from the snout to the anal fin; the fins are yellowish; the inside of the mouth is scarlet. It grows to about a foot in length, but occasionally to eighteen inches. It is the handsomest in coloration and appearance of all the grunts, and is often called "boar grunt" by the Key West fishermen. A black-bass bait rod, braided linen line, snelled hooks No. 1-0, with sinker adapted to the depth and current of the water, and sea-crawfish, shrimps, prawns, or cut-fish bait, will be found quite applicable for grunt fishing. Although the yellow grunt was known to science from the West Indies as early as 1790, it was not recorded from the waters of the United States until a century later, when in 1881 I collected it at Key West. This is the more remarkable inasmuch as it is rather common along the keys, and is moreover such a striking, well-marked, and handsome species that it is difficult to imagine how it had been overlooked. The field has, however, been pretty well worked since, and many new species have been recorded. The Florida Keys, like the southern portion of the peninsula, are of recent formation, and are underlaid by oolitic and coral limestones. These coralline rocks are formed by the action of the waves and weather on the calcareous secretions of coral polyps, those beautiful "flowers of the sea" which are still building better than they know on the outlying submerged reefs, and where may be seen those tiny "toilers of the sea," madrepores, astreans, mæandrinas, porites, gorgonias, etc., rivalling in beauty of form and color the most charming and delicate ferns, fungi, mosses, and shrubs. The fishes that frequent the coral reefs are very handsome, both in form and coloration: silvery, rosy, scarlet, brown, and golden bodies, with sky-blue, bright yellow, rosy, or black stripes and bands, or spotted, stellated, and mottled with all the hues of the rainbow; and with jewelled eyes of scarlet, blue, yellow, or black; fins of all colors and shapes, and lips of scarlet red, blue, or silver. THE MARGATE-FISH (_Hæmulon album_) The margate-fish, or margate grunt, is the largest of the family, growing to two feet or more in length and eight or ten pounds in weight, though usually it weighs from two to six pounds as taken to market. It was noticed by Catesby in his "History of the Carolinas," in 1742, and was wrongly identified from his description by Walbaum in 1792. It received its present name from Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1830, from West Indian specimens; they called it _album_, meaning "white," as it is the lightest in coloration of any of the grunts. It is much esteemed as a food-fish at Key West. It is abundant from Key West to Brazil, being quite common about the Florida Keys, especially in the immediate vicinity of Key West, being usually found in deep water, except when it approaches the shallows to feed on crustaceans, etc. It is rather a warm-water fish. The margate-fish is of much the same proportions, and of similar appearance, as the yellow grunt, but with a more elevated and arching back, and is more compressed. The teeth are in narrow bands, and are somewhat smaller than in the other grunts. The adult fish is whitish, olivaceous on the back, with faint spots on the scales of back and sides. The inside of the mouth is orange; the lips and snout yellowish; the fins dusky greenish; a broad but indistinct band extends along the sides. Younger fish are bluish in coloration of body and fins, with dark parallel stripes below. Somewhat larger hooks, say No. 2-0, and a little heavier line, braided linen, size F, are more suitable for this fish; otherwise the same tackle and baits can be employed as for the other grunts and channel fishes. THE SAILOR'S CHOICE (_Hæmulon parra_) This grunt is sometimes called bastard margaret by the Key West fisherman. The name sailor's choice is often wrongly applied to the pinfish (_Lagodon rhomboides_) and the pig-fish (_Orthopristis chrysopterus_) The sailor's choice was first described by Desmarest, in 1823, from Havana; he named it _parra_ in honor of the Cuban naturalist, Parra. It is a good pan-fish, eight or ten inches long, usually, but sometimes growing to a foot in length. It is abundant from Key West to Brazil. I have taken it from the line of keys south-west of Cape Florida, and along the mainland from Biscayne Bay to Marco and Lemon Bay on the Gulf coast. Its body is of about the same proportions, and of the same general appearance, as that of the yellow grunt, and it grows to about the same size. The radial formula of its fins and size of scales are also much the same. The mouth is smaller, but the teeth are of about the same character. Its color is dull pearly gray, belly grayish, each scale of the body with a distinct olive-brown spot, forming interrupted, oblique, and wavy streaks; fins dusky. The inside of the mouth is not so red as in the other grunts. There is a distinct black spot on the lower edge of the cheek-bone. THE GRAY GRUNT AND FRENCH GRUNT The gray grunt (_Hæmulon macrostomum_) and the French grunt (_Hæmulon flavolineatum_) are not so common about the Florida Keys as the other grunts, but grow to about the same size, and are often taken with them, and with the same baits and the same mode of fishing. THE PIG-FISH (_Orthopristis chrysopterus_) Another pan-fish belonging to the grunt family and common to the waters of Florida, and one much esteemed as a food-fish, is the pig-fish. It is known as hog-fish in Chesapeake Bay, and sailor's choice on the South Atlantic coast. It was described by Linnæus, in 1766, from South Carolina. He named it _chrysopterus_, or "gold fin." Its range extends from the Chesapeake Bay along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to Florida and Texas, and occasionally it strays as far north as Long Island. It resembles the grunts very much in its general appearance. Its body is rather more than a third of its length, elevated at the shoulder, and compressed. Its head is a third of the length of the body, with a long, sharp snout and a small mouth placed low. There is a narrow band of slender teeth in each jaw, the outer ones in the upper jaw somewhat larger. The color of the pig-fish is light blue above, shading gradually to silvery below; the upper lip is marked with blue; the body scales have a blue centre, the edges with a bronze spot, forming very distinct orange-brown stripes along the rows of scales on the back and sides, those above the lateral line extending obliquely upward and backward, those below being nearly horizontal; the snout, cheeks, and gill-covers have distinct bronze spots, larger than those of the body; the inside of the mouth is pale, the back of the mouth somewhat golden in hue; the dorsal fin is translucent, with bronze spots or shades, the edge of the fin dusky; the other fins are more or less dusky, with yellowish shades. Along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts it resorts to sandy shoals in rather shallow water, but along the Florida Keys it is found also about rocky bars, and on the Gulf coast is often on grassy flats, or wherever crabs, shrimp, beach-fleas, and other crustaceans abound, on which it feeds, principally, though it is also fond of the young fry of other fishes. It is an excellent pan-fish, of delicious flavor, and is a favorite wherever its merits are known. It grows to a length of ten inches, sometimes to twelve or fifteen inches in favorable localities, but in Florida is mostly from six to eight inches in length. It spawns in the spring in April and May. It is much sought after in Chesapeake Bay, and is a favorite food-fish at Norfolk, Virginia, where it is known as hog-fish. It grows there somewhat larger, and is also a favorite fish with anglers. The lightest tackle must be employed for its capture, and hooks Nos. 2 to 3, on gut snells, for it has a small mouth. Sea-crawfish, crab, shrimp, beach-fleas, and other crustaceans are the best baits, though cut conch and fish will answer pretty well. It is a bottom feeder, and sinkers must be used to keep the bait near the fish. THE PORK-FISH (_Anisotremus virginicus_) Another pan-fish of the grunt family (_Hæmulidæ_) is the pork-fish, a handsome and beautifully-marked species. It was named by Linnæus, in 1758, from South America, though why he called it _virginicus_, "Virginia," is not known. It is a tropical fish, its range extending from the Florida Keys to Brazil. It is very abundant in the vicinity of Key West, and is seen in the markets daily. It has a short, compressed body, its depth being half of its length, with the back very much elevated. Its head is short compared with its height, with a very steep profile, slightly convex in front and very much arched at the nape. The mouth is quite small, with thick lips; the jaws are armed with bands of sharp, pointed teeth, the outer row enlarged. The ground color of the body is pearly gray; an oblique black bar, as wide as the eye, extends from the nape through the eye to the angle of the mouth; another broader and jet-black vertical bar extends from the front of the dorsal fin to the base of the pectoral fin; the interspace between the bars is pearly gray, with yellow spots, becoming confluent above; beginning at the vertical bar and extending backward are half a dozen deep yellow, longitudinal, and parallel stripes, the lower ones reaching the caudal fin; all of the fins are deep yellow. The pork-fish resorts to the reefs and coralline rocks, feeding on crustaceans, small marine invertebrates, and small, soft-shelled mollusks, which it crushes with the blunt teeth in its throat. Its usual size runs from half a pound to a pound, but occasionally grows to two pounds. It should be fished for with very light tackle, about the same as used for the pig-fish, but with smaller hooks. No. 5 or 6, on gut snells, and cut-conch bait, small shrimps, and beach-fleas. The pork-fish has been known from the time of Marcgrave, over two centuries ago, from Brazil, and from the West Indies for many years, but was not recorded from the waters of the United States until 1881, when I collected it near Key West. As in the case of the yellow grunt and the lane snapper, it is surprising that such long-described and well-marked and beautiful species should have been overlooked in our own waters until my collection of that year. THE SNAPPER FAMILY (_Lutianidæ_) This family of perchlike fishes is related to the grunts on one hand, and to the groupers, or sea-basses, on the other. Those to be described here are mostly of small or moderate size, but are all good food-fishes and fair game-fishes. They are abundant along the Florida Keys, and with the exception of the red snapper are caught in a similar manner, and with the same tackle and baits, as the grunts. They are characterized by an oblong body more or less elevated and compressed; rough scales, large head and mouth; teeth sharp and unequal; dorsal fin single, with ten or twelve spines; anal fin similar in shape to soft dorsal fin, with three spines; the caudal fin concave. _Ocyurus chrysurus._ The Yellow-tail. The yellow-tail differs from the other snappers in the formation of the skull, the peculiar form of its body, the large, deeply-forked caudal fin, and the presence of pterygoid teeth. Its body is elliptical, with regularly-arched back; head 3; depth 3; scales 7-65-15; D. X, 13; A. III, 9; mouth small, oblique, the lower jaw projecting, maxillary reaching front of orbit; snout pointed; caudal peduncle long and slender; eye small, 5; interorbital space very convex, with median keel; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, outside of which is a single series of larger teeth, several in front being caninelike; a large, oval patch of teeth on tongue; an arrow-shaped patch on the vomer; a narrow band of pterygoid teeth in the adult; gill-rakers long and slender, 8 + 21. _Lutianus synagris._ The Lane Snapper. Body oblong and compressed, back arched and slightly elevated; profile almost straight; head 2-3/5; depth 2-4/5; eye 5; scales 8-60-15; D. X, 12; A. III, 8; mouth moderate, maxillary reaching front of orbit; interorbital space gently convex; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, outside of which a single series of enlarged ones; lower jaw with villiform band in front only, the row of larger teeth nearly equal in size, none of them canines; vomer and tongue with each a single patch; preopercle finely serrate, with coarser teeth at angle; gill-rakers rather long, 5 + 9; 4 small canines in front of upper jaw. _Lutianus aya._ The Red Snapper. Body rather deep, moderately compressed, the back well elevated, profile steep; head 2-3/5; depth 2-3/5; eye 5-1/2; scales 8-60-15; mouth rather large, maxillary reaching front of orbit; snout rather pointed; interorbital space strongly convex; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, and a row of small teeth outside; lower jaw with a single row of small teeth, some of which are almost caninelike; within these is a very narrow band of villiform teeth in front of jaw only; tongue with a broad oval patch of teeth, in front of which a small, irregular patch; vomer with a broad, arrow-shaped patch; preopercle with serrated edge above, lower border dentate; gill-rakers moderate, 8 on lower arch; 4 canines in front of upper jaw. _Lutianus jocu._ The Dog Snapper. Body comparatively deep and compressed; the back elevated and profile straight; head 2-1/2; depth 2-1/2; eye 4-3/4; scales 8-56-15; D. X, 14; A. III, 8; mouth rather large, jaws subequal, maxillary reaching front of orbit; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, a single series of larger ones, and 4 canines in front, 2 of them very large; lower jaw with a narrow, villiform band in front only, and a series of larger teeth outside, some almost caninelike; tongue with a single patch of teeth; an arrow-shaped patch on vomer; preopercle finely serrate above, coarser teeth at angle; gill-rakers short and thick, about 9 on lower arch. _Lutianus apodus._ The Schoolmaster Snapper. Body comparatively deep, moderately compressed, the back elevated and profile straight; head 2-1/2; depth 2-1/2; eye 4-1/3; scales 6-43-13; D. X, 14; A. III, 8; mouth large, maxillary reaching front of orbit; snout long and pointed; interorbital space flattish; upper jaw with a narrow band of villiform teeth, a single series of larger ones outside, and 4 canines in front, one on each side very large; lower jaw with a narrow, villiform band in front, an enlarged series outside; tongue with a large, single patch; an arrow-shaped patch on vomer; preopercle finely serrate above; gill-rakers short and thick, about 9 on lower part of arch. THE YELLOW-TAIL (_Ocyurus chrysurus_) The yellow-tail is a very handsome fish, and one of the favorite pan-fishes at Key West. It was named _chrysurus_, or "gold-tail," by Bloch, in 1790, from its description by Marcgrave in his "Fishes of Brazil." Its habitat is from southern Florida to South America. It is abundant in the vicinity of Key West in the channels between the reefs and keys. The yellow-tail is well proportioned, compressed, and elliptical, being regularly curved from head to tail. Its head is as long as the depth of the body, with a pointed snout; the mouth is rather small, with the lower jaw projecting. The color above is olivaceous, or bluish, below violet; a broad, deep yellow stripe runs from the snout, through the eye, and along the middle of the body to the caudal fin; above this stripe there are a number of deep yellow blotches, as if made by the finger tips; below the broad yellow stripe are quite a number of narrow, parallel yellow stripes, with violet interspaces; the iris of the eye is scarlet; the very long caudal fin is entirely deep yellow, and the other fins are bordered with yellow. The yellow-tail associates with the grunts and porgies about the coralline rocks in the channels, feeding on small fishes and crustaceans. Its average size is ten or twelve inches in length and nearly a pound in weight, though it sometimes is taken up to two feet, and three or four pounds. It is quite a good game-fish and very voracious, eagerly taking sea-crawfish, crab, conch, or small fish bait. Some of the large conchs, as _Pyrula_ and _Strombus_, will furnish bait for an entire outing, the animal being as large as a child's forearm. Black-bass tackle, with hooks Nos. 1 to 1-0 on gut snells, will answer for the yellow-tail. THE LANE SNAPPER (_Lutianus synagris_) The lane snapper is another beautiful fish common about the reefs and keys. It was named by Linnæus, in 1758, who called it _synagris_, as it resembled a related fish of Europe (_Dentex dentex_), whose old name was _synagris_. Catesby mentioned the lane snapper in his "History of Carolina," in 1743. It is abundant from the Florida Keys to South America, and not uncommon on the west coast of Florida, as far north as Tampa Bay, and west to Pensacola. The lane snapper resembles very much the yellow-tail in the shape of its body, which is semi-elliptical in outline, compressed, with the back regularly curved from the snout to the tail; its depth is a little more than a third of its length. Its head is as long as the depth of the body; the mouth is large, and the snout pointed. It is rose color, tinged with silver below, with a narrow bluish or greenish border on the top of the back; the belly is white, tinged with yellow; there are deep yellow stripes along the sides, with indistinct, broad, rosy cross bars; the iris of the eye and the lips are scarlet; the cheeks and gill-covers are rosy, with blue above; the pectoral fins are pink, the lower fins yellow, the soft dorsal pink, the spiny dorsal translucent, with yellow border, and the caudal fin scarlet; there is a large and conspicuous dark blotch just below the front part of the soft dorsal fin. The lane snapper feeds on small fishes and crustaceans about the keys and reefs, in rather shallow water. It grows to a foot in length, though usually about eight or nine inches, and is a free biter at the same baits as the yellow-tail. While it is freely conceded that the highest branch of angling is casting the artificial fly on inland waters, and that the fullest measure of enjoyment is found only in the pursuit of the salmon, black-bass, trout, or grayling, it must be admitted that salt-water angling likewise has joys and pleasures that are, as Walton says, "Worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man." And nowhere does salt-water angling offer more charms to the appreciative angler, or appeal to his sense of the curious and beautiful in nature, than along the keys off the southern extremity of the peninsula of Florida. The palm-crowned islets are laved by the waters of the Gulf Stream, as clear and bright and green as an emerald of the purest ray serene. Through their limpid depths are seen the lovely and varied tints of coral polyps, the graceful fronds of sea-feathers and sea-fans in gorgeous hues, and the curious and fantastic coralline caves, amid whose crannies and arches swim the most beautiful creations of the finny tribe, whose capture is at once a joy and a delight. THE RED SNAPPER (_Lutianus aya_) The red snapper was named _aya_ by Bloch, in 1790, that being the Portuguese name for it in Brazil, according to Marcgrave. It was described by Goode and Bean as a new species, in 1878, and named _blackfordi_, in honor of Eugene G. Blackford, of New York, in consideration of his eminent services and interest in fishculture. The red snapper, while not a game-fish, is one of the best known of Florida fishes, inasmuch as it is shipped all over the country as a good dinner fish, its fine, firm flesh bearing transportation well. It is especially abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, in water from ten to fifty fathoms deep, on the "snapper banks," from ten to fifty miles offshore, and thence south to Brazil, occasionally straying north on the Atlantic coast to Long Island. The depth of its body is a little more than a third of its length, being rather deep and compressed, the back elevated and regularly arched from the eye to the tail. The head is large, its length equal to the depth of the body, with a pointed snout, large mouth, and straight profile. The color of the red snapper is a uniform rose-red, paler on the throat; fins all red, the vertical fins bordered with dusky blue; there is a dark blotch under the front of the soft portion of the dorsal fin, except in the oldest and largest fish; the iris of the eye is scarlet. The red snapper, being a deep-water fish, is seldom found along the shores, and is of no importance to the angler. It is a bottom fish, feeding in company with the large groupers on small fishes and crustaceans. It grows to twenty or thirty pounds, but its usual size is from five to ten pounds. It spawns in summer. The commercial fishing for the red snapper is done on the "snapper banks" in very deep water. Strong hand-lines and codfish hooks are used, with cut bait. By the time the fish is brought to the surface from the bottom it is almost exhausted, and would afford no sport to the angler. The bringing of the fish from depths where the pressure of the water is so great, to the surface, where it is comparatively so much less, causes the fish to swell up, and the air-bladder to be so filled that the fish would float; it is therefore pricked with a sharp awl to let out the air, as otherwise the fish would not sink in the well of the vessel in which it is carried alive to port. THE DOG SNAPPER (_Lutianus jocu_) The dog snapper is very similar in shape to the red snapper, but is much smaller and of different coloration. It was named _jocu_ by Bloch, in 1801, from Parra's description, in 1787, _jocu_ being the Cuban name of the fish. It is called dog snapper, owing to its large canine teeth. Its range extends from the South Atlantic coast to Brazil. It is abundant along the Florida Keys, and very rarely strays along the Atlantic coast northward, but has been taken on the Massachusetts coast in summer. It has a robust, somewhat compressed body, its depth a third of its length, and the back elevated over the shoulder. Its head is large, somewhat longer than the depth of the body, with a straight profile and a rather long and pointed snout. The ground color of the body is dull red or coppery, dark olivaceous or bluish on the back, with about a dozen lighter-colored vertical stripes across the body; the cheeks and gill-covers are red, with a pale area from the eye to the angle of the mouth; there is a row of small, round blue spots from the snout to the angle of the gill-cover, also a bluish or dusky stripe; the upper fins and the caudal fin are mostly orange in color; the lower fins are yellow, and the iris of the eye red. The dog snapper, like the other snappers, feeds on small fishes and crustaceans. It grows to a foot in length and to a pound or two in weight. It is a good food-fish, selling readily in the markets. It is quite gamy and voracious, and with light tackle is worthy of the angler's skill. Hooks No. 1-0 or 2-0 on gut snells, and sea-crawfish, or a small minnow, are good baits. THE SCHOOLMASTER (_Lutianus apodus_) The schoolmaster snapper was named by Walbaum, in 1792, based on Catesby's description and figure of the schoolmaster in his "History of Carolina," but in his figure he omitted the pectoral fins, for which reason Walbaum named it _apoda_, meaning "without a foot." Its range extends from the Florida Keys to Brazil, and is abundant in the vicinity of Key West, where it is seen daily in the markets. Under favorable conditions of temperature it has been taken on the Massachusetts coast. The schoolmaster is very similar to the dog snapper in its general form, but differs greatly in coloration. Its body is rather deep and compressed, its depth being more than a third of its length, and the back is more elevated than in the dog snapper. The head is large, as long as the depth of the body, with a large mouth; the profile is straight from snout to the nape, thence regularly arched to the tail; the snout is long and pointed. The predominating color is orange, olivaceous on the back and top of the head, with eight or nine vertical bars across the body, equidistant, of a pale or bluish white color, the wider interspaces being red; the cheeks and gill-covers are red, with a row of small blue spots from the snout across the cheeks, just below the eye; all of the fins are yellow, more or less shaded with red. The schoolmaster grows to about the same size as the dog snapper, usually from eight to ten inches, sometimes to a foot in length, and a pound or two in weight. It feeds on small fishes, crabs, and other crustaceans, and is a good food-fish. It is a fairly good game-fish, and on light tackle fights with vigor and considerable resistance. Sproat hooks Nos. 1-0 and 2-0 are quite suitable, and should be tied on gut snells. A sinker adapted to the strength of the tide must be used in the deep-water channels. Sea-crawfish, anchovies, or whirligig mullets are good baits. The mangrove snapper (_Lutianus griseus_) and the mutton-fish (_Lutianus analis_) are larger snappers and better game-fishes. They are described in another volume of this series. THE PORGY FAMILY (_Sparidæ_) The porgies of Florida belong to the family _Sparidæ_ previously described, but not to the same genus as the northern porgy, as the scup is sometimes called. They are characterized by a deep, compressed body, humpbacked, with a large head and deep snout, and with a knob in front of the eye. The mouth is small, with strong, caninelike teeth and molars. _Calamus bajonado._ The Jolt-head Porgy. Body oblong, compressed and elevated over the shoulders; head 3; depth 2-2/5; eye 3; scales 7-54-17; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile evenly curved; mouth moderate, maxillary not reaching front of eye; snout long and pointed; teeth strong, conical; anterior teeth enlarged, 2 or 3 on each side in the upper jaw, and 3 or 4 on each side in the lower; molars in 3 series in the upper, and 2 in the lower jaw; dorsal fin single with slender spines. _Calamus calamus._ The Saucer-eye Porgy. Body oblong, elevated more than the other porgies; head 3-1/3; depth 2; eye 3-3/4; scales 9-54-16; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile steep; outline of snout slightly curved; mouth small, maxillary not reaching front of eye; outer teeth strong, 10 or 12 in number, the outer one in each jaw, on each side, caninelike; dorsal spines rather strong. _Calamus proridens._ The Little-head Porgy. Body oblong and much elevated; head 3-1/4; depth 2-1/3; eye 4; scales 9-58-16; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile steep and straight; mouth moderate, maxillary scarcely reaching front of eye; anterior teeth of outer series slightly longer and more robust than those of the cardiform band; on each side of the upper jaw one of these teeth becomes much enlarged, caninelike, directed obliquely forward and downward, and strongly curved, the upper surface concave; there are usually 7 teeth of the outer series between these two canines; no evident accessory series of molars; dorsal spines slender and high. _Calamus arctifrons._ The Grass Porgy. Body oblong, but little elevated; head 3-1/4; depth 2-2/5; eye 4-1/2; scales 6-48-13; D. XII, 12; A. III, 10; anterior profile unevenly curved, very convex before the eye; head narrow above; dorsal outline not forming a regular arch; a rather sharp angle at nape; preorbital deep; canine teeth, 8 in upper jaw and 10 in lower. THE JOLT-HEAD PORGY (_Calamus bajonado_) This is the largest and most abundant of the porgies. It was described by Bloch, in 1801, who named it _bajonado_, after the Cuban name given by Parra in his "Natural History of Cuba." [Illustration THE JOLT-HEAD PORGY] [_Calamus bajonado_] [Illustration THE LADY-FISH] [_Albula vulpes_] [Illustration THE COBIA] [_Rachycentron canadus_] It is not certain what the name is intended to signify. It may allude to the "bayonet-like," interhæmal bones, or to _bajio_, meaning a "sandbank" or "shoal," in allusion to its habitat. The jolt-head is abundant along the Florida Keys, especially in the vicinity of Key West, where it is one of the commonest market fishes; its range extends to the West Indies. It has a short, deep body, compressed, its depth being half its length; its back is more regularly arched than in the other porgies, or not so humpbacked. The head is large, with a long, pointed snout, and mouth moderate in size; the profile is more regularly curved than in the other porgies. The predominating color is dusky or bluish, with brassy reflections; the upper fins are pale or bluish, more or less mottled with darker shades; the lower fins are plain; the cheeks are coppery in hue. The jolt-head resorts to the rocks and reefs, as well as to hard, sandy shoals, feeding on small fishes, crustaceans, and soft-shelled mollusks. It grows usually to eight or ten inches, but often to two feet in length, and six or eight pounds in weight. It is a good food-fish, much in favor with the people of Key West, and is always one of the commonest fishes in the markets. It spawns in the summer. It is very voracious, taking almost any kind of bait greedily. It is caught in company with the grunts and snappers, and on the same tackle, which should be light. Hooks Nos. 1 to 2 are large enough, Sproat-bend preferred on account of its short barb with cutting edges and strong wire. Sinkers adapted to the tide and depth of water must be used. While catching porgies at a lively rate one day I asked my boatman, a Bahama negro, why the big porgy was called "jolt-head." He answered in the cockney dialect peculiar to Bahama fishermen: "Vell, you see, sir, 'e 'as a big 'ed and an 'ump back, and 'e butts the rocks like a billy-goat, a-joltin' off the snail-shells and shrimps, and 'e goes a-blunderin' along like a wessel that 'as a bluff bow and a small 'elm. 'E 'as more happetite than gumption, and swallers anythink that comes 'andy, like the jolt-'ed or numbskull that 'e is. 'E is werry heasy to ketch and werry good to heat." THE SAUCER-EYE PORGY (_Calamus calamus_) This porgy is called "saucer-eye," owing to its having a larger eye than the other porgies. It was first described by Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1830, from the West Indies. They named it _calamus_, meaning "quill" or "reed," from the quill-like bones (interhæmal) that articulate with the spines of the anal fin. It is abundant in the West Indies, and is common about the Florida Keys, but not so plentiful as the jolt-head or little-head porgies. [Illustration TAKING BONITO BY TROLLING OFF BLOCK ISLAND] It is very similar in conformation to the jolt-head, but is more humpbacked, being quite elevated above the shoulder. The body is short, its depth about half its length. Its head is short and deep, with a thin and gibbous profile, and small mouth. Its color is silvery with bluish reflections; the scales golden, forming longitudinal stripes, with pearly-bluish interspaces; the cheeks and snout are purplish, with round brassy spots; the fins are pale, blotched with orange; the iris of the eye is golden. The saucer-eye grows to twelve or fifteen inches in length, and is considered a good pan-fish at Key West, commanding a ready sale. It is found in the same situations as the other porgies, grunts, and snappers, and is equally voracious, taking the proffered bait eagerly. The tackle for this porgy is the same as for the others, consisting of a light rod, multiplying reel, braided linen line, size F or G, three-foot leader, Sproat-bend hooks. No. 1 or 2, on gut snells, with sinker in accordance with the depth of the water and the strength of the tide. Almost any bait will answer, as sea-crawfish, cut conch, or fish. THE LITTLE-HEAD PORGY (_Calamus proridens_) This species was first described by Jordan and Gilbert, in 1883, from Key West. They named it _proridens_, meaning "prow tooth," owing to its projecting canines. It is abundant in the West Indies, and is quite common about Key West and the neighboring keys. It is one of the smallest and prettiest of the porgies, and is called little-head in contradistinction to the jolt-head or big-head porgy. It is almost identical in shape to the saucer-eye porgy, both in head and body. It is brighter in color than the other porgies, being quite silvery with iridescent reflections; the scales of the upper part of the body have violet spots, forming longitudinal streaks; those on the lower part have pale orange spots; the sides have several dark bands; the snout and cheeks have horizontal, wavy stripes of violet-blue; the dorsal fin is violet, with orange border; the anal fin is blue; the caudal fin has an orange band. It is of similar habits to the other porgies, and found with them, but is less common. It is a good pan-fish, growing only to six or eight inches in length. The little-head porgy, though small in size, is equally as voracious as the other porgies, and is well worth catching if only to admire its beauty. The same tackle will answer as for the others, or more especially that mentioned for the saucer-eye, and the same baits can be employed. My Bahama negro boatman, alluded to under the jolt-head, continued his dissertation on the porgies somewhat in this wise: "Now, sir, the little-'ed porgy is a cute little chap; 'e gits to vind'ard o' the big-'ed, hevry time. 'E doesn't butt 'is 'ed aginst the rocks, a-knockin' the shells, but 'e 'as two long teeth like gouge-chisels, and 'e jist scoops hoff the crawlin' things from the rock-patches as 'andsome as you like. Little-'ed little wit; big-'ed not a bit!" THE GRASS PORGY (_Calamus arctifrons_) This pretty porgy was first described by Goode and Bean, in 1882, from Pensacola, Florida. They named it _arctifrons_, meaning "contracted forehead," owing to the narrow forehead. It has a more extended range in the Gulf of Mexico than the other porgies, being common in grassy situations from Pensacola to Key West; it is not known from the West Indies. The general outline of the grass porgy is very similar to that of the saucer-eye and little-head porgies, though the back is not quite so elevated; the profile is unevenly curved, being quite convex in front of the eye. The mouth is slightly larger than in the saucer-eye. Its color is olivaceous, with dark spots, and several dark vertical bars across the body; many of the scales have pearly spots; there are several yellow spots along the lateral line; the cheeks are brownish, with yellow shades; the upper fins are barred or spotted; the lower fins are paler. It is the smallest of the porgies, but one of the prettiest. It grows to six or eight inches in length. It is mentioned incidentally with the others of its family in order that it may be known to anglers who are so fortunate as to catch it and admire it. The same tackle and bait employed for the others are suitable. It is found usually in grassy situations. CHAPTER XVIII MISCELLANEOUS FISHES THE LADY-FISH (_Albula vulpes_) _Albula vulpes._ The Lady-fish. Body rather elongate, little compressed, covered with rather small, brilliantly-silvery scales; head naked; snout conic, subquadrangular, shaped like the snout of a pig, and overlapping the small, inferior, horizontal mouth; head 3-3/4; depth 4; scales 9-71-7; D. 15; A. 8; maxillary rather strong, short, with a distinct supplemental bone, slipping under the membraneous edge of the very broad preorbital; premaxillaries short, not protractile; lateral margin of upper jaw formed by the maxillaries; both jaws, vomer and palatines, with bands of villiform teeth; broad patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on the tongue behind and on the sphenoid and pterygoid bones; opercle moderate, firm; preopercle with a broad, flat, membraneous edge, which extends backward over the base of the opercle; gill membranes separate; no gular plate; a fold of skin across gill membranes, its free edge crenate; belly flattish, covered with ordinary scales, not carinate; eye large, with a bony ridge above it, and almost covered with an annular adipose eyelid. The lady-fish, or bone-fish, is the only representative of the family _Albulidæ_. It has long been known to science through the early voyagers to the southern coasts of America. It was first described by Marcgrave in his "History of Brazil," in 1648, and afterward by Catesby, in his "History of the Carolinas," in 1737, and named _vulpes_, or "fox," by Linnæus, in 1758, from a specimen taken at the Bahamas. It inhabits the sandy shores of all warm seas and is, perhaps, the most cosmopolitan of all game-fishes, being known from Asia, Arabia. North and South America, the Pacific Islands, etc. It is common on the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific in the United States, and is especially abundant in Florida waters, occasionally straying in summer as far north as Long Island. The lady-fish is allied to the herring tribe. It has a long, gracefully-shaped body, nearly round, or but little compressed; its depth is a fourth of its length; it has a long head with a projecting, piglike snout, overlapping the small mouth, which is well armed with teeth; both jaws and the roof of the mouth in front have bands of brushlike teeth, with patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on the back of the mouth and tongue. Its color is bluish green above, with metallic reflections; the sides are very bright and silvery, with faint streaks along the rows of scales; the belly is white, and it feeds on small fishes and crustaceans. Its spawning habits are not well understood, though the young pass through a metamorphosis, being band-shaped, with very small head and loose, transparent tissues. I have found them abundant on the Gulf coast of Florida. The lady-fish grows to a length of from one to three feet, and to a weight of from one to twelve pounds, though it is usually taken from two to five pounds. It is a good food-fish, highly esteemed at Key West and in the Bermudas by those who know it best. For its size it is one of the gamest fishes of the seacoast. When hooked it fights as much in the air as in the water, continually leaping above the surface like an animated silver shuttle, to which I likened it more than twenty years ago. It is now becoming better known to anglers who visit Florida in the winter season, who recognize in it much more enjoyable sport on light tackle than they can obtain with the heavy tools required for the tarpon and jewfish. A black-bass rod, or the Little Giant rod of eight ounces, is light enough, as a heavier fish than the lady-fish is apt to be hooked. A good multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line, size F, and Sproat hooks, No. 1 or 2, on gut snells, will be found eminently suitable. No sinker is needed, as the fishing is done on the surface, though a small brass box-swivel may be used to connect the snell and line, as in black-bass fishing. A leader is not necessary, but it may be used if thought best. The bait may be a beach-flea, or a very small, silvery fish, as a sardine, pilchard, or mullet, though a small shell squid, or a trolling-spoon of the size of a nickel, with a single hook, may be employed in lieu of live bait, and is quite successful if kept in constant motion. The minnow is to be hooked through the lips and cast as in black-bass fishing, reeling it in slowly on or near the surface. The fishing may be done from any convenient place near a pass or inlet on the flood tide. A sand-spit at the entrance, or a boat anchored just within the inlet, are desirable places, though good fishing is sometimes available from the end of a pier in a tideway. Fine fishing may also be had at other stages of the tide about offshore reefs and shoals. I have taken the lady-fish, with both fly and bait, in Biscayne Bay, in Cards and Barnes sounds, along the keys to Key West, and at nearly every inlet on the Gulf coast, as far north as Pass-a-Grille, above Tampa Bay, and usually found it associated with the ten-pounder. The lady-fish, when hooked, will probably astonish the angler who is attached to one for the first time, by its aërial gyrations and quick movements. But the rod must be held at an angle of forty-five degrees, so as to maintain a taut line, notwithstanding its constant leaping; for if any slack line is given, it is almost sure to shake out the hook. And as the leaps are made in such quick succession, the only safe plan is to keep the rod bent, either in giving or taking line, or when holding the fish on the strain of the rod. The lady-fish will often take a gaudy black-bass fly, in which event a black-bass fly-rod or a heavy trout fly-rod will come handy, with corresponding tackle. A heavy braided linen line, size D, is better suited for salt water than the enamelled silk line, and will cast a fly nearly as well. The flies advised for the Spanish mackerel will answer as well for the lady-fish, though I have found the silver-doctor and coachman both very taking toward dusk, which is the most favorable time for fly-fishing, though the first half of the flood tide and the last half of the ebb are usually both favorable times about the inlets. Twenty years or more ago I called the attention of northern anglers to the lady-fish, or bone-fish, and the ten-pounder, or bony-fish, as game-fishes of high degree, and accorded equal praise to both species as to gameness. I have never been able to convince myself as to which is entitled to the palm; but they are both good enough, and comparisons are indeed odious as between them. I am glad to note that they are coming to the front and their merits at last recognized. Of late years northern anglers are having great sport with the lady-fish on Biscayne Bay; but judging from their communications in the sportsman's journals, they are confusing the lady-fish with the ten-pounder. This is easily accounted for, inasmuch as they are usually of about the same size, and have very much the same general appearance in form and bright silvery coloration; and moreover there is a confusion attending their vernacular names, as the lady-fish is sometimes known as bony-fish. It should be remembered that the lady-fish has an overhanging, piglike snout and larger scales, while the ten-pounder has a terminal mouth with the jaws about equal, and smaller scales. Moreover, the bony-fish, or ten-pounder, has a bony plate under the lower jaw, like the tarpon, which is absent in the lady-fish. Both are cosmopolitan, inhabiting the warm seas of both continents. They have been known to science for a century and a half, and have been described by many naturalists from different parts of the world. The current specific names were both bestowed by Linnæus. Catesby, in 1837, called the lady-fish (_Albula vulpes_) of the Bahamas "bone-fish," while Captain William Dampier, one of the early explorers, called the bony-fish (_Elops saurus_) of the Bahamas "ten-pounder." The fishermen of Key West usually know the lady-fish as bone-fish, and the ten-pounder as bony-fish. The best plan for anglers is to adopt the names lady-fish and ten-pounder for them, and relegate or ignore the names bone-fish, bony-fish, and skip-jack. THE TEN-POUNDER (_Elops saurus_) _Elops saurus._ The Ten-pounder. Body elongate, covered with small, silvery scales; head 4-1/4; depth 6; eye 4, large; scales 12-120-13; D. 20; A. 13; dorsal fin slightly behind ventrals, its last rays short, depressible into a sheath of scales; anal fin smaller, similarly depressible; pectoral and ventral fins moderate, each with a long, accessory scale; opercular bones thin, with expanded membraneous borders; a scaly occipital collar; gular plate 3 to 4 times as long as broad; pseudobranchiæ large; lateral line straight, its tubes simple. The ten-pounder, or bony-fish, belongs to the same family, _Elopidæ_, as the tarpon, and both are allied to the herring tribe. The ten-pounder was first described by Linnæus, in 1776, from specimens sent to him from South Carolina by Dr. Garden. He named it _saurus_, or "lizard," but there is nothing lizard-like about the ten-pounder. I imagine that Dr. Garden sent the fish under the name of "lizard," from hearing it called by its Spanish name of "lisa," which is pronounced much like lizard. The ten-pounder was mentioned by some of the old voyagers to the West Indies and Carolinas. Like the lady-fish, the ten-pounder is a cosmopolitan, existing in the warm seas of both hemispheres. In the United States it is common to the southern portions of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. In the general aspect and contour of its silvery body the ten-pounder has much the appearance of the lady-fish, and has been often confounded with it by anglers. Its body, however, is more slender than that of the lady-fish, with smaller scales and a very different head and mouth; the lady-fish has a piglike, overhanging snout, while the lower jaw of the ten-pounder projects slightly. The depth of the body of the ten-pounder is only about a sixth of its length, and the body is not much compressed, being nearly round. The head is long and pointed, with a very wide mouth, with upper and lower lips nearly equal, or terminal. The eye is large, hence one of its names, big-eyed herring. There are many series of small and sharp cardlike teeth on the jaws, tongue, and roof of the mouth. There is a bony plate beneath the lower jaw. The color on the back is greenish or bluish, the sides silvery and bright, and belly white; the top of the head is greenish, with bronze reflections; the cheeks have a golden lustre; the lower fins are tinged with yellow, the others dusky. Its habits are not unlike those of the lady-fish, and they often associate. It feeds principally on crustaceans and also on small fishes. It frequents sandy shoals and banks in shallow water at high tide, also grassy situations where its food abounds. Its breeding habits are not well understood, though, like the lady-fish, its young pass through a larval form, and are ribbon-shaped. It grows to a length of two feet or more, and weighs several pounds, sometimes ten or more. It is quite bony, and is not considered a good food-fish, but excels as a game-fish, being equal to the lady-fish in this respect. The same tackle as that recommended for its congener, the lady-fish, answers just as well for the ten-pounder, and it can be fished for in the same locations. It frequents shallow water on the grassy banks and sandy shoals rather more than the lady-fish, and can be sought there accordingly, as well as at the inlets when the tide is making. Both the ten-pounder and the lady-fish are warm-water fishes. They are to be found in Biscayne Bay and along the neighboring keys during winter, and as the water becomes warmer they extend their range northward on both coasts. After the disastrous frosts that occurred during the winters of 1886 and 1895 in Florida, I saw windrows of dead ten-pounders, lady-fishes, and tarpon on the beaches about Charlotte Harbor. They had become chilled from the sudden lowering of the temperature. I have caught both the ten-pounder and lady-fish as far north as Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida, and Indian River Inlet on the east coast. My fishing was mostly done from the points of inlets and passes, on the flood tide, and usually with the artificial fly, in shallow water, the time and places mentioned being the most favorable for fly-fishing. At other times I have fished on the shallow bars and grassy banks, using such crustaceans as fiddlers, beach-fleas, and shrimps for bait, alternated with small minnows. When beach-fleas are used a fly-rod is preferable and the hook should be smaller than where other bait is employed; No. 4 is about right, if of the Sproat or O'Shaughnessy pattern, they being of larger and stronger wire than other patterns. If beach-fleas are used with a bait-rod, a small sinker must be added to give weight to the cast. The ten-pounder snaps at the bait or fly in the manner of most fishes, and is off immediately in a wild whirl, skimming through the water, if shallow, in a way to astonish the angler who hooks one for the first time. Then follows a series of brilliant leaps and aërial contortions that commands the admiration of the coldest-blooded fisher. The lady-fish, however, owing to the position of its mouth, being underneath its projecting snout, does not at first take the bait with the vim and snap of the ten-pounder, but apparently nibbles or mouths it for a while, but when hooked displays the same energy and desperate efforts to escape as its congener. The consistent angler may truly exclaim with Pope:-- "How happy could I be with either. Were t'other dear charmer away." THE SNOOK, OR ROVALLIA (_Centropomus undecimalis_) _Centropomus undecimalis._ The Snook. Body elongate, with elevated back and straight abdomen; head 3; depth 4; eye 7; scales 9-75-16; D. VIII-I, 10; A. III, 6; head depressed, pikelike, the lower jaw projecting; villiform teeth in bands on jaws, vomer, and palatines; tongue smooth; dorsal fins well separated; preorbital faintly serrated; subopercular flap extending nearly to dorsal fin; maxillary to middle of eye; gill-rakers 4 + 9. The snook belongs to the family _Centropomidæ_, which embraces a dozen or more species, most of which inhabit the West Indies and the southern Pacific coast, and are all good game-fishes. The snook was first described by Bloch from Jamaica, in 1792; he named it _undecimalis_, or "eleven," as the soft dorsal fin has eleven rays. The name snook was mentioned as the name of this fish by the early explorers, among whom was Captain William Dampier, who also mentioned several others, as "ten-pounders," "cavallies," "tarpoms," etc. Snook is derived from "snoek," the Dutch name for the pike, which it resembles slightly in the shape of the head, though it is more like the pike-perch in its structure and appearance. On the east coast of Florida this fish is known as the snook, and on the Gulf coast as rovallia, the latter name being a corruption of its Spanish name _robalo_, by which it is known in Havana. It is sometimes called sergeant-fish, from the black stripe along its sides. It is common along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, from Texas to the West Indies, and is especially abundant in the bays and lagoons of both coasts of Florida, often ascending the rivers to fresh water. It has a long, robust, and nearly round body, its depth being a fourth of its length; the back is slightly elevated and arched. The head is long and depressed, or flat, and is more than a third of the total length of the body; the mouth is large, with a projecting lower jaw; the gill-cover is very long; there are brushlike teeth on the jaws and the roof of the mouth, but no sharp or conical teeth as in the pike or pike-perch. The color of the back is olive-green, the sides silvery, and the belly white; there is a distinct and very black stripe along the side, following the lateral line from the head to the caudal fin; the dorsal fins are dusky; the lower fins are yellowish. The snook is a very voracious fish, feeding on fishes, crabs, and other crustaceans, and resorts to sandy shoals and grassy flats where its food is found. It grows to a length of two or three feet, and a weight of twenty or thirty pounds. It is a fair food-fish, though not held in much favor in Florida where so many better food-fishes are common. It is better flavored if skinned instead of scaled. It is a strong, active game-fish, that, when hooked, starts off with a rush that is dangerous to light tackle, and its subsequent manoeuvres require very careful handling when it is of a large size. It has smashed many light rods in the hands of anglers who were not aware of its pugnacity. It will take any kind of natural bait, and rises well to the artificial fly. A rather heavy black-bass rod or a light striped-bass rod is required for the large fish of the bays and estuaries, though ordinary black-bass tackle will answer for those of less weight at the mouths of streams, or in fresh water, to which it often resorts. A good multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line are sufficient, though one hundred yards will not be amiss, as large fishes of other species are very apt to be hooked in Florida waters. Sproat or O'Shaughnessy hooks, Nos. 1-0 to 3-0, on heavy gut snells are required, with a brass box-swivel to connect the snell with the reel line; a sinker may be used or not, depending on the strength of the tide, though the fishing is usually practised in quiet water, and not in the tideways. A small fish, mullet or sardine, or fiddler-crab bait, will prove very enticing to the snook, though the minnow is better adapted for casting. The fishing is much like black-bass fishing in fresh waters, and the snook takes the bait in its mouth in much the same way as a bass, starting off at once with a great commotion if near the surface. Its desperate and vigorous spurts and rushes are apt to put one's tackle in jeopardy if the fish is large, and it must be handled with caution and skill. For fly-fishing, a rod of nine or ten ounces is not too heavy where the fish run large. A heavy braided linen line, size D or E, is best for casting the fly in salt water. Black-bass flies of showy patterns, on hooks No. 1 or 2, as coachman, silver-doctor, polka, oriole, red ibis, professor, etc., will answer. The most favorable time is on the flood tide near the inlets, or toward evening if in quiet coves or lagoons. The fly should be repeatedly cast and then allowed to sink a foot or two. If fishing from a boat, it must be kept in the deeper water, and the casts made under the mangroves, or to the edges of sand-spits, shoals, or mud-flats, which abound in all bays on the west coast of Florida. The snook is easily captured by trolling with hand-line and the spoon or minnow, though it is a questionable style of sport at best. Along the edges of shoals and mud-flats and over grassy banks the snook will be found at home. A landing-net should always be used for any kind of fishing with the fly. THE TRIPLE-TAIL (_Lobotes surinamensis_) _Lobotes surinamensis._ The Triple-tail. Body oblong, deep, compressed and elevated; head 3; depth 2; scales 47; head small; snout short; mouth moderate, oblique, with thick lips; profile of head concave; upper jaw very protractile; the lower, the longest; maxillary without supplemental bone; jaws with narrow bands of villiform teeth, in front of which is a row of larger conical teeth, directed backward; no teeth on vomer or palatines; preopercle strongly serrate; maxillary reaching middle of orbit; scales around eyes small, those on opercles large; eye small; small scales running up on the base of soft dorsal, anal, and caudal fins; caudal rounded; D. XII, 15; A. III, 11; soft rays of dorsal and anal fins elevated, of nearly equal size, and opposite each other; anal spines graduated; branchial rays 6. The triple-tail belongs to the family _Lobotidæ_. It is allied to the snapper family, but differs in having no teeth on the roof of the mouth. It was first described by Bloch, in 1790, from Surinam. South America. He named it _surinamensis_, from the name of the locality whence his specimens were procured. There is another species on the Pacific coast, _Lobotes pacificus_, that is quite abundant at Panama, where it is known as berrugate. The triple-tail is known in all warm seas. Its range on the Atlantic coast extends from South America north to Cape Cod, though it is not abundant. I have taken it on both the east and west coasts of Florida. At Tampa it is called black snapper, and in South Carolina it is known as black perch. I have never heard it called flasher, which is said to be its name in the markets of New York. It is a short, thick, robust fish, nearly half as deep as long, with an elevated back, and with the ventral outline corresponding with its dorsal curve. The head is a third of the length of the body, its profile concave, the snout prominent, and the lower jaw projecting; the mouth is of moderate size, with thick lips. The color of the back is dark, or greenish black, the sides silvery gray, sometimes blotched and tinged with yellow; the fins are dusky gray or yellowish. In life these colors are very bright, but after death they become almost black. It feeds on small fishes, mussels, and crustaceans and grows to a length of two or three feet, weighing from ten to fifteen pounds, though its usual size is not more than one-half of this length and weight. Its breeding habits are unknown. It is found in northern waters only during the summer months, but from South Carolina to Florida it is common all the year. It is a strong and vigorous fish, but rather slow and sluggish in its movements, and not remarkable for game qualities, though it pulls steadily and strongly when hooked. It will take shrimp, clam, fiddler, or small fishes as bait. A light striped-bass chum rod is very suitable for the triple-tail when of good size. A multiplying reel and fifty yards of braided linen line, hooks No. 1-0 or 2-0, on heavy gut snells, and a brass box-swivel, make up the rest of the tackle. A sinker will probably not be needed as it is usually found in quiet coves about sandy shoals or grassy flats. I have taken it on both coasts of Florida, though it is more common on the east coast. I have also caught it in Chesapeake Bay and near Charleston, South Carolina, but never over five pounds in weight, though I have seen it taken in nets up to about ten pounds. Its short and rounded caudal fin, with the soft portions of the dorsal and anal fins, together, give the appearance of three tails, hence the name triple-tail, by which it is generally known. THE COBIA (_Rachycentron canadus_) _Rachycentron canadus._ The Cobia. Body elongate, fusiform, subcylindrical, covered with very small, smooth, adherent scales; head 4-1/4; depth 5-2/3; D. VIII-I, 26; A. II, 25; head broad, low, pikelike, the bones above appearing through the thin skin; mouth wide, nearly horizontal, the maxillary reaching front of eye; both jaws, vomer, palatines, and tongue with bands of short, sharp teeth; lower jaw longest; premaxillaries not protractile; preopercle unarmed; two dorsal fins, the spines of the first depressible in a groove; soft dorsal long and low, somewhat falcate, similar to, and nearly opposite, the anal; caudal fin strongly forked; no caudal keel; no finlets; gill-rakers short and stout; pectorals broad and falcate. The cobia, or sergeant-fish, is the only fish of its family, _Rachycentridæ_. It was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from a specimen sent to him by Dr. Garden from South Carolina; it is allied to the mackerel tribe, and is found in all warm seas in the old and new worlds. On the Atlantic coast it is common from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida, but occasionally strays north to Cape Cod in the summer. It is rather rare on the west coast of Florida, but common on the east coast. It is a long and round-bodied fish, quite gracefully formed, with a depth of about one-fifth of its length. The head is broad and flat, something like that of the pike, with a wide mouth, and with jaws, roof of mouth, and tongue armed with bands of short, sharp teeth; the lower jaw projects. The back is olive-brown, or dusky, the sides lighter and silvery, and the belly white; a distinct broad and very dark stripe extends from the upper jaw and through the eye to the caudal fin, with an indistinct one above and below, and parallel with it. Owing to this dark stripe the cobia is sometimes called sergeant-fish, thus confounding it with the snook. The habits of the cobia are not unlike those of the pike, or mascalonge, of fresh waters, in that it is solitary and lies in wait for its prey, and is almost as rapacious. It lies under the mangroves and cocoa-plum bushes along Indian River and other streams of the east coast of Florida, watching for stray fishes and crabs on which it feeds. It is commonly seen of a length of two or three feet, but grows considerably longer, with a weight of fifteen to twenty pounds. The largest I have seen was at Key West; it was fully five feet long. It is not uncommon in the Chesapeake Bay, and like most of the mackerel tribe it is a fairly good food-fish. It spawns in summer, but its breeding habits are not fully understood. As might be imagined from its shape and habits, it is a good game-fish, and quite strong and vigorous on the rod. It requires all of the angler's skill to land it safely, especially when it is taken about the mangroves, among whose arching and numerous roots it is sure to take refuge if it can do so. It will take a small fish bait or a crab, going for it with a pikelike rush. I once took one on Indian River with a large red ibis fly, but never succeeded in catching another with the same lure. A strong, rather heavy rod is necessary for the cobia, which the Key West fishermen call cobi-ó. A striped-bass chum rod of natural bamboo is a good and serviceable tool for the work, with multiplying reel and braided linen line, to which is affixed a Sproat hook, No. 3-0, on gimp snell, by a brass box-swivel. A sinker should not be used about the mangroves. A fiddler-crab, a mullet, or other small fish is hooked through the lips, and is cast from a boat to the edge of the mangroves or other bushes, in the same way as in casting for mascalonge in northern waters. I have never tried casting with a spoon, which might be successful, but a minnow is better by far. The cobia takes the bait with a fierce lunge, and turning quickly endeavors to return to his lair, a proceeding that must be thwarted by the angler at all hazards to his rod or tackle, for once under the arching roots of the mangroves he is as good as gone. The boat must be rowed to open water at once, while a strong strain is maintained by the rod on the fish. With open water the angler can play his fish with leisure, though he will be severely taxed by the struggles of as game a fish as he is likely to meet during a winter's sojourn in Florida. THE SPOTTED WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion nebulosus_) _Cynoscion nebulosus._ The Spotted Weakfish. Body rather elongate, compressed; head 3-1/2; depth 4-1/2; scales 10-70-11; D. X-I, 26; A. II, 10; eye 7; snout long and acute; mouth large, maxillary reaching to posterior edge of eye; lower pharyngeals narrow, each with 7 or 8 series of short teeth, the inner enlarged; maxillary, preorbital, and lower jaw naked; canines in upper jaw strong; lower jaw without canines, other teeth in narrow bands, sharp, but closely set; membrane of preopercle serrate, the bone entire; pseudobranchiæ well developed; caudal lunate; soft rays of dorsal and anal scaleless; gill-rakers short and thick, 4 + 7. This fish is closely allied to the northern weakfish, and belongs to the same family, _Sciænidæ_. It is known very generally in Florida as trout, salt-water trout, or sea-trout, owing to its spots. It is, of course, not a trout at all, and these names should be set aside; moreover, the name sea-trout is preoccupied by the sea-run brook-trout of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Its present specific name, _nebulosus_, or "clouded," was bestowed by Cuvier and Valenciennes, in 1830, displacing the earlier and better name _maculatus_, or "spotted," conferred by Dr. S.L. Mitchill, in 1815, for reasons that it is unnecessary to refer to here. It is abundant from Virginia to Florida, and along the Gulf coast to Texas. It occasionally strays as far north as New Jersey. It is almost the counterpart of the common weakfish in the form of its body, the depth of which is about a fourth of its length, and with a similar head, eye, and mouth, but with somewhat smaller scales, and a few less rays in the second dorsal fin. Its mouth is large, with narrow bands of sharp teeth on the jaws, and two long canine teeth in the upper jaw. Its color is bluish gray on the back, with steely reflections, the sides are silvery and the belly white. The upper half of the body has numerous black spots, as large as the pupil of the eye, with smaller ones on the soft dorsal and anal fins; the other fins are plainer, and the anal fin is dusky. The spotted weakfish is a better food-fish, and also a better game-fish, than its northern cousin. It is abundant in the bays of Florida during the entire year, often ascending the streams to fresh water. Its usual weight is from two to four pounds, often of six to eight, and sometimes of even ten pounds or more. It appears in schools in March and April, often in company with the Spanish mackerel, and runs into brackish water for the purpose of spawning. It spawns in the spring; the eggs are buoyant, quite small, about thirty to the inch, and hatch in two days. It feeds on small fishes and crustaceans. All things considered, it is one of the best game-fishes of Florida. It is a surface feeder and takes the artificial fly eagerly, as well as natural bait, or the artificial squid and trolling-spoon. With light tackle it affords good sport, being a strong and determined fighter. It is a great favorite with all anglers who are acquainted with its merits. When of the usual weight of from two to four pounds, black-bass tackle is very suitable and serviceable in rod, reel, line, hooks, or flies, though a rather heavy braided linen line is better adapted for salt water than a silk one. To be more explicit, an eight-ounce rod, multiplying reel, line size F, Sproat hooks Nos. 2-0 to 3-0 on gut or gimp snells, will be found to be just about right for bait-fishing. For fly-fishing, a rod of eight ounces, click reel, braided linen line, size E, leader of three or four feet, single gut, and black-bass flies such as silver-doctor, red ibis, Abbey, soldier, oriole, coachman, etc., on hooks Nos. 1 to 2, will be found to answer in skilful hands. A heavier rod may be used when the fish run larger, and also flies on hooks a size or two larger. Very small phantom minnows, spoons, or squids may be often used with success when the fish are running in schools in the spring. Fishing, either with fly or bait, can be practised with good results at flood tide from the end of long piers that extend to deep water, or at the points of inlets during the running season. The piers at Port Tampa and St. Petersburg, on Tampa Bay, also at Mullet Key and Egmont Key, or Pass-a-Grille, in the same vicinity, are famed fishing resorts in March and April. I prefer to fish from a boat moored to the pier, rather than from the pier itself, as the fish are not so likely to see one, and they are more conveniently landed. During the winter the best fishing will be found in the bays and bayous, or in the streams, in the vicinity of sand-shoals or mud-flats, at almost any stage of the tide, which usually rises but a foot or two in the bays of the west coast. At the inlets and passes, at the first of the flood and last of the ebb tide, the fishing is also good during the winter months. The spotted weakfish takes its prey at the surface with a snap of its jaws that is quite audible, especially at night when one's yacht is at anchor. It takes the angler's fly or bait in the same way. It will remind him forcibly of the bite of a large brook-trout, and its manner of resistance when hooked is very much the same as with that fish--one reason for the name sea-trout. The fishing is especially good in Tampa and Sarasota bays, and the upper portion of Charlotte Harbor, on the west coast; and on the east coast at the mouths of streams entering Halifax River. Mosquito Lagoon, or Indian River. THE DEEP-SEA WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion thalassinus_) This species was first described by Dr. Holbrook, in 1859, from the coast of South Carolina. He named it _thalassinus_, or "pertaining to the sea," from its supposed habit of living in deep water. It is either a rare fish or it has been confounded with the common weakfish. It has been recorded from several places on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi. It is supposed to inhabit the deep water of the sea and Gulf, though this is by no means certain. Its form is very similar to the spotted weakfish, with a more pointed snout and somewhat larger eye; otherwise it is much the same. Its color is brownish above, lighter below; the middle of the sides is marked with many dark dots; there is a dark blotch on the upper part of the cheek; the first dorsal fin is black, the second dorsal and anal fins are dusky, and the other fins pale. The same remarks as to fishing for the spotted weakfish will apply as well to this species, if the opportunity should occur to the angler. It is a doubtful species at best, and may eventually prove to be an aberrant form of the spotted weakfish. THE BERMUDA CHUB (_Kyphosus sectatrix_) _Kyphosus sectatrix._ The Bermuda Chub. Body ovate, somewhat compressed; head 3-3/4; depth 2-1/8; scales 10-55-16; D. XI, 12; A. III, 11; head short, with blunt snout; mouth small, maxillary reaching front of eye; each jaw with a series of narrow incisors, implanted with compressed conspicuous roots posteriorly; behind these a narrow band of villiform teeth; fine teeth on vomer, palatines, and tongue; teeth 35 to 40 on each side; preopercle weakly serrate; top and sides of head finely scaled; interorbital region gibbous, below which point snout is truncate; soft dorsal and anal very low; second anal spine highest; caudal well forked, the lower lobe longest; gill-rakers long; dorsal spines depressible in a groove of scales; small ctenoid scales entirely covering the soft portions of the vertical fins, and extending up on the paired fins. The chub belongs to the family of rudder-fishes, _Kyphosidæ_. It was noticed as _sectatrix_ by Catesby in his "History of the Carolinas," in 1738, and was so named by Linnæus in 1758. _Sectatrix_ is the feminine of _sectator_, meaning "one who follows," in allusion to its habit of following vessels. Its range is along the South Atlantic coast to the West Indies, sometimes straying as far north as Cape Cod in the summer. It is common on the west coast of Florida. It has an oblong, elliptical body, its depth being more than a third of its length. The head is short, with a blunt snout and small mouth, and a curved profile. There are well-developed incisor teeth in each jaw, with peculiar horizontal bases. Its color is bluish-gray, with steely lustre; the sides have numerous narrow, indistinct, yellowish or brassy stripes, alternating with bluish ones; there is a pale stripe below the eye, and a yellowish one above and below it; the fins are dull grayish. The chub feeds on barnacles and other small mollusks, and is found wherever they abound, sometimes in rather deep water. Its usual size is six to ten inches, weighing from one to three or four pounds, but it occasionally grows to fifteen or eighteen inches in length in favorable locations. Its spawning habits have not been studied. It is an excellent pan-fish. Light tackle is needed for the chub and pin-fish, both being usually found together. The hook should be small but strong, with gimp snell; Sproat hooks, No. 1 or 2, are very suitable. The best bait is fiddler-crab or hermit-crab. It is quite a game little fish. I was once staying for a few days' fishing at the Quarantine Station on Mullet Key, in Tampa Bay. The station is built on piles in water twenty feet deep. There was a trap-door in the floor of one of the rooms, through which many kinds of fish could be seen swimming about in the very clear water. These fishes could be readily taken with the hook or the spear, as they were unable to see any one in the dark room above. I was much interested watching the chub and sheepshead pinching off the barnacles from the piles with their chisel-like teeth. A dozen could be easily taken in as many minutes with fiddler bait, and the table was kept well supplied with chub, which was the favorite food-fish during my sojourn. THE ANGEL-FISH (_Chætodipterus faber_) _Chætodipterus faber._ The Angel-fish. Body much elevated and compressed, its outline nearly orbicular, the anterior profile nearly vertical; head 3; depth 1 to 1-1/2; scales 60; D. VIII-I, 20; A. III, 18; jaws about equal; no teeth on vomer or palatines; teeth on jaws slender, somewhat movable; preopercle finely serrate; two dorsal fins, somewhat connected; vertical fins falcate in the adult; first soft ray of dorsal filamentous; ventral fin with a large accessory scale. There are a number of angel-fishes in Florida, remarkable for their bizarre and beautiful coloration, but of no importance to the angler as they do not often take the baited hook, their very small mouths and weak teeth being only adapted for feeding on the minute organisms about the coral reefs. The common angel-fish, or spade-fish, is more sombre in hue than the others, and belongs to a different family, _Ephippidæ_; it has a somewhat larger mouth, and is more widely distributed. It was described by Broussonet, in 1782, from Jamaica, who named it _faber_, or "blacksmith," though why is difficult to imagine, except that it is dark in its general hue, with smutty cross bars. It is very abundant from the South Atlantic coast to South America, and is not uncommon, occasionally, as far north as Cape Cod. It is very common on the east and west coasts of Florida. [Illustration THE ANGEL-FISH] [_Chætodipterus faber_] [Illustration THE TURBOT] [_Balistes carolinensis_] It has a short, very deep body, nearly round in outline, and very much compressed; it is almost as deep as long. Its head is short and deep, with its profile nearly vertical. The mouth is small, with slender, movable teeth, on jaws only; the soft dorsal and anal fins are quite large and winglike, extending far backward nearly to the tail; they are quite scaly, which adds much to their thickness and stiffness; the caudal fin is broad and nearly square. The general color is usually gray or slate color, often bluish with iridescent tints; there are several dusky, broad vertical bars across the body, becoming obsolete or faint with age. It feeds on small marine organisms, and grows to a length of two feet, occasionally, though its usual size is ten or twelve inches, and average weight from one to three or four pounds. It is an excellent food-fish, though its good qualities in this respect are not generally known. It spawns in the spring. It is usually taken in seines in the bays of the Gulf coast, and salted with mullet and sheepshead by the fishermen. It can be caught by the angler with a very small hook, No. 5 or 6, and cut clam or conch bait. It is a fair game-fish on light tackle, which may be the same as advised for the Bermuda chub. THE PIN-FISH (_Lagodon rhomboides_) _Lagodon rhomboides._ The Pin-fish. Body elongate, elliptical; head 3-1/5; depth 2-1/2; eye 4; scales 10-65-17; D. XII, 11; A. III, 11; mouth moderate, maxillary not reaching front of orbit; head flattened; snout pointed; profile not very steep; 4 incisors in each jaw, all deeply notched; two series of molars in each jaw; dorsal fin single, with high spines; caudal fin deeply forked. The pin-fish, also called sailor's choice and bream in some localities, belongs to the family _Sparidæ_, and is closely related to the sheepshead of that family, having incisor and molar teeth. It differs from it in the conformation of the skull. The pin-fish was first described by Linnæus, in 1766, from specimens sent to him by Dr. Garden from South Carolina. He named it _rhomboides_, meaning "rhomboid," from the shape of its body. It is abundant on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts, extending south to Cuba, and occasionally north to Cape Cod. It is found in all bays on the east and west coasts of Florida. Its body is symmetrical, being rather evenly curved on both dorsal and ventral lines, and rather deep; its head is large, with a depression in front of the eye. Its color is olivaceous, darkest on the back, with bluish silvery sides, and narrow horizontal stripes of blue and gold, alternating, and six faint, broad vertical bars; it has a dark spot on the shoulder at the top of the gill-cover; the dorsal fin is bluish with gilt edge; the anal fin is bluish with yellow band; the caudal fin is yellow, faintly barred; the ventral fins are yellowish; the pectoral fins are plain. It is a pretty fish, and is usually abundant wherever found. It feeds on small mollusks and barnacles, resorting to old wharves and about the mangroves where such food abounds. It grows to a length of six or eight inches, and though small, it is a good pan-fish. It spawns in the spring. The same light tackle used for the pig-fish and pork-fish can be utilized for the pin-fish, with small, strong hooks, as Sproat bend, No. 4 or 5, on gut snells. The ends of piers and wharves, in comparatively shallow water, are favorable localities for fishing. THE SQUIRREL-FISH (_Holocentrus ascensionis_) _Holocentrus ascensionis._ The Squirrel-fish. Body oblong, moderately compressed, the back a little elevated; head 3-2/3; depth 3-2/5; eye 3; scales 5-50-7; D. XI, 15; A. IV, 10; head compressed, narrowed forward; opercle with a strong spine above, below with the edge sharply serrated; preopercle with a strong spine at its angle; mouth small, little oblique, with the lower jaw projecting somewhat; eye excessively large; upper lobe of caudal fin the longest; soft dorsal fin pointed, as high as the body; third anal spine very strong, as long as longest anal ray. The squirrel-fish belongs to the family _Holocentridæ_, the species comprising that family having very rough or spinous scales, a single dorsal fin, deeply divided, with the spines very tall; the caudal fin deeply forked; the anal fin with four spines; and a very large eye. The squirrel-fish belongs to the West Indian fauna, ranging from the Florida Keys to South America. It was first described by Osbeck, in 1771, from Ascension Island, who named it for that locality. It is not uncommon along the reefs, where I have taken it a number of times. Its body is oblong, moderately compressed, its depth about a third of its length, with the back slightly elevated, and the ventral outline nearly straight. Its mouth is small, the eye enormously large, and the caudal fin deeply forked. Its color is bright crimson, with a darker shade on the back, and a somewhat lighter tint below, with silver streaks along the sides. The fins are also red, some bordered with olive; the head is red above, with an oblique white bar running back and down from the eye. It feeds about the reefs on small fishes and marine invertebrates, and grows to two feet in length, occasionally, but is usually found smaller. It is a good food-fish and sells at sight in the market. It is a remarkably handsome and attractive fish in appearance. In one of Stockton's stories, John Gayther, the gardener, tells of the curious and beautiful things to be seen on a coral reef in the tropics, with the aid of a long box with a glass in the end. His description applies just as well to the vicinity of the Dry Tortugas, where I have often viewed the wonders of the sea-floor through a sponge-glass, a wooden pail with a glass bottom:-- "Where the water is so clear that with a little help you can see everything just as if it were out in the open air,--bushes and vines and hedges; all sorts of waving plants, all made of seaweed and coral, growing in the white sand; and instead of birds flying about among their branches, there were little fishes of every color: canary-colored fishes, fishes like robin-redbreasts, and others which you might have thought were blue jays if they had been up in the air instead of down in the water." THE TURBOT (_Balistes carolinensis_) _Balistes carolinensis._ The Turbot. The fishes comprising the family _Balistidæ_ are characterized by an ovate body, much compressed; small and low mouth, with separate incisor teeth; eye very high; gill opening a small slit; the absence of ventral fins; the dorsal fins widely separated, the first with but 1 to 3 spines. The turbot has a very deep compressed body, covered with thick, rough plates or scales; head 3-1/4; depth 1-3/4; eye small; scales about 60; about 35 scales in an oblique series from vent upward and forward; D. III, 27; A. 25; third dorsal spine stouter than the second and remote from it; plates on head similar to those on body; caudal lobes produced; soft dorsal high; ventral flaps large, supported by several pungent spines; lateral line very slender, undulating, and very crooked, showing only when scales are dry; a groove before the eye; larger plates behind the gill opening. The turbot, or leather-fish, belongs to the family _Balistidæ_, or trigger-fishes. It was first described by Gmelin, in 1788, from Carolina, from one of Dr. Garden's specimens, Gmelin being a coadjutor of Linnæus, to whom the specimen was sent. The locality from which the type specimen was sent accounts for its name. The turbot, as it is called by the Key West fishermen, is an inhabitant of tropical waters, and is abundant on the South Atlantic coast and along the Florida Keys; it is known also from the Mediterranean Sea. Like all of the trigger-fishes it has a curious form and appearance. It is as deep as long, and slants both ways from the dorsal fin above and from the ventral flap below, presenting somewhat of a diamond shape. The head is triangular, and the fins are thick and leathery. The first dorsal spine is locked when erect by the second, or "trigger." The soft dorsal and anal fins are opposite each other, and are of similar size and shape. The color is olive-gray, or slate color, with some purplish spots on the back; two obscure cross bars are under the second dorsal fin; a ring of blue spots alternating with greenish streaks are about the eye; there are violet marks on the sides of the snout; the first dorsal is spotted and clouded with bluish; the second dorsal has pale yellowish spots, with rows of blue ones, separated by greenish reticulations; the anal fin is colored like the second dorsal; the pectoral fins are bluish with olive spots. The leather-fish, or turbot, resorts to rocky shoals and coral reefs, feeding on the small marine organisms that are abundant in such localities. Nothing is known of its breeding habits. It grows to a foot in length and is considered a good food-fish by the people of Key West. The thick skin and rough scales are pared off together with a sharp knife by the fishermen when delivered to a customer. It is caught, with the grunts, porgies, etc., in the channels among the keys and reefs with the baited hook, and also in wire traps. Very small hooks must be used for the turbot, as it has a very small mouth. Cut crawfish, conch, or barnacles are good baits. CONCLUSION In closing this account it occurs to me to say that the angler who has a genuine love for the finny tribe, and who has never visited the sunny waters of Florida, has in store an experience of joy and delight in the wonderful variety of its fishes. Some idea may be formed of their number from the fact that I have collected nearly three hundred species in the fresh and salt water of that sub-tropical wonderland. And the fishing lasts the year round, and is always good, except when an unusually cold "norther" is blowing. The warm-water species, like the tarpon, lady-fish, and ten-pounder, are more plentiful, and extend their range farther northward in the summer. At that season all of the inlets and passes of both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts abound with them; but the winter visitor will find them in Biscayne Bay, Barnes Sound, Cards Sound, and south-west along the keys to the Dry Tortugas. The brackish water species will be found all winter in the bays and estuaries of either coast. A just idea of the fishing resources of Florida twenty years ago--and it is much the same today--may, perhaps, be gathered from the following excerpts from my "Camping and Cruising in Florida":-- "At flood-tide the channels under the mangroves teem with redfish, groupers, and snappers, while near the beds of coon oysters are schools of sheepshead and drum. In fact, all of the passes and inlets of the Gulf coast are fairly alive with fishes, from the mullet to sharks and sawfish. While lying in his bunk, one can hear all night long the voices of the deep, under and around him. "The hollow, muffled boom of the drumfish seems to be just under one's pillow; schools of sparoid fishes feeding on shell-fish at the bottom, sounds like the snapping of dry twigs on a hot fire; while a hundred tiny hammers in the hands of ocean sprites are tapping on the keel. Then is heard the powerful rush of the tarpon, the blowing of porpoises, and the snapping jaws of the sea-trout among the swarms of mullet, which, leaping from the surface by thousands, awake the watery echoes like showers of silvery fishes falling in fitful gusts and squalls. "Sanibel Island, at the entrance of Caloosa Bay and opposite Punta Rassa, is renowned for its fine fishing. The angler can here fairly revel in piscatorial abandon and cover himself with piscine glory and fish scales. If ichthyc variety is the spice of the angler's life, Sanibel and its sister keys are the Spice Islands. Sharks, rays, and devil-fish, tarpon and jewfish, redfish, snappers and groupers, Spanish mackerel and kingfish, sea-trout, bonito and cavallies, ladyfish and sergeant-fish, sheepshead and drum, a host of smaller fry--spots, grunts, and porgies, and the ever-present and ubiquitous catfish--can here be jerked, and yanked and snaked, and pulled and hauled, until the unfortunate angler will lament that he was ever born--under the last but not least of the zodiacal signs." * * * * * The foregoing excerpts relate to fishing on the Gulf coast, but on the east coast, while the variety of fishes is not so great, the angler will find enough and to spare, and many that are worthy of his best efforts. Large-mouth black-bass are plentiful in Tomoka River, near Ormond on the Halifax, and in Elbow Creek, Turkey Creek. Sebastian River, Taylor's Creek, and the St. Lucie River, all tributaries of Indian River. At the mouths of these streams, brackish-water fishes will be found in more or less abundance, comprising most of the species inhabiting the Gulf coast. Some of the best localities are at Daytona. New Smyrna, Rock Ledge, Indian River Inlet, Gilbert's Bar, and Jupiter Inlet. Still farther south the fishing is much better, notably at Lake Worth, and on Hillsboro' and New rivers. Mangrove snappers, bluefish, amber-jacks, and barracudas are especially abundant south of Indian River Inlet, more so than on the Gulf coast. In all of the fresh-water lakes in the interior of the state the angler will be amply rewarded, as large-mouth black-bass, calico bass, warmouth perch, and bream are in most of them. As a matter of fact, one can hardly go amiss for some kind of fishing in Florida, wherever there is water, salt or fresh, provided one proceeds with patience and intelligence, and with a due regard for the amenities of the gentle art. Perhaps the queer descriptions and homely comparisons of some of the fishes as given by my negro boatman from the Bahamas, whom I have before mentioned, may not be uninteresting. I always employed him when possible, for he was a good fisherman and sailor, and had a never-ending fund of anecdotes; and being a close observer, he had a good general idea of the fishes of the locality. I always encouraged him in his quaint and original remarks about fishes, and in this way obtained considerable knowledge of their habits from this faithful Achates. Some of his observations, as I remember them, and which seem very odd in his Bahamian lingo, were as follows:-- "Vell, sir, it's curious 'ow some fish is made; but w'atever their model in length, beam, and draft, there is some good reason vy they is built so." "Yes," I would answer, "they are all endowed by Nature with the shape best fitted for their mode of life and environment." "Vell, 'wironment or not, as you say, and I'm not gainsayin' it, there's as much diff'rence in their model as atween a man-o'-war 'awk and an 'ummin'-bird. Now, sir, just look at the stingaree and the wipporee; they is flat as pancakes, and goes a-skimmin' along like a turkey buzzard, or a-wabblin' like a jolly-boat in the breakers, and then they flops down on a sandbank like a flounder, when feedin', 'cause their mouth is hunderneath like a shark. And they crawls along on their belly a-gobblin' hup the periwinkles and fiddlers, and crounches 'em vith a set of teeth like a pair o'mill-stones." "Yes," I assented, "the rays are curious creatures, and have very remarkable teeth." "Now, on the hother 'and, sir, look at the moonfish. They is all length and draft and no beam, like the 'ind weel of a vaggon; it couldn't cast a shadder if it was facin' the sun. And the angel-fish 'aven't much more beam to swear by. Now, sir, hall these slimjims 'ave small mouths and pinchers for teeth, and goes a-nosin' 'round the rocks, and a-vorkin' of theirselves thro' the narrow crannies, and a-pinchin' hoff the coral-bugs and sea-lice. Now, sir, a flounder is wicey wersy from a moonfish, it 'asn't hany draft, and don't carry any sail to speak of, and so it 'ides in the sand a-waitin' for sumpthin' to turn hup in the vay o'grub." "That's true," I would say, "they lead a very lazy, humdrum life, and don't hustle much for a living." "But for a real racin' yacht," he would continue, "give me the kingfish, or Spanish mackerel, or boneeto; they ketches their food on the run and jump; and speakin' o'jumpin', sir, look at the tarpon, and bone-fish, and skipjack; they is the kankeroos o' the sea." "Many fishes," I would observe, "have their analogues; that is, they seem to bear some fancied resemblance, either in habits or appearance, to some object or animal of the land." "Vell, sir, it's as true as gospel; a man is like a fish out o' water; 'e puffs like a porpus and drinks like a fish. And the butterflies are the yellow grunts and pork-fish and little snappers and cockeyed pilots; and the red snappers and squirrel-fish are the fillimingoes and pink curlews; and the nigger-fish and conies is the le'pards; and the blowfish and puffers is the 'edge'ogs and porkupines. And then there's the poll-parrots, red, blue, yellow, and green, from the puddin'-wife to slippery-dick; if they'd vings like the flyin'-fish, we'd put 'em in cages." "True, enough," I would assent; "and up north we have fish that go into hiding and sleep all winter, like the bears; and some that make nests for their eggs, and guard them, and take care of their young ones like a hen broods her chicks. And in some countries there are fish that crawl out on the land, and climb trees like squirrels." He listened to this apparently very doubtfully, and frowned fiercely, but kept silent until he filled and lighted his pipe; then, after scanning the horizon, he said meekly:-- "I think we'll be goin' 'ome, sir; it looks werry squally in the sou' east." INDEX _Albula vulpes_, ladyfish, 355, 361. _Ambloplites rupestris_, rock-bass, 2, 52. Anchovy, banded, 320, big, 320, silver, 320. Angel-fish, 384, description, 385, tackle and fishing, 386. Angling, fresh-water, 341. salt-water, 341. _Anisotremus virginicus_, pork-fish, 323, 334. _Aplodinotus grunniens_, fresh-water drum, 232. _Archoplites interruptus_, Sacramento perch, 2, 57. _Archosargus probatocephalus_, sheepshead, 251, 252. Arctic grayling, 176. coloration, 177, 178. description, 177, 178. _Argyrosomus artedi sisco_, cisco, 204, 207. Artificial flies, 20, 21. rules for, 21. Artificial key to pike species, 121, 122. Bachelor, 80. _Balistes carolinensis_, turbot, 390. Banded pickerel, 121, description, 154. tackle and fishing, 155. Bank lick bass, 73. Barb, 221. Bar-fish, 80. Bass, bank lick, 73. big-fin, 74. black, large-mouth, 30. black, small-mouth, 3. brassy, 90. calico, 73. family, 85. fresh-water striped, 86. grass, 73. Lake Erie, 74. rock, 52, 115. sea, 115. sea, Gulf, 119. sea, southern, 118. silver, 73. strawberry, 73. striped, 96. white, 86. white lake, 86. yellow, 90. Bastard margaret, 330. Bastard weakfish, 221. description, 221. habits and habitat, 222. Beach-fleas, 321. Bermuda chub, 382. description, 382. tackle and fishing, 383, 384. Besugo, 231. Big-fin bass, 74. Bitter-head, 74. Black-bass, small-mouth, 3. description, 1-6. gameness, 10-15. Black-bass [_continued_] habits and habitat, 7-9. tackle and fishing, 15-29. Black-bass, large-mouth, 30. description, 31. gameness, 34, 35. habits and habitat, 32-43. spawning and nesting, 33-43. tackle and fishing, 36-52. Blackfish, 115. Black grunt, 323. description, 323. tackle and fishing, 326. Black harry, 115. Black sea-bass, 115. Black sunfish, 58. Black will, 115. Blue bream, 62. Bluefish, 115. Blue gill, 62. Blue perch, 264. Blue sunfish, 62. description, 62. tackle and fishing, 64. _Bodianus fulvus_, nigger-fish, 287, 300. Bone-fish, 355, 361. Bonito, 282. description, 282. tackle and fishing, 283. Bony-fish, 361. Boy and tobacco-box, 67. Boyhood days, 72. Bream, blue, 62. copper-nosed, 62. red-breast, 68. Bridge perch, 74. Bubbler, 232. Burgall, 264. _Calamus arctifrons_, grass porgy, 348, 353. _Calamus bajonado_, jolt-head porgy, 347, 348. _Calamus calamus_, saucer-eye porgy, 348, 350. _Calamus proridens_, little-head porgy, 348, 352. Calico-bass, 73. description, 74. habits and habitat, 75. tackle and fishing, 75-78. Campbellite, 80. _Cancer_, common crab genus, 320. Cape May goody, 231. _Carangidæ, cavalli_ family, 306. _Carangus crysos_, runner, 306, 307. _Carangus latus_, horse-eye jack, 306, 310. Carp, German, 236. leather, 237. mirror, 237. scale, 237. Catfish, blue, 247. channel, 244. chuckle-head, 247. eel, 247. family, 244. forked-tail, 247. white, 245. willow, 247. Cavalli family, 306. _Centrarchidæ_, sunfish family, 1. _Centropomus undecimalis_, snook, 366. _Centropristes ocyurus_, Gulf sea-bass, 119. _Centropristes philadelphicus_, southern sea-bass, 118. _Centropristes striatus_, sea-bass, 96, 115. Cero, 278. description, 278. habits and habitat, 278, 279. tackle and fishing, 279-281. _Chænobryttus gulosus_, warmouth, 2, 58. _Chætodipterus faber_, angel-fish, 384. Channel catfish, 244. description, 245. tackle and fishing, 245-247. Channel fishes, 316. tackle and bait, 317, 318. Chincapin perch, 74. Chogset, 264. Chopa blanca, 231. Chub, 231. Cisco, 207. description, 208. tackle and fishing, 209, 210. _Clupeidæ_, herring family, 319. Cobia, 373. description, 374. tackle and fishing, 375, 376. Cobió, 375. Commercial fishing, Key West, 316, 317. Common sunfish, 69. description, 70. tackle and fishing, 71-73. Conchs, 318. Conclusion, 393. Coney, 286, 299. description, 299. tackle and fishing, 300. Copper-nosed bream, 62. Coral fishes, 328. polyps, 328. reefs, 327, 389, 390. Coralline formation, Florida reefs, 316. _Coregonus williamsoni_, Rocky Mountain whitefish, 203, 204. _Coregonus williamsoni cis-montanus_, 204, 205. Crab, common, 320. fiddler, 320. hermit, 320. lady, 320. mud, 320. spider, 320. stone, 320. Crappie, 73, 79-80. description, 80, 81. tackle and fishing, 82, 83. Croaker, 226, 232. description, 226, 227. tackle and fishing, 228. Crocus, 227. Croppie, 73, 80. Cunner, 263, 264. description, 264. tackle and fishing, 265, 266. _Cynoscion nebulosus_, spotted weakfish, 376. _Cynoscion nothus_, bastard weakfish, 221. _Cynoscion regalis_, weakfish, 214, 215. _Cynoscion thalassinus_, deep-sea weakfish, 381. Cypress trees, giant, 61, 62. _Cyprinidæ_, minnow family, 236. _Cyprinus carpio_, German carp, 236. Darky and catfish, 248. Deep-sea weakfish, 381. description, 381. tackle and fishing, 381. Diplectrum formosum, sand-fish, 287, 303. Dog snapper, 344. description, 344. tackle and fishing, 345. Drum family, 213, 232. fresh-water, 232. Eastern pickerel, 149. description, 149, 150. tackle and fishing, 151, 152. _Elops saurus_, ten-pounder, 361. _Engraulididæ_, anchovy family, 319, 320. _Epinephelus adscensionis_, rock hind, 286, 295. _Epinephelus guttatus_, red hind, 286, 297. _Esocidæ_, pike family, 120. _Esox americanus_, banded pickerel, 121, 154. _Esox lucius_, pike, 121, 137. _Esox nobilior_, mascalonge, 120, 121, 122. _Esox reticulatus_, eastern pickerel, 121, 149. _Esox vermiculatus_, western pickerel, 121, 153. _Eupagurus_, hermit crab genus, 320. _Eupomotis gibbosus_, common sunfish, 3, 69. Fascination of the float, 71. Fishes not sensitive to pain, 114. Fishing through ice, 145, 146. with the cork, 72. Flasher, 371. Flatfish, 266. Float, fascination of, 71. Florida Keys, 341. Flounder, 263, 266. description, 266, 267. tackle and fishing, 268. Fresh-water drumfish, 232, description, 232, 233. tackle and fishing, 234, 235. Frozen fish reviving, 78, 79, 147. Gag, 285, 287. description, 288. tackle and fishing, 289-290. _Gammurus_, shrimp genus, 321. Gaspergou, 232. _Gelasimus_, fiddler crab genus, 320. Generals Sheridan and Stager, 77. German carp, 236. description, 236-238. tackle and fishing, 238-243. Giant cypress trees, 61, 62. Goggle-eye, 53. perch, 74, 80. Goody, 228. Cape May, 231. Grass-bass, 73. Grass porgy, 353. description, 353. tackle and fishing, 354. Grayling, Arctic, 176. description, 176, 177. fishing, 178. Grayling, English, 174. fishing, 191, 197-201. Grayling, Michigan, 178. fishing, 179. scarcity of, 179-181. Grayling, Montana, 181. description, 184, 185. gameness, 185, 186. propagation of, 194, 195. tackle and fishing, 188-193. Gribble, 321. Grouper family, 285. yellow-finned, 286, 294. Grunt, black, 323. boar, 327. common, 321, 323. family, 321. French, 331. gray, 331. margate, 329. sow, 324. white, 329. yellow, 322, 326. Gulf sea-bass, 119. description, 119. habits and habitat, 119. Gymnosarda pelamis, oceanic bonito, 283. Hæmulidæ, grunt family, 321. Hæmulon album, margate-fish, 322, 328. _Hæmulon flavolineatum_, French grunt, 331. _Hæmulon macrostomum_, gray grunt, 331. _Hæmulon parra_, sailor's choice, 322, 330. _Hæmulon plumieri_, black grunt, 321, 323. _Hæmulon sciurus_, yellow grunt, 322, 326. Hannahills, 115. Hard-tail, 309. Henshall rod, 25. Hind, brown, 296. John Paw, 296. red, 286, 297. rock, 286, 295. spotted, 296. _Hippa_, sand-bug genus, 321. Hog-fish, 331, 333. _Holocentrus ascensionis_, squirrel-fish, 388. Horse-eye Jack, 306, 310. description, 310. tackle and fishing, 310. Hybrids, 309. Ichthyophagous dog, 284. _Ictalurus anguilla_, eel-cat, 247. _Ictalurus furcatus_, chuckle-head cat, 247. _Ictalurus punctatus_, channel-cat, 244. Jack, horse-eye, 310. Jack salmon, 157. Jolt-head porgy, 348. description, 348, 349. tackle and fishing, 350. Jurel, 309. Key to pike species, 121, 122. Kingfish, 221. description, 222-224. tackle and fishing, 224, 225. Kingfish-mackerel, 279, 280. Knot, for leader, 19. jam, for eyed hook, 19. _Kyphosus sectatrix_, Bermuda chub, 382. Lady anglers, 148, 149. Lady-fish, 355. Lafayette, 228. description, 229. tackle and fishing, 230, 231. _Lagodon rhomboides_, pin-fish, 330, 386. Lake Erie bass, 74. Lake-herring, 207. Lake-sheepshead, 232. Lamplighter, 74. Lane snapper, 339. description, 340. habits and habitat, 341. Large-mouth black-bass, 30. Leather-fish, 390. _Leiostomus xanthurus_, Lafayette, 214, 228. _Lepomis auritus_, red-breast sunfish, 67. _Lepomis megalotis_, long-eared sunfish, 65. _Lepomis pallidus_, blue sunfish, 62. Lewis and Clark, 181-183. _Libinia_, spider crab genus, 320. _Limnoria_, gribble genus, 321. Little Giant rod, 101, 102. Little-head porgy, 352. description, 352. tackle and fishing, 353. _Lobotes pacificus_, berrugate, 371. _Lobotes surinamensis_, triple-tail, 370. Long-eared sunfish, 65. description, 65. tackle and fishing, 66. Lucky stones, 233. _Lutianidæ_, snapper family, 336. _Lutianus analis_, mutton-fish, 347. _Lutianus apodus_, schoolmaster, 338, 345. _Lutianus aya_, red snapper, 337, 342. _Lutianus griseus_, mangrove snapper, 347. _Lutianus jocu_, dog snapper, 337, 344. _Lutianus synagris_, lane snapper, 337, 339. Mackerel family, 272. kingfish, 279. Spanish, 273. Margate fish, 328. description, 328, 329. tackle and fishing, 330. Mascalonge, 122. coloration, 127-129. description, 126, 127. distribution, 126. nomenclature, 122-126. tackle and fishing, 132-135. Maskinonge, 124. _Menippe_, stone crab genus, 320. _Menticirrhus americanus_, whiting, 225. _Menticirrhus littoralis_, silver whiting, 225. _Menticirrhus saxatilis_, kingfish, 221. Michigan grayling, 178. _Micropogon undulatus_, croaker, 214, 226. _Micropterus dolomieu_, small-mouth black-bass, 1, 3. _Micropterus salmoides_, large-mouth black-bass, 2, 30. Minnow family, 236. Minnow gangs, 143. Montana grayling, 181. _Morone americana_, white-perch, 95, 110. _Morone interrupta_, yellow-bass, 90. Mud-dab, 266. _Mugil cephalus_, common mullet, 319. _Mugil curema_, white mullet, 319. _Mugil trichodon_, fan-tail mullet, 319. _Mugilidæ_, mullet family, 319. Mullet, common, 319. fan-tail, 319. whirligig, 319. white, 319. Multiplying reel, invention of, 13. Muskellunge, 125. _Mycteroperca falcata phenax_, scamp, 286, 291. _Mycteroperca microlepis_, gag, 285, 287. _Mycteroperca venenosa_, yellow-fin grouper, 286, 294. Newlight, 80. Nigger-fish, 287, 300. description, 300, 301. tackle and fishing, 302. Not all of fishing to fish, 92-94. Oceanic bonito, 283. _Ocyurus chrysurus_, yellow-tail, 336, 338. _Orchestia_, beach-flea genus, 321. _Orthopristis chrysopterus_, pig-fish, 322, 330, 331. _Osmerus mordax_, smelt, 263, 269. Osprey on the fly, 64. _Palinurus_, sea-crawfish genus, 318. _Palæmonetes_, prawn genus, 321. _Panopeus_, mud crab genus, 320. _Perca flavescens_, yellow-perch, 165. Perch, black, 371. blue, 264. bridge, 74. chincapin, 74. family, 156. goggle-eye, 74, 80. pike, 157. raccoon, 166. red-bellied, 68. ringed, 166. Sacramento, 57. warmouth, 58. white, 110, 234. yellow, 165. _Percidæ_, perch family, 156. Permit, 312. _Petrometopon cruentatus_, coney, 286, 299. Pickerel, banded, 154. brook, 154. eastern, 149. great northern, 137. Long Island, 154. reticulated, 149. western, 153. Pig-fish, 322, 330, 331. description, 331, 332. tackle and fishing, 333. Pike, 137. description, 137-140. fishing through ice, 144-146. tackle and fishing, 141-147. Pike family, 120. glass-eyed, 157. gray, 164. rattlesnake, 164. sand, 164. wall-eyed, 157. yellow, 157. Pike-perch, 157. description, 157-160. night fishing, 162. tackle and fishing, 161-163. Pikes, key to, 121, 122. Pin-fish, 386. description, 386, 387. tackle and fishing, 387. Piscatorial polemic, 44. _Platyonichus_, lady crab genus, 320. _Pomoxis annularis_, crappie, 3, 79. _Pomoxis sparoides_, calico-bass, 3, 73. Pompano, 311. description, 311-314. best of food-fishes, 312, 314. tackle and fishing, 313, 314. Pompano, common, 307, 311. gaff top-sail, 312. permit, 312. round, 312. Porgy, 259. big-head, 347, 348. family, 347. grass, 348, 353. jolt-head, 348. little-head, 348, 352. saucer-eye, 348, 350. Pork-fish, 323, 334. description, 334, 335. tackle and fishing, 335. Prawn, 321. _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_, flounder, 263, 266. Pumpkin-seed, 69. _Pyrula_, mollusk genus, 318, 339. _Querimana gyrans_, whirligig mullet, 319. Razor back, 74. Record fly-casting, 16. Red-bellied perch, 68. Red-breast bream, 68. Red-breast sunfish, 67. Red-eye, 53. Red hind, 286, 297. description, 297. tackle and fishing, 298. Red snapper, 342. description, 342. tackle and fishing, 343, 344. Red sunfish, 67. Reel, click, 17. Reel, multiplying, 13. Roach, 231. _Roccus chrysops_, white-bass, 86. _Roccus lineatus_, striped-bass, 95, 96. Rock, 96. Rock-bass, 52. description, 53. tackle and fishing, 54-57. Rockfish, 96. Rock hind, 286, 295. description, 295, 296. tackle and fishing, 297. Rocky Mountain whitefish, 204. description, 204. tackle and fishing, 205, 206. Rod, Henshall, 25. Little Giant, 101, 102. Rovallia, 366. Rules for artificial flies, 21. Runner, 306, 307. description, 307. tackle and fishing, 308. Sac-a-lait, 80. Sacramento perch, 57. description, 57. tackle and fishing, 58. Sailor's choice, 330, 331, 386. description, 330. tackle and fishing, 331. Salmon family, 203. _Salmonidæ_, 203. Sand-bug, 321. Sand-fish, 287, 303. description, 303. tackle and fishing, 304. _Sarda sarda_, bonito, 273, 282. Sardine, silver, 319. striped, 319. _Sardinella humeralis_, silver sardine, 319. _Sardinella sardinia_, striped sardine, 319. Saucer-eye porgy, 350. description, 351. tackle and fishing, 352. Sauger, 164. description, 165. tackle and fishing, 165. Scamp, 286, 291. description, 292. tackle and fishing, 293. Schoolmaster, 345. description, 345, 346. tackle and fishing, 347. _Sciænidæ_, drum family, 213, 232. _Scomberomorus cavalla_, kingfish, 279, 280. _Scomberomorus maculatus_, Spanish mackerel, 272, 273. _Scomberomorus regalis_, cero, 272, 278. _Scombridæ_, mackerel family, 272. Scup, 259. description, 260. tackle and fishing, 261. Scuppaug, 259. Sea-bass, 115. description, 115, 116. tackle and fishing, 117, 118. Sea-bass, family, 95, 285. black, 115. Gulf, 119. southern, 118. Sea-crawfish, 318. Sergeant-fish, 366, 374. _Serranidæ_, bass family, 85, 95, 285. Shad, 80. Sheepshead, 252. description, 252-254. tackle and fishing, 255-259. Sheepshead family, 251. lake, 232. Sheridan and Stager, 77. Shrimp, 321. _Siluridæ_, catfish family, 244. Silver-bass, 74. Small-mouth black-bass, 3. Smelt, 263, 269. description, 269. tackle and fishing, 270, 271. Snapper, black, 371. dog, 337, 344. family, 336. lane, 337, 339. red, 337, 342. schoolmaster, 338, 345. Snook, 366. description, 366, 367. tackle and fishing, 368-370. Southern sea-bass, 118. description, 118. habits and habitat, 119. Spade-fish, 385. Spanish mackerel, 273. description, 273-275. tackle and fishing, 276-278. _Sparidæ_, porgy family, 251, 347. Speckled perch, 74, 80. Spot, 228. Spotted weakfish, 376. description, 377, 378. tackle and fishing, 379, 380. Squeteague, 215. Squirrel-fish, 388. description, 388. tackle and fishing, 389. _Stenotomus chrysops_, scup, 251, 259. _Stenotomus aculeatus_, fair maid, 259. _Stizostedion canadense_, sauger, 156, 164. _Stizostedion vitreum_, pike-perch, 156, 157. _Stolephorus brownii_, big anchovy, 320. _Stolephorus mitchilli_, silver anchovy, 320. _Stolephorus perfasciatus_, banded anchovy, 320. Strawberry-bass, 73. Striped-bass, 96. description, 96-100. fly-fishing, 109. still-fishing, 101. surf-fishing, 104-108. tools and tackle, 101-105. _Strombus_, mollusk genus, 318, 339. Sunfish, black, 58. blue, 62. common, 69. family, 1. long-eared, 65. red-breast, 67. Susquehanna salmon, 157. Tally-wag, 119. _Tautogolabrus adspersus_, cunner, 263, 264. Ten-pounder, 361. description, 361, 362. tackle and fishing, 363-365. Thunder-pumper, 233. _Thymallidæ_, grayling family, 173. _Thymallus montanus_, Montana grayling, 173, 181. _Thymallus signifer_, Arctic grayling, 173, 176. _Thymallus tricolor_, Michigan grayling, 173, 178. Tip-ups, 146. Tobacco-box, 65. Toboggan episode, 92-94. _Trachinotus carolinus_, common pompano, 307, 311. _Trachinotus falcatus_, round pompano, 312. _Trachinotus glaucus_, gaff top-sail pompano, 312. _Trachinotus goodei_, permit pompano, 312. Triple-tail, 370. description, 370, 371. tackle and fishing, 372. Trolling-spoon, 141-143. Turbot, 390. description, 390, 391. habits and habitat, 392. Wall-eyed pike, 157. Warmouth perch, 58. description, 58, 59. tackle and fishing, 60-62. Weakfish, 215. description, 215-217. tackle and fishing, 218-220. Weakfish, bastard, 221. deep-sea, 381. northern, 214. spotted, 376. Western pickerel, 153. description, 153. tackle and fishing, 154. White-bass, 86. description, 86. tackle and fishing, 87-89. Whitefish, Rocky Mountain, 204. White lake-bass, 86. White-perch, 110, 234. description, 110, 111. tackle and fishing, 112, 113. Whiting, 221. Wonders of the sea, 327, 389, 390. Yellow-bass, 90. description, 90, 91. tackle and fishing, 92. Yellow-finned grouper, 294. description, 294. habits and habitat, 295. Yellow grunt, 326. description, 326. tackle and fishing, 327. Yellow-perch, 165. description, 165-167. tackle and fishing, 168-172. Yellow-tail, 338. description, 338. tackle and fishing, 339. Youthful angling, 72. AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY Edited by CASPAR WHITNEY To be completed in ten volumes, with numerous illustrations Each of these volumes will be prepared by a writer, or group of writers, thoroughly in sympathy with the work, and fitted for his special subject. The series will be under the editorial supervision of Mr. Caspar Whitney, the editor of _Outing_, and for many years sporting editor of _Harper's Weekly_. =THE DEER FAMILY.= By =Hon. Theodore Roosevelt=, =T.S. Van Dyke=, and =H.G. Stone=. Illustrated by CARL RUNGIUS. _Now ready._ =Price $2.00, net.= =UPLAND GAME BIRDS.= By =Edwyn Sandys=. Illustrated by LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES, A.B. FROST, and J.O. NUGENT. _Now ready._ =Price $2.00, net.= =SALMON AND TROUT.= By =Dean Sage= and =William C. Harris=. Illustrated by A.B. FROST and others. _Now ready._ =Price $2.00, net.= Further volumes will include articles on the Bear Family. Water Fowl, Wild Fowl, Taxidermy, etc., Cougar, Wild Cat. Wolf, Fox, etc., Tuna, Tarpon, etc., Bass, Perch, Pickerel, etc. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK =AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S LIBRARY= =The Water-fowl Family= By LEONARD C. SANFORD, L.B. BISHOP, and T.S. VAN DYKE. Illustrated by L.A. FUERTES, A.B. FROST, and C.L. BULL. Bass, Pike, Perch, and Pickerel By JAMES A. HENSHALL, M.D. Illustrated by MARTIN JUSTICE and others. IN PREPARATION FOR EARLY ISSUE Big Game Fishes of the United States By CHARLES F. HOLDER. Illustrated by CHARLES F.W. MILLATZ and others. Guns, Ammunition, and Tackle By A.W. MONEY, W.E. CARLIN, A.L.A. HIMMELWEIGHT, and J. HARRINGTON KEENE. Illustrated. The Bison, Musk-ox, Sheep, and Goat Family By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, OWEN WISTER, and CASPAR WHITNEY. Illustrated by CARL RUNGIUS and others. Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist By W.E. CARLIN. Illustrated. Further volumes will include articles on The Bear Family; The Cougar. Wild Cat, Wolf, and Fox; The Sporting Dog; American Race Horse and Running Horse; Trotting and Pacing; Riding and Driving; Yachting, Small Boat Sailing, and Canoeing; Baseball and Football; Rowing, Track Athletics, and Swimming; Lacrosse, Lawn Tennis, Wrestling, Racquets, Squash, and Court Tennis; Skating, Hockey, Ice Yachting, Coasting, and Skate Sailing. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Italic text is denoted by _underscore_ and bold text by = sign Obvious spelling and punctuation errors repaired. To preserve the flow of this text, all illustrations are hyperlinked. Index added to Table of Contents. The oe and ae ligatures in the text has been left as it appears in the original book. UTF-8 coding. Both "black-bass" and "blackbass" used in this text. Both "lady-fish" and "ladyfish" used in this text. Both "skipjack" and "skip-jack" used in this text. Both "subtropical" and "sub-tropical" used in this text. In ambiguous cases, the text has been left as it appears in the original book. In particular, the following have not been changed: Double punctuation End quote missing punctuation No punctuation at para end 
46614	----	GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF FISHES [Illustration] [Illustration] A GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF FISHES BY DAVID STARR JORDAN _President of Leland Stanford Junior University_ _With Colored Frontispieces and 427 Illustrations_ IN TWO VOLUMES VOL I. "I am the wiser in respect to all knowledge and the better qualified for all fortunes for knowing that there is a minnow in that brook."--_Thoreau_ [Illustration] NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1905 Copyright, 1905 BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Published March, 1905 To Theodore Gill, Ichthyologist, Philosopher, Critic, Master in Taxonomy, this volume is dedicated. PREFACE This work treats of the fish from all the varied points of view of the different branches of the study of Ichthyology. In general all traits of the fish are discussed, those which the fish shares with other animals most briefly, those which relate to the evolution of the group and the divergence of its various classes and orders most fully. The extinct forms are restored to their place in the series and discussed along with those still extant. In general, the writer has drawn on his own experience as an ichthyologist, and with this on all the literature of the science. Special obligations are recognized in the text. To Dr. Charles H. Gilbert, he is indebted for a critical reading of most of his proof-sheets; to Dr. Bashford Dean, for criticism of the proof-sheets of the chapters on the lower fishes; to Dr. William Emerson Ritter, for assistance in the chapters on _Protochordata_; to Dr. George Clinton Price, for revision of the chapters on lancelets and lampreys, and to Mr. George Clark, Secretary of Stanford University, for assistance of various kinds, notably in the preparation of the index. To Dr. Theodore Gill, he has been for many years constantly indebted for illuminating suggestions, and to Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, for a variety of favors. To Dr. Richard Rathbun, the writer owes the privilege of using illustrations from the "Fishes of North and Middle America" by Jordan and Evermann. The remaining plates were drawn for this work by Mary H. Wellman, Kako Morita, and Sekko Shimada. Many of the plates are original. Those copied from other authors are so indicated in the text. No bibliography has been included in this work. A list of writers so complete as to have value to the student would make a volume of itself. The principal works and their authors are discussed in the chapter on the History of Ichthyology, and with this for the present the reader must be contented. The writer has hoped to make a book valuable to technical students, interesting to anglers and nature lovers, and instructive to all who open its pages. DAVID STARR JORDAN. PALO ALTO, SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CAL., October, 1904. ERRATA[1] VOL. I Frontispiece, for _Paramia quinqueviltata_ read _Paramia quinquevittata_ Page xiii, line 10, _for_ Filefish _read_ Tilefish 39, " 15, _for_ Science _read_ Sciences 52, lines 4 and 5, transpose hypocoracoid and hypercoracoid 115, line 24, for _Hexagramidæ_ read _Hexagrammidæ_ 162, " 7, The female salmon does as much as the male in covering the eggs. 169, last line, _for_ immmediately _read_ immediately 189, legend, _for_ Miaki _read_ Misaki 313, line 26, _for_ sand-pits _read_ sand-spits 322, " 7 and elsewhere, for Wood's Hole read Woods Hole 324, " 15, for _Roceus_ read _Roccus_ 327, " next to last, for _masquinonqy_ read _masquinongy_ 357, " 5, _for_ Filefish _read_ Tilefish 361, " 26, _for_ 255 feet _read_ 25 feet 368, " 26, _for_ infallibility _read_ fallibility 414, " 22, _for_ West Indies _read_ East Indies 419, " 23, _for_-99 _read_-96 420, " 28, _for_ were _read_ are 428, " 24, _for_ Geffroy, St. Hilaire _read_ Geoffroy St. Hilaire 428, " 25, _for_ William Kitchener Parker _read_ William Kitchen Parker 462, " 32, for _Enterpneusta_ read _Enteropneusta_ CONTENTS VOL. I. CHAPTER I. THE LIFE OF THE FISH (_Lepomis megalotis_). PAGE What is a Fish?--The Long-eared Sunfish.--Form of the Fish.--Face of the Fish.--How the Fish Breathes.--Teeth of the Fish.--How the Fish Sees.--Color of the Fish.--The Lateral Line.--The Fins of the Fish.--The Skeleton of the Fish.--The Fish in Action.--The Air-bladder.--The Brain of the Fish.--The Fish's Nest. 3 CHAPTER II. THE EXTERIOR OF THE FISH. Form of Body.--Measurement of the Fish.--The Scales or Exoskeleton.--Ctenoid and Cycloid Scales.--Placoid Scales.--Bony and Prickly Scales.--Lateral Line.--Function of the Lateral Line.--The Fins of Fishes.--Muscles. 16 CHAPTER III. THE DISSECTION OF THE FISH. The Blue-green Sunfish.--The Viscera.--Organs of Nutrition.--The Alimentary Canal.--The Spiral Valve.--Length of the Intestine. 26 CHAPTER IV. THE SKELETON OF THE FISH. Specialization of the Skeleton.--Homologies of Bones of Fishes.--Parts of the Skeleton.--Names of Bones of Fishes.--Bones of the Cranium.--Bones of the Jaws.--The Suspensorium of the Mandible.--Membrane Bones of Head.--Branchial Bones.--The Gill-arches.--The Pharyngeals.--The Vertebral Column.--The Interneurals and Interhæmals.--The Pectoral Limb.--The Shoulder-girdle.--The Posterior Limb.--Degeneration.--The Skeleton in Primitive Fishes.--The Skeleton of Sharks.--The Archipterygium. 34 CHAPTER V. MORPHOLOGY OF THE FINS OF FISHES. Origin of the Fins of Fishes.--Origin of the Paired Fins.--Development of the Paired Fins in the Embryo.--Evidences of Palæontology.--Current Theories as to Origin of Paired Fin.--Balfour's Theory of the Lateral Fold.--Objections.--Objections to Gegenbaur's Theory.--Kerr's Theory of Modified External Gills.--Uncertain Conclusions.--Forms of the Tail in Fishes.--Homologies of the Pectoral Limb.--The Girdle in Fishes other than Dipnoans. 62 CHAPTER VI. THE ORGANS OF RESPIRATION. How Fishes Breathe.--The Gill Structures.--The Air-bladder.--Origin of the Air-bladder.--The Origin of Lungs.--The Heart of the Fish.--The Flow of Blood. 91 CHAPTER VII. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. The Nervous System.--The Brain of the Fish.--The Pineal Organ.--The Brain of Primitive Fishes.--The Spinal Cord.--The Nerves. 109 CHAPTER VIII. THE ORGANS OF SENSE. The Organs of Smell.--The Organs of Sight.--The Organs of Hearing.--Voices of Fishes.--The Sense of Taste.--The Sense of Touch. 115 CHAPTER IX. THE ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION. The Germ-cells.--The Eggs of Fishes.--Protection of the Eggs.--Sexual Modification. 124 CHAPTER X. THE EMBRYOLOGY AND GROWTH OF FISHES. Post-embryonic Development.--General Laws of Development.--The Significance of Facts of Development.--The Development of the Bony Fishes.--The Larval Development of Fishes.--Peculiar Larval Forms.--The Development of Flounders.--Hybridism.--The Age of Fishes.--Tenacity of Life.--Effect of Temperature on Fishes.--Transportation of Fishes.--Reproduction of Lost Parts.--Monstrosities among Fishes. 131 CHAPTER XI. INSTINCTS, HABITS, AND ADAPTATIONS. The Habits of Fishes.--Irritability of Animals.--Nerve-cells and Fibers.--The Brain or Sensorium.--Reflex Action.--Instinct.--Classification of Instincts.--Variability of Instincts.--Adaptations to Environment.--Flight of Fishes.--Quiescent Fishes.--Migratory Fishes.--Anadromous Fishes.--Pugnacity of Fishes.--Fear and Anger in Fishes.--Calling the Fishes.--Sounds of Fishes.--Lurking Fishes.--The Unsymmetrical Eyes of the Flounder.--Carrying Eggs in the Mouth. 152 CHAPTER XII. ADAPTATIONS OF FISHES. Spines of the Catfishes.--Venomous Spines.--The Lancet of the Surgeon-fish.--Spines of the Sting-ray.--Protection through Poisonous Flesh of Fishes.--Electric Fishes.--Photophores or Luminous Organs.--Photophores in the Iniomous Fishes.--Photophores of Porichthys.--Globefishes.--Remoras.--Sucking-disks of Clingfishes.--Lampreys and Hogfishes.--The Swordfishes.--The Paddle-fishes.--The Sawfishes.--Peculiarities of Jaws and Teeth.--The Angler-fishes.--Relation of Number of Vertebræ to Temperature, and the Struggle for Existence.--Number of Vertebræ: Soft-rayed Fishes; Spiny-rayed Fishes; Fresh-water Fishes; Pelagic Fishes.--Variations in Fin-rays.--Relation of Numbers to Conditions of Life.--Degeneration of Structures.--Conditions of Evolution among Fishes. 179 CHAPTER XIII. COLORS OF FISHES. Pigmentation.--Protective Coloration.--Protective Markings.--Sexual Coloration.--Nuptial Coloration.--Coral-reef Fishes.--Recognition Marks.--Intensity of Coloration.--Fading of Pigments in Spirits.--Variation in Pattern. 226 CHAPTER XIV. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES. Zoogeography.--General Laws of Distribution.--Species Absent through Barriers.--Species Absent through Failure to Maintain Foothold.--Species Changed through Natural Selection.--Extinction of Species.--Barriers Checking Movements of Marine Species.--Temperature the Central Fact in Distribution.--Agency of Ocean Currents.--Centers of Distribution.--Distribution of Marine Fishes.--Pelagic Fishes.--Bassalian Fishes.--Littoral Fishes.--Distribution of Littoral Fishes by Coast Lines.--Minor Faunal Areas.--Equatorial Fishes most Specialized.--Realms of Distribution of Fresh-water Fishes.--Northern Zone.--Equatorial Zone.--Southern Zone.--Origin of the New Zealand Fauna. 237 CHAPTER XV. ISTHMUS BARRIERS SEPARATING FISH FAUNAS. The Isthmus of Suez.--The Fish Fauna of Japan.--Fresh-water Faunas of Japan.--Faunal Areas of Marine Fishes of Japan.--Resemblance of Japanese and Mediterranean Fish Faunas.--Significance of Resemblances.--Differences between Japanese and Mediterranean Fish Faunas.--Source of Faunal Resemblances.--Effects of Direction of Shore Lines.--Numbers of Genera in Different Faunas.--Significance of Rare Forms.--Distribution of Shore-fishes.--Extension of Indian Fauna.--The Isthmus of Suez as a Barrier to Distribution.--Geological Evidences of Submergence of Isthmus of Suez.--The Cape of Good Hope as a Barrier to Fishes.--Relations of Japan to the Mediterranean Explained by Present Conditions.--The Isthmus of Panama as a Barrier to Distribution.--Unlikeness of Species on the Shores of the Isthmus of Panama.--Views of Dr. Günther on the Isthmus of Panama.--Catalogue of Fishes of Panama.--Conclusions of Evermann & Jenkins.--Conclusions of Dr. Hill.--Final Hypothesis as to Panama. 255 CHAPTER XVI. DISPERSION OF FRESH-WATER FISHES. The Dispersion of Fishes.--The Problem of Oatka Creek.--Generalizations as to Dispersion.--Questions Raised by Agassiz.--Conclusions of Cope.--Questions Raised by Cope.--Views of Günther.--Fresh-water Fishes of North America.--Characters of Species.--Meaning of Species.--Special Creation Impossible.--Origin of American Species of Fishes. 282 CHAPTER XVII. DISPERSION OF FRESH-WATER FISHES. (_Continued._) Barriers to Dispersion of Fresh-water Fishes: Local Barriers.--Favorable Waters Have Most Species.--Watersheds.--How Fishes Cross Watersheds.--The Suletind.--The Cassiquiare.--Two-Ocean Pass.--Mountain Chains.--Upland Fishes.--Lowland Fishes.--Cuban Fishes.--Swampy Watersheds.--The Great Basin of Utah.--Arctic Species in Lakes.--Causes of Dispersion still in Operation. 297 CHAPTER XVIII. FISHES AS FOOD FOR MAN. The Flesh of Fishes.--Relative Rank of Food-fishes.--Abundance of Food-fishes.--Variety of Tropical Fishes.--Economic Fisheries.--Angling. 320 CHAPTER XIX. DISEASES OF FISHES. Contagious Diseases: Crustacean Parasites.--Myxosporidia or Parasitic Protozoa.--Parasitic Worms: Trematodes, Cestodes.--The Worm of the Yellowstone.--The Heart Lake Tape-worm.--Thorn-head Worms.--Nematodes.--Parasitic Fungi.--Earthquakes.--Mortality of Filefish. 340 CHAPTER XX. THE MYTHOLOGY OF FISHES. The Mermaid.--The Monkfish.--The Bishop-fish.--The Sea-serpent. 359 CHAPTER XXI. THE CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. Taxonomy.--Defects in Taxonomy.--Analogy and Homology.--Coues on Classification.--Species as Twigs of a Genealogical Tree.--Nomenclature.--The Conception of Genus and Species.--The Trunkfishes.--Trinomial Nomenclature.--Meaning of Species.--Generalization and Specialization.--High and Low Forms.--The Problem of the Highest Fishes. 367 CHAPTER XXII. THE HISTORY OF ICHTHYOLOGY. Aristotle.--Rondelet.--Marcgraf.--Osbeck.--Artedi.--Linnæus.-- Forskål.--Risso.--Bloch.--Lacépède.--Cuvier.--Valenciennes.-- Agassiz.--Bonaparte.--Günther.--Boulenger.--Le Sueur.--Müller.-- Gill.--Cope.--Lütken.--Steindachner.--Vaillant.--Bleeker.-- Schlegel.--Poey.--Day.--Baird.--Garman.--Gilbert.--Evermann.-- Eigenmann.--Zittel.--Traquair.--Woodward.--Dean.--Eastman.--Hay.-- Gegenbaur.--Balfour.--Parker.--Dollo. 387 CHAPTER XXIII. THE COLLECTION OF FISHES. How to Secure Fishes.--How to Preserve Fishes.--Value of Formalin.--Records of Fishes.--Eternal Vigilance. 429 CHAPTER XXIV. THE EVOLUTION OF FISHES. The Geological Distribution of Fishes.--The Earliest Sharks.--Devonian Fishes.--Carboniferous Fishes.--Mesozoic Fishes.--Tertiary Fishes.--Factors of Extinction.--Fossilization of a Fish.--The Earliest Fishes.--The Cyclostomes.--The Ostracophores.--The Arthrodires.--The Sharks.--Origin of the Shark.--The Chimæras.--The Dipnoans.--The Crossopterygians.--The Actinopteri.--The Bony Fishes. 435 CHAPTER XXV. THE PROTOCHORDATA. The Chordate Animals.--The Protochordates.--Other Terms Used in Classification.--The Enteropneusta.--Classification of Enteropneusta.--Family Harrimaniidæ.--Balanoglossidæ.--Low Organization of Harrimaniidæ. 460 CHAPTER XXVI. THE TUNICATES, OR ASCIDIANS. Structure of Tunicates.--Development of Tunicates.--Reproduction of Tunicates.--Habits of Tunicates.--Larvacea.--Ascidiacea.--Thaliacea.--Origin of Tunicates.--Degeneration of Tunicates. 467 CHAPTER XXVII. THE LEPTOCARDII, OR LANCELETS. The Lancelet.--Habits of Lancelets.--Species of Lancelets.--Origin of Lancelets. 482 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CYCLOSTOMES, OR LAMPREYS. The Lampreys.--Structure of the Lamprey.--Supposed Extinct Cyclostomes.--Conodontes.--Orders of Cyclostomes.--The Hyperotreta, or Hagfishes.--The Hyperoartia, or Lampreys.--Food of Lampreys.--Metamorphosis of Lampreys.--Mischief Done by Lampreys.--Migration or "Running" of Lampreys.--Requisite Conditions for Spawning with Lampreys.--The Spawning Process with Lampreys.--What Becomes of Lampreys after Spawning? 486 CHAPTER XXIX. THE CLASS ELASMOBRANCHII, OR SHARK-LIKE FISHES. The Sharks.--Characters of Elasmobranchs.--Classification of Elasmobranchs.--Subclasses of Elasmobranchs.--The Selachii.--Hasse's Classification of Elasmobranchs.--Other Classifications of Elasmobranchs.--Primitive Sharks.--Order Pleuropterygii.--Order Acanthodii.--Dean on Acanthodii.--Order Ichthyotomi. 506 CHAPTER XXX. THE TRUE SHARKS. Order Notidani.--Family Hexanchidæ.--Family Chlamydoselachidæ.--Order Asterospondyli.--Suborder Cestraciontes.--Family Heterodontidæ.--Edestus and its Allies.--Onchus.--Family Cochliodontidæ.--Suborder Galei.--Family Scyliorhinidæ.--The Lamnoid, or Mackerel-sharks.--Family Mitsukurinidæ, the Goblin-sharks.--Family Alopiidæ, or Thresher-sharks.--Family Pseudotriakidæ.--Family Lamnidæ.--Man-eating Sharks.--Family Cetorhinidæ, or Basking Sharks.--Family Rhineodontidæ.--The Carcharioid Sharks, or Requins.--Family Sphyrnidæ, or Hammer-head Sharks.--The Order of Tectospondyli.--Suborder Cyclospondyli.--Family Squalidæ.--Family Dalatiidæ.--Family Echinorhinidæ.--Suborder Rhinæ.--Family Pristiophoridæ, or Saw-sharks.--Suborder Batoidei, or Rays.--Pristididæ, or Sawfishes.--Rhinobatidæ, or Guitar-fishes.--Rajidæ, or Skates.--Narcobatidæ, or Torpedoes.--Petalodontidæ.--Dasyatidæ, or Sting-rays.--Myliobatidæ.--Family Psammodontidæ.--Family Mobulidæ. 523 CHAPTER XXXI. THE HOLOCEPHALI, OR CHIMÆRAS. The Chimæras.--Relationship of Chimæras.--Family Chimæridæ.--Rhinochimæridæ.--Extinct Chimæroids.--Ichthyodorulites. 561 CHAPTER XXXII. THE CLASS OSTRACOPHORI. Ostracophores.--Nature of Ostracophores.--Orders of Ostracophores.--Order Heterostraci.--Order Osteostraci.--Order Antiarcha.--Order Anaspida. 568 CHAPTER XXXIII. ARTHRODIRES. The Arthrodires.--Occurrence of Arthrodires.--Arthrognathi.--Anarthrodira.--Stegothalami.-- Arthrodira.--Temnothoraci.--Arthrothoraci.--Relations of Arthrodires.--Suborder Cycliæ.--Palæospondylus.--Gill on Palæospondylus.--Views as to the Relationships of Palæospondylus: Huxley, Traquair, 1890. Traquair, 1893. Traquair, 1897. Smith Woodward, 1892. Dawson, 1893. Gill, 1896. Dean, 1896. Dean, 1898. Parker & Haswell, 1897. Gegenbaur, 1898.--Relationships of Palæospondylus 581 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE CROSSOPTERYGII. Class Teleostomi.--Subclass Crossopterygii.--Order of Amphibians.--The Fins of Crossopterygians.--Orders of Crossopterygians.--Haplistia.--Rhipidistia.--Megalichthyidæ.--Order Actinistia.--Order Cladistia.--The Polypteridæ 598 CHAPTER XXXV. SUBCLASS DIPNEUSTI, OR LUNGFISHES. The Lungfishes.--Classification of Dipnoans.--Order Ctenodipterini.--Order Sirenoidei.--Family Ceratodontidæ.--Development of Neoceratodus.--Lepidosirenidæ.--Kerr on the Habits of Lepidosiren 609 FOOTNOTES: [1] For most of this list of errata I am indebted to the kindly interest of Dr. B. W. Evermann. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOL. I. PAGE _Lepomis megalotis_, Long-eared Sunfish 2 _Lepomis megalotis_, Long-eared Sunfish 4 _Eupomotis gibbosus_, Common Sunfish 7 _Ozorthe dictyogramma_, a Japanese Blenny 9 _Eupomotis gibbosus_, Common Sunfish 13 _Monocentris japonicas_, Pine-cone Fish 16 _Diodon hystrix_, Porcupine-fish 17 _Nemichthys avocetta_, Thread-eel 17 _Hippocampus hudsonius_, Sea-horse 17 _Peprilus paru_, Harvest-fish 18 _Lophius litulon_, Anko or Fishing-frog 18 _Epinephelus adscensionis_, Rock-hind or Cabra Mora 20 Scales of _Acanthoessus bronni_ 21 Cycloid Scale 22 _Porichthys porosissimus_, Singing-fish 23 _Apomotis cyanellus_, Blue-green Sunfish 27 _Chiasmodon niger_, Black Swallower 29 Jaws of a Parrot-fish, _Sparisoma aurofrenatum_ 30 _Archosargus probatocephalus_, Sheepshead 31 _Campostoma anomalum_, Stone-roller 33 _Roccus lineatus_, Striped Bass 35 _Roccus lineatus._ Lateral View of Cranium 36 _Roccus lineatus._ Superior View of Cranium 37 _Roccus lineatus._ Inferior View of Cranium 38 _Roccus lineatus_. Posterior View of Cranium 40 _Roccus lineatus._ Face-bones, Shoulder and Pelvic Girdles, and Hyoid Arch 42 Lower Jaw of _Amia calva_, showing Gular Plate 43 _Roccus lineatus._ Branchial Arches 46 Pharyngeal Bone and Teeth of European Chub, _Leuciscus cephalus_ 47 Upper Pharyngeals of Parrot-fish, _Scarus strongylocephalus_ 47 Lower Pharyngeal Teeth of Parrot-fish, _Scarus strongylocephalus_ 47 Pharyngeals of Italian Parrot-fish, _Sparisoma cretense_ 48 _Roccus lineatus_, Vertebral Column and Appendages 48 Basal Bone of Dorsal Fin, _Holoptychius leptopterus_ 49 Inner View of Shoulder-girdle of Buffalo-fish, _Ictiobus bubalus_ 51 _Pterophryne tumida_, Sargassum-fish. 52 Shoulder-girdle of _Sebastolobus alascanus_. 52 Cranium of _Sebastolobus alascanus_. 53 Lower Jaw and Palate of _Sebastolobus alascanus_. 54 Maxillary and Premaxillary of _Sebastolobus alascanus_. 55 Part of Skeleton of _Selene vomer_. 55 Hyostylic Skull of _Chiloscyllium indicum_, a Scyliorhinoid Shark. 56 Skull of _Heptranchias indicus_, a Notidanoid Shark. 56 Basal Bones of Pectoral Fin of Monkfish, _Squatina_. 56 Pectoral Fin of _Heterodontus philippi_. 57 Pectoral Fin of _Heptranchias indicus_. 57 Shoulder-girdle of a Flounder, _Paralichthys californicus_. 58 Shoulder-girdle of a Toadfish, _Batrachoides pacifici_. 59 Shoulder-girdle of a Garfish, _Tylosurus fodiator_. 59 Shoulder-girdle of a Hake, _Merluccius productus_. 60 _Cladoselache fyleri_, Restored. 65 Fold-like Pectoral and Ventral Fins of _Cladoselache fyleri_. 65 Pectoral Fin of a Shark, _Chiloscyllium_. 66 Skull and Shoulder-girdle of _Neoceratodus forsteri_, showing archipterygium. 68 _Acanthoessus wardi_. 69 Shoulder-girdle of _Acanthoessus_. 69 Pectoral Fin of _Pleuracanthus_. 69 Shoulder-girdle of _Polypterus bichir_. 70 Arm of a Frog. 71 _Pleuracanthus decheni_. 74 Embryos of _Heterodontus japonicas_, a Cestraciont Shark. 75 _Polypterus congicus_, a Crossopterygian Fish with External Gills. 78 Heterocercal Tail of Sturgeon, _Acipenser sturio_. 80 Heterocercal Tail of Bowfin, _Amia calva_. 82 Heterocercal Tail of Garpike, _Lepisosteus osseus_. 82 _Coryphænoides carapinus_, showing Leptocercal Tail. 83 Heterocercal Tail of Young Trout, _Salmo fario_. 83 Isocercal Tail of Hake, _Merluccius productus_. 84 Homocercal Tail of a Flounder, _Paralichthys californicus_. 84 Gephyrocercal Tail of _Mola mola_. 85 Shoulder-girdle of _Amia calva_. 86 Shoulder-girdle of a Sea-catfish, _Selenaspis dowi_. 86 Clavicles of a Sea-catfish, _Selenaspis dowi_. 87 Shoulder-girdle of a Batfish, _Ogcocephalus radiatus_. 88 Shoulder-girdle of a Threadfin, _Polydactylus approximans_. 89 Gill-basket of Lamprey. 92 Weberian Apparatus and Air-bladder of Carp. 93 Brain of a Shark, _Squatina squatina_. 110 Brain of _Chimæra monstrosa_. 110 Brain of _Polypterus annectens_. 110 Brain of a Perch, _Perca flavescens_. 111 _Petromyzon marinus unicolor._ Head of Lake Lamprey, showing Pineal Body. 111 _Chologaster cornutus_, Dismal-swamp Fish. 116 _Typhlichthys subterraneus_, Blind Cavefish. 116 _Anableps dovii_, Four-eyed Fish. 117 _Ipnops murrayi._ 118 _Boleophthalmus chinensis_, Pond-skipper. 118 _Lampetra wilderi_, Brook Lamprey. 120 _Branchiostoma lanceolatum_, European Lancelet. 120 _Pseudupeneus maculatus_, Goatfish. 122 _Xiphophorus helleri_, Sword-tail Minnow. 124 _Cymatogaster aggregatus_, White Surf-fish, Viviparous, with Young. 125 _Goodea luitpoldi_, a Viviparous Fish. 126 Egg of _Callorhynchus antarcticus_, the Bottle-nosed Chimæra. 127 Egg of the Hagfish, _Myxine limosa_. 127 Egg of Port Jackson Shark, _Heterodontus philippi_. 128 Development of Sea-bass, _Centropristes striatus_. 135 _Centropristes striatus_, Sea-bass. 137 _Xiphias gladius_, Young Sword-fish. 139 _Xiphias gladius_, Sword-fish. 139 Larva of the Sail-fish, _Istiophorus_, Very Young. 140 Larva of Brook Lamprey, _Lampetra wilderi_, before Transformation. 140 _Anguilla chrisypa_, Common Eel. 140 Larva of Common Eel, _Anguilla chrisypa_, called _Leptocephalus grassii_. 141 Larva of Sturgeon, _Acipenser sturio_. 141 Larva of _Chætodon sedentarius_. 142 _Chætodon capistratus_, Butterfly-fish. 142 _Mola mola_, Very Early Larval Stage of Headfish, called _Centaurus boöps_. 143 _Mola mola_, Early Larval Stage called _Molacanthus nummularis_. 144 _Mola mola_, Advanced Larval Stage. 144 _Mola mola_, Headfish, Adult. 146 _Albula vulpes_, Transformation of Ladyfish from Larva to Young. 147 Development of the Horsehead-fish, _Selene vomer_. 148 _Salanx hyalocranius_, Ice-fish. 149 _Dallia pectoralis_, Alaska Blackfish. 149 _Ophiocephalus barca_, Snake-headed China-fish. 150 _Carassius auratus_, Monstrous Goldfish. 151 Jaws of _Nemichthys avocetta_. 156 _Cypsilurus californicus_, Flying-fish. 157 _Ammocrypta clara_, Sand-darter. 158 _Fierasfer acus_, Pearl-fish, issuing from a Holothurian. 159 _Gobiomorus gronovii_, Portuguese Man-of-war Fish. 160 Tide Pools of Misaki. 161 _Ptychocheilus oregonensis_, Squaw-fish. 162 _Ptychocheilus grandis_, Squaw-fish, Stranded as the Water Falls. 164 Larval Stages of _Platophrys podas_, a Flounder of the Mediterranean, showing Migration of Eye. 174 _Platophrys lunatus_, the Wide-eyed Flounder. 175 Young Flounder Just Hatched, with Symmetrical Eyes. 175 _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_, Larval Flounder. 176 _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_, Larval Flounder (more advanced stage). 176 Face View of Recently-hatched Flounder. 177 _Schilbeodes furiosus_, Mad-Tom. 179 _Emmydrichthys vulcanus_, Black Nohu or Poison-fish. 180 _Teuthis bahianus_, Brown Tang. 181 _Stephanolepis hispidus_, Common Filefish. 182 _Tetraodon meleagris._ 183 _Balistes carolinensis_, the Trigger-fish. 184 _Narcine brasiliensis_, Numbfish. 185 _Torpedo electricus_, Electric Catfish. 186 _Astroscopus guttatus_, Star-gazer. 187 _Æthoprora lucida_, Headlight-fish. 188 _Corynolophus reinhardti_, showing Luminous Bulb. 188 _Etmopterus lucifer._ 189 _Argyropelecus olfersi._ 190 Luminous Organs and Lateral Line of Midshipman, _Porichthys notatus_. 192 Cross-section of Ventral Phosphorescent Organ of Midshipman, _Porichthys notatus_. 193 Section of Deeper Portion of Phosphorescent Organ, _Porichthys notatus_. 194 _Leptecheneis naucrates_, Sucking-fish or Pegador. 197 _Caularchus mæandricus_, Clingfish. 198 _Polistotrema stouti_, Hagfish. 199 _Pristis zysron_, Indian Sawfish. 200 _Pristiophorus japonicus_, Saw-shark. 201 Skeleton of Pike, _Esox lucius_. 203 Skeleton of Red Rockfish, _Sebastodes miniatus_. 214 Skeleton of a Spiny-rayed Fish of the Tropics, _Holacanthus ciliaris_. 214 Skeleton of the Cowfish, _Lactophrys tricornis_. 215 _Crystallias matsushimæ_, Liparid. 218 _Sebastichthys maliger_, Yellow-backed Rockfish. 218 _Myoxocephalus scorpius_, European Sculpin. 219 _Hemitripterus americanus_, Sea-raven. 220 _Cyclopterus lumpus_, Lumpfish. 220 _Psychrolutes paradoxus_, Sleek Sculpin. 221 _Pallasina barbata_, Agonoid-fish. 221 _Amblyopsis spelæus_, Blindfish of the Mammoth Cave. 221 _Lucifuga subterranea_, Blind Brotula. 222 _Hypsypops rubicunda_, Garibaldi. 227 _Synanceia verrucosa_, Gofu or Poison-fish. 229 _Alticus saliens_, Lizard-skipper. 230 _Etheostoma camurum_, Blue-breasted Darter. 231 _Liuranus semicinctus_ and _Chlevastes colubrinus_, Snake-eels. 233 Coral Reef at Apia. 234 _Rudarius ercodes_, Japanese Filefish. 241 _Tetraodon setosus_, Globefish. 244 _Dasyatis sabina_, Sting-ray. 246 _Diplesion blennioides_, Green-sided Darter. 247 _Hippocampus mohnikei_, Japanese Sea-horse. 250 _Archoplites interruptus_, Sacramento Perch. 258 Map of the Continents, Eocene Time. 270 _Caulophryne jordani_, Deep-sea Fish of Gulf Stream. 276 _Exerpes asper_, Fish of Rock-pools, Mexico. 276 _Xenocys jessiæ._ 279 _Ictalurus punctatus_, Channel Catfish. 280 Drawing the Net on the Beach of Hilo, Hawaii. 281 _Semotilus atromaculatus_, Horned Dace. 285 _Leuciscus lineatus_, Chub of the Great Basin. 287 _Melletes papilio_, Butterfly Sculpin. 288 _Scartichthys enosimæ_, a Fish of the Rock-pools of the Sacred Island of Enoshima, Japan. 294 _Halichoeres bivittatus_, the Slippery Dick. 297 _Peristedion miniatum._ 299 Outlet of Lake Bonneville. 303 _Hypocritichthys analis_, Silver Surf-fish. 309 _Erimyzon sucetta_, Creekfish or Chub-sucker. 315 _Thaleichthys pretiosus_, Eulachon or Ulchen. 320 _Plecoglossus altivelis_, the Japanese Ayu. 321 _Coregonus clupeiformis_, the Whitefish. 321 _Mullus auratus_, the Golden Surmullet. 322 _Scomberomorus maculatus_, the Spanish Mackerel. 322 _Lampris luna_, the Opah or Moonfish. 323 _Pomatomus saltatrix_, the Bluefish. 324 _Centropomus undecimalis_, the Robalo. 324 _Chætodipterus faber_, the Spadefish. 325 _Micropterus dolomieu_, the Small-mouthed Black Bass. 325 _Salvelinus fontinalis_, the Speckled Trout. 326 _Salmo irideus_, the Rainbow Trout. 326 _Salvelinus oquassa_, the Rangeley Trout. 326 _Salmo gairdneri_, the Steelhead Trout. 327 _Salmo henshawi_, the Tahoe Trout. 327 _Salvelinus malma_, the Dolly Varden Trout. 327 _Thymallus signifer_, the Alaska Grayling. 328 _Esox lucius_, the Pike. 328 _Pleurogrammus monopterygius_, the Atka-fish. 328 _Chirostoma humboldtianum_, the Pescado blanco. 329 _Pseudupeneus maculatus_, the Red Goatfish. 329 _Pseudoscarus guacamaia_, Great Parrot-fish. 330 _Mugil cephalus_, Striped Mullet. 330 _Lutianus analis_, Mutton-snapper. 331 _Clupea harengus_, Herring. 331 _Gadus callarias_, Codfish. 331 _Scomber scombrus_, Mackerel. 332 _Hippoglossus hippoglossus_, Halibut. 332 Fishing for Ayu with Cormorants. 333 Fishing for Ayu. Emptying Pouch of Cormorant. 335 Fishing for Tai, Tokyo Bay. 338 _Brevoortia tyrannus_, Menhaden. 340 _Exonautes unicolor_, Australian Flying-fish. 341 _Rhinichthys atronasus_, Black-nosed Dace. 342 _Notropis hudsonius_, White Shiner. 343 _Ameiurus catus_, White Catfish. 344 _Catostomus ardens_, Sucker. 348 _Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_, Quinnat Salmon. 354 _Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_, Young Male. 355 _Ameiurus nebulosus_, Catfishes. 358 "Le Monstre Marin en Habit de Moine". 360 "Le Monstre Marin en Habit d'Évêque". 361 _Regalecus russelli_, Oarfish. 362 _Regalecus glesne_, Glesnæs Oarfish. 363 _Nemichthys avocetta_, Thread-eel. 365 _Lactophrys tricornis_, Horned Trunkfish. 373 _Ostracion cornutum_, Horned Trunkfish. 376 _Lactophrys bicaudalis_, Spotted Trunkfish. 377 _Lactophrys bicaudalis_, Spotted Trunkfish (Face). 377 _Lactophrys triqueter_, Spineless Trunkfish. 378 _Lactophrys trigonus_, Hornless Trunkfish. 378 _Lactophrys trigonus_, Hornless Trunkfish (Face). 379 Bernard Germain de Lacépède. 399 Georges Dagobert Cuvier. 399 Louis Agassiz. 399 Johannes Müller. 399 Albert Günther. 403 Franz Steindachner. 403 George Albert Boulenger. 403 Robert Collett. 403 Spencer Fullerton Baird. 407 Edward Drinker Cope. 407 Theodore Nicholas Gill. 407 George Brown Goode. 407 Johann Reinhardt. 409 Edward Waller Claypole. 409 Carlos Berg. 409 Edgar R. Waite. 409 Felipe Poey y Aloy. 413 Léon Vaillant. 413 Louis Dollo. 413 Decio Vinciguerra. 413 Bashford Dean. 417 Kakichi Mitsukuri. 417 Carl H. Eigenmann. 417 Franz Hilgendorf. 417 David Starr Jordan. 421 Herbert Edson Copeland. 421 Charles Henry Gilbert. 421 Barton Warren Evermann. 421 Ramsay Heatley Traquair. 425 Arthur Smith Woodward. 425 Karl A. Zittel. 425 Charles R. Eastman. 425 Fragment of Sandstone from Ordovician Deposits. 435 Fossil Fish Remains from Ordovician Rocks. 436 _Dipterus valenciennesi._ 437 _Hoplopteryx lewesiensis._ 438 _Paratrachichthys prosthemius_, Berycoid fish. 439 _Cypsilurus heterurus_, Flying-fish. 440 _Lutianidæ_, Schoolmaster Snapper. 440 _Pleuronichthys decurrens_, Decurrent Flounder. 441 _Cephalaspis lyelli_, Ostracophore. 444 _Dinichthys intermedius_, Arthrodire. 445 _Lamna cornubica_, Mackerel-shark or Salmon-shark. 447 _Raja stellulata_, Star-spined Ray. 448 _Harriotta raleighiana_, Deep-sea Chimæra. 449 _Dipterus valenciennesi_, Extinct Dipnoan. 449 _Holoptychius giganteus_, Extinct Crossopterygian. 451 _Platysomus gibbosus_, Ancient Ganoid fish. 452 _Lepisosteus platystomus_, Short-nosed Gar. 452 _Palæoniscum macropomum_, Primitive Ganoid fish. 453 _Diplomystus humilis_, Fossil Herring. 453 _Holcolepis lewesiensis_. 454 _Elops saurus_, Ten-pounder. 454 _Apogon semilineatus_, Cardinal-fish. 455 _Pomolobus æstivalis_, Summer Herring. 455 _Bassozetus catena._ 456 _Trachicephalus uranoscopus._ 456 _Chlarias breviceps_, African Catfish. 457 _Notropis whipplii_, Silverfin. 457 _Gymnothorax moringa._ 458 _Seriola lalandi_, Amber-fish. 458 Geological Distribution of the Families of Elasmobranchs. 459 "Tornaria" Larva of _Glossobalanus minutus_. 463 _Glossobalanus minutus._ 464 _Harrimania maculosa._ 465 Development of Larval Tunicate to Fixed Condition. 471 Anatomy of Tunicate. 472 _Ascidia adhærens._ 474 _Styela yacutatensis._ 475 _Styela greeleyi._ 476 _Cynthia superba._ 476 _Botryllus magnus_, Compound Ascidian. 477 _Botryllus magnus._ 478 _Botryllus magnus_, a Single Zooid. 479 _Aplidiopsis jordani_, a Compound Ascidian. 479 _Oikopleura_, Adult Tunicate of Group Larvacea. 480 _Branchiostoma californiense_, California Lancelet. 484 Gill-basket of Lamprey. 485 _Polygnathus dubium._ 488 _Polistotrema stouti_, Hagfish. 489 _Petromyzon marinus_, Lamprey. 491 _Petromyzon marinus unicolor_, Mouth Lake Lamprey. 492 _Lampetra wilderi_, Sea Larvæ Brook Lamprey. 492 _Lampetra wilderi_, Mouth Brook Lamprey. 492 _Lampetra camtschatica_, Kamchatka Lamprey. 495 _Entosphenus tridentatus_, Oregon Lamprey. 496 _Lampetra wilderi_, Brook Lamprey. 505 Fin-spine of _Onchus tenuistriatus_. 509 Section of Vertebræ of Sharks, showing Calcification. 510 _Cladoselache fyleri._ 514 _Cladoselache fyleri_, Ventral View. 515 Teeth of _Cladoselache fyleri_. 515 _Acanthoessus wardi._ 515 _Diplacanthus crassissimus._ 517 _Climatius scutiger._ 518 _Pleuracanthus decheni._ 519 _Pleuracanthus decheni_, Restored. 520 Head-bones and Teeth of _Pleuracanthus decheni_. 520 Teeth of _Didymodus bohemicus_. 520 Shoulder-girdle and Pectoral Fins of _Cladodus neilsoni_. 521 Teeth of _Cladodus striatus_. 522 _Hexanchus griseus_, Griset or Cow-shark. 523 Teeth of _Heptranchias indicus_. 524 _Chlamydoselachus anguineus_, Frill-shark. 525 _Heterodontus francisci_, Bullhead-shark. 526 Lower Jaw of _Heterodontus philippi_. 526 Teeth of Cestraciont Sharks. 527 Egg of Port Jackson Shark, _Heterodontus philippi_. 527 Tooth of _Hybodus delabechei_. 528 Fin-spine of _Hybodus basanus_. 528 Fin-spine of _Hybodus reticulatus_. 528 Fin-spine of _Hybodus canaliculatus_. 529 Teeth of Cestraciont Sharks. 529 _Edestus vorax_, Supposed to be a Whorl of Teeth. 529 _Helicoprion bessonowi_, Teeth of. 530 Lower Jaw of _Cochliodus contortus_. 531 _Mitsukurina owstoni_, Goblin-shark. 535 _Scapanorhynchus lewisi_, Under Side of Snout. 536 Tooth of _Lamna cuspidata_. 537 _Isuropsis dekayi_, Mackerel-shark. 537 Tooth of _Isurus hastalis_. 538 _Carcharodon mega odon._ 539 _Cetorhinus maximus_, Basking-shark. 540 _Galeus zyopterus_, Soup-fin Shark. 541 _Carcharias lamia_, Cub-shark. 542 Teeth of _Corax pristodontus_. 543 _Sphyrna zygæna_, Hammer-head Shark. 544 _Squalus acanthias_, Dogfish. 545 _Etmopterus lucifer._ 546 Brain of Monkfish, _Squatina squatina_. 547 _Pristiophorus japonicus_, Saw-shark. 548 _Pristis pectinatus_, Sawfish. 550 _Rhinobatus lentiginosus_, Guitar-fish. 551 _Raja erinacea_, Common Skate. 552 _Narcine brasiliensis_, Numbfish. 553 Teeth of _Janassa linguæformis_. 554 _Polyrhizodus radicans._ 555 _Dasyatis sabina_, Sting-ray. 556 _Aëtobatis narinari_, Eagle-ray. 558 _Manta birostris_, Devil-ray or Sea-devil. 559 Skeleton of _Chimæra monstrosa_. 564 _Chimæra colliei_, Elephant-fish. 565 _Odontotodus schrencki_, Ventral Side. 570 _Odontotodus schrencki_, Dorsal Side. 570 Head of _Odontotodus schrencki_, from the Side. 571 _Limulus polyphemus_, Horseshoe Crab. 572 _Lanarkia spinosa._ 574 _Drepanaspis gmundenensis._ 575 _Pteraspis rostrata._ 575 _Cephalaspis lyelli_, Restored. 576 _Cephalaspis dawsoni._ 577 _Pterichthyodes testudinarius._ 578 _Pterichthyodes testudinarius_, Side View. 579 _Birkenia elegans._ 579 _Lasianius problematicus._ 580 _Coccosteus cuspidatus_, Restored. 582 Jaws of _Dinichthys hertzeri_. 583 _Dinichthys intermedius_, an Arthrodire. 584 _Palæospondylus gunni._ 591 Shoulder-girdle of _Polypterus bichir_. 600 Arm of a Frog. 601 _Polypterus congicus_, a Crossopterygian Fish. 602 Basal Bone of Dorsal Fin, _Holoptychius leptopterus_. 603 _Gyroptychius microlepidotus._ 604 _Coelacanthus elegans_, showing Air-bladder. 604 _Undina gulo._ 605 Lower Jaw of _Polypterus bichir_, from Below. 606 _Polypterus congicus._ 607 _Polypterus delhezi._ 607 _Erpetoichthys calabaricus._ 608 Shoulder-girdle of _Neoceratodus forsteri_. 609 _Phaneropleuron andersoni._ 613 Teeth of _Ceratodus runcinatus_. 614 _Neoceratodus forsteri._ 614 Archipterygium of _Neoceratodus forsteri_. 614 Upper jaw of _Neoceratodus forsteri_. 615 Lower Jaw of _Neoceratodus forsteri_. 616 Adult Male of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_. 619 _Lepidosiren paradoxa._ Embryo Three Days before Hatching; Larva Thirteen Days after Hatching. 620 Larva of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ Forty Days after Hatching. 621 Larva of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ Thirty Days after Hatching. 621 Larva of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ Three Months after Hatching. 621 _Protopterus dolloi._ 622 [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Long-eared Sunfish, _Lepomis megalotis_ (Rafinesque). (From life by R. W. Shufeldt.)--Page 2.] CHAPTER I THE LIFE OF THE FISH A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF THE LONG-EARED SUNFISH, _LEPOMIS MEGALOTIS_ =What is a Fish?=--A fish is a back-boned animal which lives in the water and cannot ever live very long anywhere else. Its ancestors have always dwelt in water, and most likely its descendents will forever follow their example. So, as the water is a region very different from the fields or the woods, a fish in form and structure must be quite unlike all the beasts and birds that walk or creep or fly above ground, breathing air and being fitted to live in it. There are a great many kinds of animals called fishes, but in this all of them agree: all have some sort of a back-bone, all of them breathe their life long by means of gills, and none have fingers or toes with which to creep about on land. =The Long-eared Sunfish.=--If we would understand a fish, we must first go and catch one. This is not very hard to do, for there are plenty of them in the little rushing brook or among the lilies of the pond. Let us take a small hook, put on it an angleworm or a grasshopper,--no need to seek an elaborate artificial fly,--and we will go out to the old "swimming-hole" or the deep eddy at the root of the old stump where the stream has gnawed away the bank in changing its course. Here we will find fishes, and one of them will take the bait very soon. In one part of the country the first fish that bites will be different from the first one taken in some other. But as we are fishing in the United States, we will locate our brook in the centre of population of our country. This will be to the northwest of Cincinnati, among the low wooded hills from which clear brooks flow over gravelly bottoms toward the Ohio River. Here we will catch sunfishes of certain species, or maybe rock bass or catfish: any of these will do for our purpose. But one of our sunfishes is especially beautiful--mottled blue and golden and scarlet, with a long, black, ear-like appendage backward from his gill-covers--and this one we will keep and hold for our first lesson in fishes. It is a small fish, not longer than your hand most likely, but it can take the bait as savagely as the best, swimming away with it with such force that you might think from the vigor of its pull that you have a pickerel or a bass. But when it comes out of the water you see a little, flapping, unhappy, living plate of brown and blue and orange, with fins wide-spread and eyes red with rage. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Long-eared Sunfish, _Lepomis megalotis_ (Rafinesque). (From Clear Creek, Bloomington, Indiana.) Family _Centrarchidæ_.] =Form of the Fish.=--And now we have put the fish into a bucket of water, where it lies close to the bottom. Then we take it home and place it in an aquarium, and for the first time we have a chance to see what it is like. We see that its body is almost elliptical in outline, but with flat sides and shaped on the lower parts very much like a boat. This form we see is such as to enable it to part the water as it swims. We notice that its progress comes through the sculling motion of its broad, flat tail. =Face of a Fish.=--When we look at the sunfish from the front we see that it has a sort of face, not unlike that of higher animals. The big eyes, one on each side, stand out without eyelids, but the fish can move them at will, so that once in a while he seems to wink. There isn't much of a nose between the eyes, but the mouth is very evident, and the fish opens and shuts it as it breathes. We soon see that it breathes water, taking it in through the mouth and letting it flow over the gills, and then out through the opening behind the gill-covers. =How the Fish Breathes.=--If we take another fish--for we shall not kill this one--we shall see that in its throat, behind the mouth-cavity, there are four rib-like bones on each side, above the beginning of the gullet. These are the gill-arches, and on each one of them there is a pair of rows of red fringes called the gills. Into each of these fringes runs a blood-vessel. As the water passes over it the oxygen it contains is absorbed through the skin of the gill-fringe into the blood, which thus becomes purified. In the same manner the impurities of the blood pass out into the water, and go out through the gill-openings behind. The fish needs to breathe just as we do, though the apparatus of breathing is not the same. Just as the air becomes loaded with impurities when many people breathe it, so does the water in our jar or aquarium become foul if it is breathed over and over again by fishes. When a fish finds the water bad he comes to the surface to gulp air, but his gills are not well fitted to use undissolved air as a substitute for that contained in water. The rush of a stream through the air purifies the water, and so again does the growth of water plants, for these in the sunshine absorb and break up carbonic acid gas, and throw out oxygen into the water. =Teeth of the Fish.=--On the inner side of the gill-arch we find some little projections which serve as strainers to the water. These are called gill-rakers. In our sunfish they are short and thick, seeming not to amount to much but in a herring they are very long and numerous. Behind the gills, at the opening of the gullet, are some roundish bones armed with short, thick teeth. These are called pharyngeals. They form a sort of jaws in the throat, and they are useful in helping the little fish to crack shells. If we look at the mouth of our live fish, we shall find that when it breathes or bites it moves the lower jaw very much as a dog does. But it can move the upper jaw, too, a little, and that by pushing it out in a queer fashion, as though it were thrust out of a sheath and then drawn in. If we look at our dead fish, we shall see that the upper jaw divides in the middle and has two bones on each side. On one bone are rows of little teeth, while the other bone that lies behind it has no teeth at all. The lower jaw has little teeth like those of the upper jaw, and there is a patch of teeth on the roof of the mouth also. In some sunfishes there are three little patches, the vomer in the middle and the palatines on either side. The tongue of the fish is flat and gristly. It cannot move it, scarce even taste its food with it, nor can it use it for making a noise. The unruly member of a fish is not its tongue, but its tail. =How the Fish Sees.=--To come back to the fish's eye again. We say that it has no eyelids, and so, if it ever goes to sleep, it must keep its eyes wide open. The iris is brown or red. The pupil is round, and if we could cut open the eye we should see that the crystalline lens is almost a perfect sphere, much more convex than the lens in land animals. We shall learn that this is necessary for the fish to see under water. It takes a very convex lens or even one perfectly round to form images from rays of light passing through the water, because the lens is but little more dense than the water itself. This makes the fish near-sighted. He cannot see clearly anything out of water or at a distance. Thus he has learned that when, in water or out, he sees anything moving quickly it is probably something dangerous, and the thing for him to do is to swim away and hide as swiftly as possible. In front of the eye are the nostrils, on each side a pair of openings. But they lead not into tubes, but into a little cup lined with delicate pink tissues and the branching nerves of smell. The organ of smell in nearly all fishes is a closed sac, and the fish does not use the nostrils at all in breathing. But they can indicate the presence of anything in the water which is good to eat, and eating is about the only thing a fish cares for. =Color of the Fish.=--Behind the eye there are several bones on the side of the head which are more or less distinct from the skull itself. These are called membrane bones because they are formed of membrane which has become bony by the deposition in it of salts of lime. One of these is called the opercle, or gill-cover, and before it, forming a right angle, is the preopercle, or false gill-cover. On our sunfish we see that the opercle ends behind in a long and narrow flap, which looks like an ear. This is black in color, with an edging of scarlet as though a drop of blood had spread along its margin. When the fish is in the water its back is dark greenish-looking, like the weeds and the sticks in the bottom, so that we cannot see it very plainly. This is the way the fish looks to the fishhawks or herons in the air above it who may come to the stream to look for fish. Those fishes which from above look most like the bottom can most readily hide and save themselves. The under side of the sunfish is paler, and most fishes have the belly white. Fishes with white bellies swim high in the water, and the fishes who would catch them lie below. To the fish in the water all outside the water looks white, and so the white-bellied fishes are hard for other fishes to see, just as it is hard for us to see a white rabbit bounding over the snow. [Illustration: FIG. 3.--Common sunfish, _Eupomotis gibbosus_ (Linnæus). Natural size. (From life by R. W. Shufeldt.)] But to be known of his own kind is good for the sunfish, and we may imagine that the black ear-flap with its scarlet edge helps his mate and friends to find him out, where they swim on his own level near the bottom. Such marks are called recognition-marks, and a great many fishes have them, but we have no certain knowledge as to their actual purpose. We are sure that the ear-flap is not an ear, however. No fishes have any external ear, all their hearing apparatus being buried in the skull. They cannot hear very much: possibly a great jar or splash in the water may reach them, but whenever they hear any noise they swim off to a hiding-place, for any disturbance whatever in the water must arouse a fish's anxiety. The color of the live sunfish is very brilliant. Its body is covered with scales, hard and firm, making a close coat of mail, overlapping one another like shingles on a roof. Over these is a thin skin in which are set little globules of bright-colored matter, green, brown, and black, with dashes of scarlet, blue, and white as well. These give the fish its varied colors. Some coloring matter is under the scales also, and this especially makes the back darker than the lower parts. The bright colors of the sunfish change with its surroundings or with its feelings. When it lies in wait under a dark log its colors are very dark. When it rests above the white sands it is very pale. When it is guarding its nest from some meddling perch its red shades flash out as it stands with fins spread, as though a water knight with lance at rest, looking its fiercest at the intruder. When the sunfish is taken out of the water its colors seem to fade. In the aquarium it is generally paler, but it will sometimes brighten up when another of its own species is placed beside it. A cause of this may lie in the nervous control of the muscles at the base of the scales. When the scales lie very flat the color has one appearance. When they rise a little the shade of color seems to change. If you let fall some ink-drops between two panes of glass, then spread them apart or press them together, you will see changes in the color and size of the spots. Of this nature is the apparent change in the colors of fishes under different conditions. Where the fish feels at its best the colors are the richest. There are some fishes, too, in which the male grows very brilliant in the breeding season through the deposition of red, white, black, or blue pigments, or coloring matter, on its scales or on its head or fins, this pigment being absorbed when the mating season is over. This is not true of the sunfish, who remains just about the same at all seasons. The male and female are colored alike and are not to be distinguished without dissection. If we examine the scales, we shall find that these are marked with fine lines and concentric striæ, and part of the apparent color is due to the effect of the fine lines on the light. This gives the bluish lustre or sheen which we can see in certain lights, although we shall find no real blue pigment under it. The inner edge of each scale is usually scalloped or crinkled, and the outer margin of most of them has little prickly points which make the fish seem rough when we pass our hand along his sides. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Ozorthe dictyogramma_ (Herzenstein). A Japanese blenny, from Hakodate: showing increased number of lateral lines, a trait characteristic of many fishes of the north Pacific.] =The Lateral Line.=--Along the side of the fish is a line of peculiar scales which runs from the head to the tail. This is called the lateral line. If we examine it carefully, we shall see that each scale has a tube from which exudes a watery or mucous fluid. Behind these tubes are nerves, and although not much is known of the function of the tubes, we can be sure that in some degree the lateral line is a sense-organ, perhaps aiding the fish to feel sound-waves or other disturbances in the water. =The Fins of the Fish.=--The fish moves itself and directs its course in the water by means of its fins. These are made up of stiff or flexible rods growing out from the body and joined together by membrane. There are two kinds of these rays or rods in the fins. One sort is without joints or branches, tapering to a sharp point. The rays thus fashioned are called spines, and they are in the sunfish stiff and sharp-pointed. The others, known as soft rays, are made up of many little joints, and most of them branch and spread out brush-like at their tips. In the fin on the back the first ten of the rays are spines, the rest are soft rays. In the fin under the tail there are three spines, and in each fin at the breast there is one spine with five soft rays. In the other fins all the rays are soft. The fin on the back is called the dorsal fin, the fin at the end of the tail is the caudal fin, the fin just in front of this on the lower side is the anal fin. The fins, one on each side, just behind the gill-openings are called the pectoral fins. These correspond to the arms of man, the wings of birds, or the fore legs of a turtle or lizard. Below these, corresponding to the hind legs, is the pair of fins known as the ventral fins. If we examine the bones behind the gill-openings to which the pectoral fins are attached, we shall find that they correspond after a fashion to the shoulder-girdle of higher animals. But the shoulder-bone in the sunfish is joined to the back part of the skull, so that the fish has not any neck at all. In animals with necks the bones at the shoulder are placed at some distance behind the skull. If we examine the legs of a fish, the ventral fins, we shall find that, as in man, these are fastened to a bone inside called the pelvis. But the pelvis in the sunfish is small and it is placed far forward, so that it is joined to the tip of the "collar-bone" of the shoulder-girdle and pelvis attached together. The caudal fin gives most of the motion of a fish. The other fins are mostly used in maintaining equilibrium and direction. The pectoral fins are almost constantly in motion, and they may sometimes help in breathing by starting currents outside which draw water over the gills. =The Skeleton of the Fish.=--The skeleton of the fish, like that of man, is made up of the skull, the back-bone, the limbs, and their appendages. But in the fish the bones are relatively smaller, more numerous, and not so firm. The front end of the vertebral column is modified as a skull to contain the little brain which serves for all a fish's activities. To the skull are attached the jaws, the membrane bones, and the shoulder-girdle. The back-bone itself in the sunfish is made of about twenty-four pieces, or vertebræ. Each of these has a rounded central part, concave in front and behind. Above this is a channel through which the great spinal cord passes, and above and below are a certain number of processes or projecting points. To some of these, through the medium of another set of sharp bones, the fins of the back are attached. Along the sides of the body are the slender ribs. =The Fish in Action.=--The fish is, like any other animal, a machine to convert food into power. It devours other animals or plants, assimilates their substance, takes it over into itself, and through its movements uses up this substance again. The food of the sunfish is made up of worms, insects, and little fishes. To seize these it uses its mouth and teeth. To digest them it needs its alimentary canal, made of the stomach with its glands and intestines. If we cut the fish open, we shall find the stomach with its pyloric cæca, near it the large liver with its gall-bladder, and on the other side the smaller spleen. After the food is dissolved in the stomach and intestines the nutritious part is taken up by the walls of the alimentary canal, whence it passes into the blood. The blood is made pure in the gills, as we have already seen. To send it to the gills the fish has need of a little pumping-engine, and this we shall find at work in the fish as in all higher animals. This engine of stout muscle surrounding a cavity is called the heart. In most fishes it is close behind the gills. It contains one auricle and one ventricle only, not two of each as in man. The auricle receives the impure blood from all parts of the body. It passes it on to the ventricle, which, being thick-walled, is dark red in color. This passes the blood by convulsive action, or heart-beating, on to the gills. From these the blood is collected in arteries, and without again returning to the heart it flows all through the body. The blood in the fish flows sluggishly. The combustion of waste material goes on slowly, and so the blood is not made hot as it is in the higher beasts and birds. Fishes have relatively little blood; what there is is rather pale and cold and has no swift current. If we look about in the inside of a fish, we shall find close along the lower side of the back-bone, covering the great artery, the dark red kidneys. These strain out from the blood a certain class of impurities, poisons made from nerve or muscle waste which cannot be burned away by the oxygen of respiration. =The Air-bladder.=--In the front part of the sunfish, just above the stomach, is a closed sac, filled with air. This is called the air-bladder, or swim-bladder. It helps the fish to maintain its place in the water. In bottom fishes it is almost always small, while fishes that rise and fall in the current generally have a large swim-bladder. The gas inside it is secreted from the blood, for the sunfish has no way of getting any air into it from the outside. But the primal purpose of the air-bladder was not to serve as a float. In very old-fashioned fishes it has a tube connecting it with the throat, and instead of being an empty sac it is a true lung made up of many lobes and parts and lined with little blood-vessels. Such fishes as the garpike and the bowfin have lung-like air-bladders and gulp air from the surface of the water. In the very little sunfish, when he is just hatched, the air-bladder has an air-duct, which, however, is soon lost, leaving only a closed sac. From all this we know that the air-bladder is the remains of what was once a lung, or additional arrangement for breathing. As the gills furnish oxygen enough, the lung of the common fish has fallen into disuse and thrifty Nature has used the parts and the space for another and a very different purpose. This will serve to help us to understand the swim-bladder and the way the fish came to acquire it as a substitute for a lung. =The Brain of the Fish.=--The movements of the fish, like those of every other complex animal, are directed by a central nervous system, of which the principal part is in the head and is known as the brain. From the eye of the fish a large nerve goes to the brain to report what is in sight. Other nerves go from the nostrils, the ears, the skin, and every part which has any sort of capacity for feeling. These nerves carry their messages inward, and when they reach the brain they may be transformed into movement. The brain sends back messages to the muscles, directing them to contract. Their contraction moves the fins, and the fish is shoved along through the water. To scare the fish or to attract it to its food or to its mate is about the whole range of the effect that sight or touch has on the animal. These sensations changed into movement constitute what is called reflex action, performance without thinking of what is being done. With a boy, many familiar actions may be equally reflex. The boy can also do many other things "of his own accord," that is, by conscious effort. He can choose among a great many possible actions. But a fish cannot. If he is scared, he must swim away, and he has no way to stop himself. If he is hungry, and most fishes are so all the time, he will spring at the bait. If he is thirsty, he will gasp, and there is nothing else for him to do. In other words, the activities of a fish are nearly all reflex, most of them being suggested and immediately directed by the influence of external things. Because its actions are all reflex the brain is very small, very primitive, and very simple, nothing more being needed for automatic movement. Small as the fish's skull-cavity is, the brain does not half fill it. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--Common Sunfish, _Eupomotis gibbosus_ (Linnæus). Natural size. (From life by R. W. Shufeldt.)--Page 13.] The vacant space about the little brain is filled with a fatty fluid mass looking like white of egg, intended for its protection. Taking the dead sunfish (for the live one we shall look after carefully, giving him every day fresh water and a fresh worm or snail or bit of beef), if we cut off the upper part of the skull we shall see the separate parts of the brain, most of them lying in pairs, side by side, in the bottom of the brain-cavity. The largest pair is near the middle of the length of the brain, two nerve-masses (or ganglia), each one round and hollow. If we turn these over, we shall see that the nerves of the eye run into them. We know then that these nerve-masses receive the impressions of sight, and so they are called optic lobes. In front of the optic lobes are two smaller and more oblong nerve-masses. These constitute the cerebrum. This is the thinking part of the brain, and in man and in the higher animals it makes up the greater part of it, overlapping and hiding the other ganglia. But the fish has not much need for thinking and its fore-brain or cerebrum is very small. In front of these are two small, slim projections, one going to each nostril. These are the olfactory lobes which receive the sensation of smell. Behind the optic lobes is a single small lobe, not divided into two. This is the cerebellum and it has charge of certain powers of motion. Under the cerebellum is the medulla, below which the spinal cord begins. The rest of the spinal cord is threaded through the different vertebræ back to the tail, and at each joint it sends out nerves of motion and receives nerves of sense. Everything that is done by the fish, inside or outside, receives the attention of the little branches of the great nerve-cord. =The Fish's Nest.=--The sunfish in the spawning time will build some sort of a nest of stones on the bottom of the eddy, and then, when the eggs are laid, the male with flashing eye and fins all spread will defend the place with a good deal of spirit. All this we call instinct. He fights as well the first time as the last. The pressure of the eggs suggests nest-building to the female. The presence of the eggs tells the male to defend them. But the facts of the nest-building and nest protection are not very well understood, and any boy who can watch them and describe them truly will be able to add something to science. CHAPTER II THE EXTERIOR OF THE FISH =Form of Body.=--With a glance at the fish as a living organism and some knowledge of those structures which are to be readily seen without dissection, we are prepared to examine its anatomy in detail, and to note some of the variations which may be seen in different parts of the great group. In general fishes are boat-shaped, adapted for swift progress through the water. They are longer than broad or deep and the greatest width is in front of the middle, leaving the compressed paddle-like tail as the chief organ of locomotion. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--Pine-cone Fish, _Monocentris japonicus_ (Houttuyn). Waka, Japan.] But to all these statements there are numerous exceptions. Some fishes depend for protection, not on swiftness, but on the thorny skin or a bony coat of mail. Some of these are almost globular in form, and their outline bears no resemblance to that of a boat. The trunkfish (_Ostracion_) in a hard bony box has no need of rapid progress. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--Porcupine-fish, _Diodon hystrix_ (Linnæus). Tortugas Islands.] [Illustration: FIG. 8.--Thread-eel, _Nemichthys avocetta_ Jordan and Gilbert. Vancouver Island.] [Illustration: FIG. 9.--Sea-horse, _Hippocampus hudsonius_ Dekay. Virginia.] [Illustration: FIG. 10.--Harvest-fish, _Peprilus paru_ (Linnæus). Virginia.] [Illustration: FIG. 11.--Anko or Fishing-frog, _Lophius litulon_ (Jordan). Matsushima Bay, Japan. (The short line in all cases shows the degree of reduction; it represents an inch of the fish's length.)] The pine-cone fish (_Monocentris japonicus_) adds strong fin-spines to its bony box, and the porcupine fish (_Diodon hystrix_) is covered with long prickles which keep away all enemies. Among swift fishes, there are some in which the body is much deeper than long, as in _Antigonia_. Certain sluggish fishes seem to be all head and tail, looking as though the body by some accident had been omitted. These, like the headfish (_Mola mola_) are protected by a leathery skin. Other fishes, as the eels, are extremely long and slender, and some carry this elongation to great extremes. Usually the head is in a line with the axis of the body, but in some cases, as the sea-horse (_Hippocampus_), the head is placed at right angles to the axis, and the body itself is curved and cannot be straightened without injury. The type of the swiftest fish is seen among the mackerels and tunnies, where every outline is such that a racing yacht might copy it. The body or head of the fish is said to be compressed when it is flattened sidewise, depressed when it is flattened vertically. Thus the _Peprilus_ (Fig. 10) is said to be compressed, while the fishing-frog (_Lophius_) (Fig. 11) has a depressed body and head. Other terms as truncate (cut off short), attenuate (long-drawn out), robust, cuboid, filiform, and the like may be needed in descriptions. =Measurement of the Fish.=--As most fishes grow as long as they live, the actual length of a specimen has not much value for purposes of description. The essential point is not actual length, but relative length. The usual standard of measurement is the length from the tip of the snout to the base of the caudal fin. With this length the greatest depth of the body, the greatest length of the head, and the length of individual parts may be compared. Thus in the Rock Hind (_Epinephelus adscensionis_), fig. 12, the head is contained 2-3/5 times in the length, while the greatest depth is contained three times. Thus, again, the length of the muzzle, the diameter of the eye, and other dimensions may be compared with the length of the head. In the Rock Hind, fig. 12, the eye is 5 in head, the snout is 4-2/5 in head, and the maxillary 2-3/5. Young fishes have the eye larger, the body slenderer, and the head larger in proportion than old fishes of the same kind. The mouth grows larger with age, and is sometimes larger also in the male sex. The development of the fins often varies a good deal in some fishes with age, old fishes and male fishes having higher fins when such differences exist. These variations are soon understood by the student of fishes and cause little doubt or confusion in the study of fishes. [Illustration: FIG. 12.--Rock Hind or Cabra Mora of the West Indies, _Epinephelus adscensionis_ (Osbeck). Family _Serranidæ_.] =The Scales, or Exoskeleton.=--The surface of the fish may be naked as in the catfish, or it may be covered with scales, prickles, shagreen, or bony plates. The hard covering of the skin, when present, is known as the exoskeleton, or outer skeleton. In the fish, the exoskeleton, whatever form it may assume, may be held to consist of modified scales, and this is usually obviously the case. The skin of the fish may be thick or thin, bony, horny, leathery, or papery, or it may have almost any intermediate character. When protected by scales the skin is usually thin and tender; when unprotected it may be ossified, as in the sea-horse; horny, as in the headfish; leathery, as in the catfish; or it may, as in the sea-snails, form a loose scarf readily detachable from the muscles below. The scales themselves may be broadly classified as ctenoid, cycloid, placoid, ganoid, or prickly. _Ctenoid and Cycloid Scales._--Normally formed scales are rounded in outline, marked by fine concentric rings, and crossed on the inner side by a few strong radiating ridges and folds. They usually cover the body more or less evenly and are imbricated like shingles on a roof, the free edge being turned backward. Such normal scales are of two types, ctenoid or cycloid. Ctenoid scales have a comb-edge of fine prickles or cilia; cycloid scales have the edges smooth. These two types are not very different, and the one readily passes into the other, both being sometimes seen on different parts of the same fish. In general, however, the more primitive representatives of the typical fishes, those with abdominal ventrals and without spines in the fins, have cycloid or smooth scales. Examples are the salmon, herring, minnow, and carp. Some of the more specialized spiny-rayed fishes, as the parrot-fishes, have, however, scales equally smooth, although somewhat different in structure. Sometimes, as in the eel, the cycloid scales may be reduced to mere rudiments buried in the skin. _Ctenoid_ scales are beset on the free edge by little prickles or points, sometimes rising to the rank of spines, at other times soft and scarcely noticeable, when they are known as ciliate or eyelash-like. Such scales are possessed in general by the more specialized types of bony fishes, as the perch and bass, those with thoracic ventrals and spines in the fins. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Scales of _Acanthoessus bronni_ (Agassiz). (After Dean.)] _Placoid Scales._--Placoid scales are ossified papillæ, minute, enamelled, and close-set, forming a fine shagreen. These are characteristic of the sharks; and in the most primitive sharks the teeth are evidently modifications of these primitive structures. Some other fishes have scales which appear shagreen-like to sight and feeling, but only the sharks have the peculiar structure to which Agassiz gave the name of placoid. The rough prickles of the filefishes and some sculpins are not placoid, but are reduced or modified ctenoid scales, scales narrowed and reduced to prickles. _Bony and Prickly Scales._--Bony and prickly scales are found in great variety, and scarcely admit of description or classification. In general, prickly points on the skin are modifications of ctenoid scales. Ganoid scales are thickened and covered with bony enamel, much like that seen in teeth, otherwise essentially like cycloid scales. These are found in the garpike and in many genera of extinct Ganoid and Crossopterygian fishes. In the line of descent the placoid scale preceded the ganoid, which in turn was followed by the cycloid and lastly by the ctenoid scale. Bony scales in other types of fishes may have nothing structurally in common with ganoid scales or plates, however great may be the superficial resemblance. [Illustration: FIG. 14.--Cycloid Scale.] The distribution of scales on the body may vary exceedingly. In some fishes the scales are arranged in very regular series; in others they are variously scattered over the body. Some are scaly everywhere on head, body, and fins. Others may have only a few lines or patches. The scales may be everywhere alike, or they may in one part or another be greatly modified. Sometimes they are transformed into feelers or tactile organs. The number of scales is always one of the most valuable of the characters by which to distinguish species. =Lateral Line.=--The lateral line in most fishes consists of a series of modified scales, each one provided with a mucous tube extending along the side of the body from the head to the caudal fin. The canal which pierces each scale is simple at its base, but its free edge is often branched or ramified. In most spiny-rayed fishes it runs parallel with the outline of the back. In most soft-rayed fishes it follows rather the outline of the belly. It is subject to many variations. In some large groups (_Gobiidæ_, _Pæciliidæ_) its surface structures are entirely wanting. In scaleless fishes the mucous tube lies in the skin itself. In some groups the lateral line has a peculiar position, as in the flying-fishes, where it forms a raised ridge bounding the belly. In many cases the lateral line has branches of one sort or another. It is often double or triple, and in some cases the whole back and sides of the fish are covered with lateral lines and their ramifications. Sometimes peculiar sense-organs and occasionally eye-like luminous spots are developed in connection with the lateral line, enabling the fish to see in the black depths of the sea. These will be noticed in another chapter. _The Lateral Line as a Mucous Channel._--The more primitive condition of the lateral line is seen in the sharks and chimæras, in which fishes it appears as a series of channels in or under the skin. These channels are filled with mucus, which exudes through occasional open pores. In many fishes the bones of the skull are cavernous, that is, provided with cavities filled with mucus. Analogous to these cavities are the mucous channels which in primitive fishes constitute the lateral line. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--Singing Fish (with many lateral lines), _Porichthys porosissimus_ (Cuv. and Val.). Gulf of Mexico.] _Function of the Lateral Line._--The general function of the lateral line with its tubes and pores is still little understood. As the structures of the lateral line are well provided with nerves, it has been thought to be an organ of sense of some sort not yet understood. Its close relation to the ear is beyond question, the ear-sac being an outgrowth from it. "The original significance of the lateral line," according to Dr. Dean,[2] "as yet remains undetermined. It appears intimately if not genetically related to the sense-organs of the head and gill region of the ancestral fish. In response to special aquatic needs, it may thence have extended farther and farther backward along the median line of the trunk, and in its later differentiation acquired its metameral characters." In view of its peculiar nerve-supply, "the precise function of this entire system of organs becomes especially difficult to determine. Feeling, in its broadest sense, has safely been admitted as its possible use. Its close genetic relationship to the hearing organ suggests the kindred function of determining waves of vibration. These are transmitted in so favorable a way in the aquatic medium that from the side of theory a system of hypersensitive end-organs may well have been established. The sensory tracts along the sides of the body are certainly well situated to determine the direction of the approach of friend, enemy, or prey." =The Fins of Fishes.=--The organs of locomotion in the fishes are knows as fins. These are composed of bony or cartilaginous rods or rays connected by membranes. The fins are divided into two groups, paired fins and vertical fins. The pectoral fins, one on either side, correspond to the anterior limbs of the higher vertebrates. The ventral fins below or behind them represent the hinder limbs. Either or both pairs may be absent, but the ventrals are much more frequently abortive than the pectorals. The insertion of the ventral fins may be abdominal, as in the sharks and the more generalized of the bony fishes, thoracic under the breast (the pelvis attached to the shoulder-girdle) or jugular, under the throat. When the ventral fins are abdominal, the pectoral fins are usually placed very low. The paired fins are not in general used for progression in the water, but serve rather to enable the fish to keep its equilibrium. With the rays, however, the wing-like pectoral fins form the chief organ of locomotion. The fin on the median line of the back is called the dorsal, that on the tail the caudal, and that on the lower median line the anal fin. The dorsal is often divided into two fins or even three. The anal is sometimes divided, and either dorsal or anal fin may have behind it detached single rays called finlets. The rays composing the fin may be either simple or branched. The branched rays are always articulated, that is, crossed by numerous fine joints which render them flexible. Simple rays are also sometimes articulate. Rays thus jointed are known as soft rays, while those rays which are neither jointed nor branched are called spines. A spine is usually stiff and sharp-pointed, but it may be neither, and some spines are very slender and flexible, the lack of branches or joints being the feature which distinguishes spine from soft ray. The anterior rays of the dorsal and anal fins are spinous in most fishes with thoracic ventrals. The dorsal fin has usually about ten spines, the anal three, but as to this there is much variation in different groups. When the dorsal is divided all the rays of the first dorsal and usually the first ray of the second are spines. The caudal fin has never true spines, though at the base of its lobes are often rudimentary rays which resemble spines. Most spineless fishes have such rudiments in front of their vertical fins. The pectoral, as a rule, is without spines, although in the catfishes and some others a single large spine may be developed. The ventrals when abdominal are usually without spines. When thoracic each usually, but not always, consists of one spine and five soft rays. When jugular the number of soft rays may be reduced, this being a phase of degeneration of the fin. In writing descriptions of fishes the number of spines may be indicated by Roman numerals, those of the soft rays by Arabic. Thus D. XII-I, 17 means that the dorsal is divided, that the anterior portion consists of twelve spines, the posterior of one spine and seventeen soft rays. In some fishes, as the catfish or the salmon, there is a small fin on the back behind the dorsal fin. This is known as the adipose fin, being formed of fatty substance covered by skin. In a few catfishes, this adipose fin develops a spine or soft rays. =Muscles.=--The movements of the fins are accomplished by the muscles. These organs lie along the sides of the body, forming the flesh of the fish. They are little specialized, and not clearly differentiated as in the higher vertebrates. With the higher fishes there are several distinct systems of muscles controlling the jaws, the gills, the eye, the different fins, and the body itself. The largest of all is the great lateral muscle, composed of flake-like segments (myocommas) which correspond in general with the number of the vertebræ. In general the muscles of the fish are white in color. In some groups, especially of the mackerel family, they are deep red, charged with animal oils. In the salmon they are orange-red, a color also due to the presence of certain oils. In a few fishes muscular structures are modified into electric organs. These will be discussed in a later chapter. FOOTNOTES: [2] Fishes Recent and Fossil, p. 52. CHAPTER III THE DISSECTION OF THE FISH =The Blue-green Sunfish.=--The organs found in the abdominal cavity of the fish may be readily traced in a rapid dissection. Any of the bony fishes may be chosen, but for our purposes the sunfish will serve as well as any. The names and location of the principal organs are shown in the accompanying figure, from Kellogg's Zoology. It represents the blue-green sunfish, _Apomotis cyanellus_, from the Kansas River, but in these regards all the species of sunfishes are alike. We may first glance at the different organs as shown in the sequence of dissection, leaving a detailed account of each to the subsequent pages. =The Viscera.=--Opening the body cavity of the fish, as shown in the plate, we see below the back-bone a membranous sac closed and filled with air. This is the air-bladder, a rudiment of that structure which in higher vertebrates is developed as a lung. The alimentary canal passes through the abdominal cavity extending from the mouth through the pharynx and ending at the anus or vent. The stomach has the form of a blind sac, and at its termination are a number of tubular sacs, the pyloric cæca, which secrete a digestive fluid. Beyond the pylorus extends the intestine with one or two loops to the anus. Connected with the intestine anteriorly is the large red mass of the liver, with its gall-bladder, which serves as a reservoir for bile, the fluid the liver secretes. Farther back is another red glandular mass, the spleen. In front of the liver and separated from it by a membrane is the heart. This is of four parts. The posterior part is a thin-walled reservoir, the sinus venosus, into which blood enters through the jugular vein from the head and through the cardinal vein from the kidney. From the sinus venosus it passes forward into a large thin-walled chamber, the auricle. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--Dissection of the Blue-green Sunfish, _Apomotis cyanellus_ Rafinesque. (After Kellogg.)--27.] Next it flows into the thick-walled ventricle, whence by the rhythmical contraction of its walls it is forced into an arterial bulb which lies at the base of the ventral aorta, which carries it on to the gills. After passing through the fine gill-filaments, it is returned to the dorsal aorta, a large blood-vessel which extends along the lower surface of the back-bone, giving out branches from time to time. The kidneys in fishes constitute an irregular mass under the back-bone posteriorly. They discharge their secretions through the ureter to a small urinary bladder, and thence into the urogenital sinus, a small opening behind the anus. Into the same sinus are discharged the reproductive cells in both sexes. In the female sunfish the ovaries consist of two granular masses of yellowish tissue lying just below and behind the swim-bladder. In the spring they fill much of the body cavity and the many little eggs can be plainly seen. When mature they are discharged through the oviduct to the urogenital sinus. In some fishes there is no special oviduct and the eggs pass into the abdominal cavity before exclusion. In the male the reproductive organs have the same position as the ovaries in the female. They are, however, much smaller in size and paler in color, while the minute spermatozoa appear milky rather than granular on casual examination. A _vas deferens_ leads from each of these organs into the urogenital sinus. The lancelets, lampreys, and hagfishes possess no genital ducts. In the former the germ cells are shed into the atrial cavity, and from there find their way to the exterior either through the mouth or the atrial pore; in the latter they are shed directly into the body cavity, from which they escape through the abdominal pores. In the sharks and skates the Wolffian duct in the male, in addition to its function as an excretory duct, serves also as a passage for the sperm, the testes having a direct connection with the kidneys. In these forms there is a pair of Müllerian ducts which serve as oviducts in the females; they extend the length of the body cavity, and at their anterior end have an opening which receives the eggs which have escaped from the ovary into the body cavity. In some bony fishes as the eels and female salmon the germ cells are shed into the body cavity and escape through genital pores, which, however, may not be homologous with abdominal pores. In most other bony fishes the testes and ovaries are continued directly into ducts which open to the outside. =Organs of Nutrition.=--The organs thus shown in dissection we may now examine in detail. [Illustration: FIG. 17.--Black Swallower, _Chiasmodon niger_ Johnson, containing a fish larger than itself. Le Have Bank.] The mouth of the fish is the organ or series of structures first concerned in nutrition. The teeth are outgrowths from the skin, primarily as modified papillæ, aiding the mouth in its various functions of seizing, holding, cutting, or crushing the various kinds of food material. Some fishes feed exclusively on plants, some on plants and animals alike, some exclusively on animals, some on the mud in which minute plants and animals occur. The majority of fishes feed on other fishes, and without much regard to species or condition. With the carnivorous fishes, to feed represents the chief activity of the organism. In proportion to the voracity of the fish is usually the size of the mouth, the sharpness of the teeth, and the length of the lower jaw. The most usual type of teeth among fishes is that of villiform bands. Villiform teeth are short, slender, even, close-set, making a rough velvety surface. When the teeth are larger and more widely separated, they are called cardiform, like the teeth of a wool-card. Granular teeth are small, blunt, and sand-like. Canine teeth are those projecting above the level of the others, usually sharp, curved, and in some species barbed. Sometimes the canines are in front. In some families the last tooth in either jaw may be a "posterior canine," serving to hold small animals in place while the anterior teeth crush them. Canine teeth are often depressible, having a hinge at base. [Illustration: FIG. 18.--Jaws of a Parrot-fish, _Sparisoma aurofrenatum_ (Val.). Cuba.] Teeth very slender and brush-like are called setiform. Teeth with blunt tips are molar. These are usually enlarged and fitted for crushing shells. Flat teeth set in mosaic, as in many rays and in the pharyngeals of parrot-fishes, are said to be _paved_ or tessellated. Knife-like teeth, occasionally with serrated edges, are found in many sharks. Many fishes have incisor-like teeth, some flattened and truncate like human teeth, as in the sheepshead, sometimes with serrated edges. Often these teeth are movable, implanted only in the skin of the lips. In other cases they are set fast in the jaw. Most species with movable teeth or teeth with serrated edges are herbivorous, while strong incisors may indicate the choice of snails and crabs as food. Two or more of these different types may be found in the same fish. The knife-like teeth of the sharks are progressively shed, new ones being constantly formed on the inner margins of the jaw, so that the teeth are marching to be lost over the edge of the jaw as soon as each has fulfilled its function. In general the more distinctly a species is a fish-eater, the sharper are the teeth. Usually fishes show little discrimination in their choice of food; often they devour the young of their own species as readily as any other. The digestive process is rapid, and most fishes rapidly increase in size in the process of development. When food ceases to be abundant the fishes grow more slowly. For this reason the same species will grow to a larger size in large streams than in small ones, in lakes than in brooks. In most cases there is no absolute limit to growth, the species growing as long as it lives. But while some species endure many years, others are certainly very shortlived, and some may be even annual, dying after spawning, perhaps at the end of the first season. Teeth are wholly absent in several groups of fishes. They are, however, usually present on the premaxillary, dentary, and pharyngeal bones. In the higher forms, the vomer, palatines, and gill-rakers are rarely without teeth, and in many cases the pterygoids, sphenoids, and the bones of the tongue are similarly armed. No salivary glands or palatine velum are developed in fishes. The tongue is always bony or gristly and immovable. Sometimes taste-buds are developed on it, and sometimes these are found on the barbels outside the mouth. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--Sheepshead (with incisor teeth), _Archosargus probatocephalus_ (Walbaum). Beaufort, N. C.] =The Alimentary Canal.=--The mouth-cavity opens through the pharynx between the upper and lower pharyngeal bones into the oesophagus, whence the food passes into the stomach. The intestinal tract is in general divided into four portions--oesophagus, stomach, small and large intestines. But these divisions of the intestines are not always recognizable, and in the very lowest forms, as in the lancelet, the stomach is a simple straight tube without subdivision. In the lampreys there is a distinction only of the oesophagus with many longitudinal folds and the intestine with but one. In the bony fishes the stomach is an enlarged area, either siphon-shaped, with an opening at either end, or else forming a blind sac with the openings for entrance (cardiac) and exit (pyloric) close together at the anterior end. In the various kinds of mullets (_Mugil_) and in the hickory shad (_Dorosoma_), fishes which feed on minute vegetation mixed with mud, the stomach becomes enlarged to a muscular gizzard, like that of a fowl. Attached near the pylorus and pouring their secretions into the duodenum or small intestine are the _pyloric cæca_. These are tubular sacs secreting a pale fluid and often almost as long as the stomach or as wide as the intestine. These may be very numerous as in the salmon, in which case they are likely to become coalescent at base, or they be few or altogether wanting. Besides these appendages which are wanting in the higher vertebrates, a pancreas is also found in the sharks and many other fishes. This is a glandular mass behind the stomach, its duct leading into the duodenum and often coalescent with the bile duct from the liver. The liver in the lancelet is a long diverticulum of the intestine. In the true fishes it becomes a large gland of irregular form, and usually but not always provided with a gall-bladder as in the higher vertebrates. Its secretions usually pass through a _ductus cholodechus_ to the duodenum. The _spleen_, a dark-red lymphatic gland, is found attached to the stomach in all fish-like vertebrates except the lancelet. The lining membrane of the abdominal cavity is known as the _peritoneum_, and the membrane sustaining the intestines from the dorsal side, as in the higher vertebrates, is called the _mesentery_. In many species the peritoneum is jet black, while in related forms it may be pale in color. It is more likely to be black in fishes from deep water and in fishes which feed on plants. =The Spiral Valve.=--In the sharks or skates the rectum or large intestine is peculiarly modified, being provided with a spiral valve, with sometimes as many as forty gyrations. A spiral valve is also present in the more ancient types of the true fishes as dipnoans, crossopterygians, and ganoids. This valve greatly increases the surface of the intestine, doing away with the necessity for length. In the bowfin (_Amia_) and the garpike (_Lepisosteus_) the valve is reduced to a rudiment of three or four convolutions near the end of the intestine. In the sharks and skates the intestine opens into a cloaca, which contains also the urogenital openings. In all fishes the latter lie behind the orifice of the intestine. In the bony fishes and the ganoids there is no cloaca. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--Stone-roller, _Campostoma anomalum_ (Rafinesque). Family _Cyprinidæ_. Showing nuptial tubercles and intestines coiled about the air-bladder.] =Length of the Intestine.=--In all fishes, as in the higher vertebrates, the length of the alimentary canal is coordinated with the food of the fish. In those which feed upon plants the intestine is very long and much convoluted, while in those which feed on other fishes it is always relatively short. In the stone-roller, a fresh-water minnow (_Campostoma_) found in the Mississippi Valley, the excessively long intestines filled with vegetable matter are wound spool-fashion about the large air-bladder. In all other fishes the air-bladder lies on the dorsal side of the intestinal canal. CHAPTER IV THE SKELETON OF THE FISH =Specialization of the Skeleton.=--In the lowest form of fish-like vertebrates (_Branchiostoma_), the skeleton consists merely of a cartilaginous rod or notochord extending through the body just below the spinal cord. In the lampreys, sharks, dipnoans, crossopterygians, and sturgeons the skeleton is still cartilaginous, but grows progressively more complex in their forms and relations. Among the typical fishes the skeleton becomes ossified and reaches a very high degree of complexity. Very great variations in the forms and relations of the different parts of the skeleton are found among the bony fishes, or teleostei. The high degree of specialization of these parts gives to the study of the bones great importance in the systematic arrangement of these fishes. In fact the true affinities of forms is better shown by the bones than by any other system of organs. In a general way the skeleton of the fish is homologous with that of man. The head in the one corresponds to the head in the other, the back-bone to the back-bone, and the paired fins, pectoral and ventral, to the arms and legs. =Homologies of Bones of Fishes.=--But this homology does not extend to the details of structure. The bones of the arm of the specialized fish are not by any means identical with the humerus, coracoid, clavicle, radius, ulna, and carpus of the higher vertebrates. The vertebrate arm is not derived from the pectoral fin, but both from a cartilaginous shoulder-girdle with undifferentiated pectoral elements bearing fin-rays, in its details unlike an arm and unlike the pectoral fin of the specialized fish. The assumption that each element in the shoulder-girdle and the pectoral fin of the fish must correspond in detail to the arm of man has led to great confusion in naming the different bones. Among the many bones of the fish's shoulder-girdle and pectoral fin, three or four different ones have successively borne the names of scapula, clavicle, coracoid, humerus, radius, and ulna. None of these terms, unless it be clavicle, ought by rights apply to the fish, for no bone of the fish is a true homologue of any of these as seen in man. The land vertebrates and the fishes have doubtless sprung from a common stock, but this stock, related to the crossopterygians of the present day, was unspecialized in the details of its skeleton, and from it the fishes and the higher vertebrates have developed the widely diverging lines. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--Striped Bass, _Roccus lineatus_ (Bloch). Potomac River.] =Parts of the Skeleton.=--The skeleton may be divided into the head, the vertebral column, and the limbs. The very lowest of the fish-like forms (_Branchiostoma_) has no differentiated head or skull, but in all the other forms the anterior part of the vertebral column is modified to form a cranium for the protection of the brain. In the lampreys there are no jaws or other appendages to the cranium. In the sharks, dipnoans, crossopterygians, ganoids, and teleosts or bony fishes, jaws are developed as well as a variety of other bones around the mouth and throat. The jaw-bearing forms are sometimes known by the general name of gnathostomes. In the sharks and their relatives (rays, chimæras, etc.) all the skeleton is composed of cartilage. In the more specialized bony fishes, besides these bones we find also series of membrane bones, more or less external to the skull and composed of ossified dermal tissues. Membrane bones are not found in the sharks and lampreys, but are developed in an elaborate coat of mail in some extinct forms. [Illustration: FIG. 22.--_Roccus lineatus._ Lateral view of cranium. 1. Vomer. 3. Prefrontal. 5. Sphenotic. 7. Epiotic. 9. Pterotic. 11. Exoccipital. 13. Parasphenoid. 15. Prootic. 2. Ethmoid. 4. Frontal. 6. Parietal. 8. Supraoccipital. 10. Opisthotic. 12. Basioccipital. 14. Basisphenoid.] [Illustration: FIG. 23.--_Roccus lineatus._ Superior view of cranium. 1. Vomer. 3. Prefrontal. 5. Sphenotic. 7. Epiotic. 9. Pterotic. 11. Exoccipital. 2. Ethmoid. 4. Frontal. 6. Parietal. 8. Supraoccipital. 10. Opisthotic.] [Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Roccus lineatus._ Inferior view of cranium. 1. Vomer. 4. Frontal. 7. Epiotic. 9. Pterotic. 11. Exoccipital. 13. Parasphenoid. 16. Alisphenoid. 3. Prefrontal. 5. Sphenotic. 8. Supraoccipital. 10. Opisthotic. 12. Basioccipital. 15. Prootic.] =Names of Bones of Fishes.=--In the study of the names of the bones of fishes it will be more convenient to begin with a highly specialized form in which each of the various structures is present and in its normal position. To this end we present a series of figures of a typical form, choosing, after Starks, the striped bass (_Roccus lineatus_) of the Atlantic coast of the United States. For this set of plates, drawn from nature by Mrs. Chloe Lesley Starks, we are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Edwin Chapin Starks. The figures of the striped bass illustrate a noteworthy paper on "The Synonymy of the Fish Skeleton," published by the Washington Academy of Sciences in 1901. =Bones of the Cranium.=--The _vomer_ (1) is the anterior part of the roof of the mouth, armed with small teeth in the striped bass and in many other fishes, but often toothless. The _ethmoid_ (2) lies behind the vomer on the upper surface of the skull, and the _prefrontal_ (3) projects on either side and behind the ethmoid, the nostrils usually lying over or near it and near the nasal bone (51). Between the eyes above are the two _frontal_ (4) bones joined by a suture. On the side behind the posterior angle of the frontal is the _sphenotic_ (5) above the posterior part of the eye. Behind each frontal is the _parietal_ (6). Behind the parietal and more or less turned inward over the ear-cavity is the _epiotic_ (7). Between the parietals, and in most fishes rising into a thin crest, is the _supraoccipital_ (8), which bounds the cranium above and behind, its posterior margin being usually a vertical knife-like edge. The _pterotic_ (9) forms a sort of wing or free margin behind the epiotic and over the ear-cavity. The _opisthotic_ (10) is a small, hard, irregular bone behind the pterotic. The _exoccipital_ (11) forms a concave joint or condyle on each side of the _basioccipital_ (12), by which the vertebral column is joined to the skull. The _parasphenoid_ (13) forms a narrow ridge of the roof of the mouth, connecting the vomer with the basioccipital. In some fishes of primitive structure (_Salmo_, _Beryx_) there is another bone, called orbitosphenoid, on the middle line above and between the eyes. The _basisphenoid_ (14) is a little bone above the myotome or tube in which runs the rectus muscle of the eye. It descends toward the parasphenoid and is attached to the prootic. The _prootic_ (15) is an irregular bone below the ear region and lying in advance of the opisthotic. The _alisphenoid_ (16) is a small bone in the roof of the mouth before the prootic. These sixteen bones (with a loose bone of specialized form, the _otolith_, within the ear-cavity) constitute the cranium. All are well developed in the striped bass and in most fishes. In some specialized forms they are much distorted, coossified, or otherwise altered, and their relations to each other may be more or less changed. In the lower forms they are not always fully differentiated, but in nearly all cases their homologies can be readily traced. In the sharks and lampreys the skull constitutes a continuous cartilaginous box without sutures. In the dipnoans and other forms having a bony casque the superficial bones outside the cranium may not correspond to the cartilaginous elements of the soft skull itself. [Illustration: FIG. 25--_Roccus lineatus._ Posterior view of cranium. 6. Parietal. 7. Epiotic. 8. Supraoccipital. 9. Pterotic. 10. Opisthotic. 11. Exoccipital. 12. Basioccipital.] =Bones of the Jaws.=--The bones of the jaws are attached to the cranium by membranes only, not by sutures, except in a few peculiarly specialized forms. _The Upper Jaw._--The _premaxillary_ (32) lies on either side and forms the front of the upper jaw. Its upper posterior tip or premaxillary spine projects backward almost at right angles with the rest of the bone into a groove on the ethmoid. There is often a fold in the skin by which this bone may be thrust out or protracted, as though drawn out of a sheath. When the spines of the premaxillary are very long the upper jaw may be thrust out for a considerable distance. The premaxillary is also often known as intermaxillary. Lying behind the premaxillary, its anterior end attached within the angle of the premaxillary, is the _maxillary_ (31), or _supramaxillary_, a flattened bone with expanded posterior tip. In the striped bass this bone is without teeth, but in many less specialized forms, as the salmon, it is provided with teeth and joined to the premaxillary in a different fashion. In any case its position readily distinguishes it. In some cases the maxillary is divided by one or more sutures, setting off from it one or more extra maxillary (supplemental maxillary) bones. This suture is absent in the striped bass, but distinct in the black bass, and more than one suture is found in the shad and herring. The roof of the mouth above is formed by a number of bones, which, as they often possess teeth, may be considered with the jaws. These are the _palatine_ bones (21), one on either side flanking the vomer, the _pterygoid_ (20), behind it and articulating with it, the _mesopterygoid_ (22), on the roof of the mouth toward the median line, and the _metapterygoid_ (23), lying behind this. Although often armed with teeth, these bones are to be considered of the general nature of the membrane bones. In some degraded types of fishes (eels, morays, congers) the premaxillary is indistinguishable, being united with the vomer and palatines. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--_Roccus lineatus._ Face-bones, shoulder and pelvic girdles, and hyoid arch. 17. Hyomandibular. 18. Symplectic. 19. Quadrate. 20. Pterygoid. 21. Palatine. 22. Mesopterygoid. 23. Metapterygoid. 24. Preopercle. 25. Opercle. 26. Subopercle. 27. Interopercle. 28. Articular. 29. Angular. 30. Dentary. 31. Maxillary. 32. Premaxillary. 33. Interhyal. 34. Epihyal. 35. Ceratohyal 36. Basihyal. 37. Glossohyal. 38. Urohyal. 39. Branchiostegal. 49. Preorbital. 50. Suborbital. 51. Nasal. 52. Supratemporal. 53. Post-temporal. 54. Supraclavicle. 55. Clavicle. 56. Postclavicle. 57. Hypercoracoid. 58. Hypocoracoid. 60. Actinosts. 61. Pectoral fin. 62. Pelvic girdle. 63. Ventral fin.] The upper jaw of the shark is formed from the anterior portion of the palatine bones, which are not separate from the quadrate, the whole forming the palato-quadrate apparatus. In the himæra and the dipnoans this apparatus is solidly united with the cranium. In these fishes the true upper jaw, formed of maxillary and premaxillary, is wanting. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--Lower jaw of _Amia calva_ (Linnæus), showing the gular plate.] _The Lower Jaw._--The lower jaw or mandible is also complex, consisting of two divisions or rami, right and left, joined in front by a suture. The anterior part of each ramus is formed by the _dentary bone_ (30), which carries the teeth. Behind this is the _articular bone_ (28), which is connected by a joint to the _quadrate bone_ (19). At the lower angle of the articular bone is the small _angular bone_ (29). In many cases another small bone, which is called _splenial_, may be found attached to the inner surface of the articular bone. This little bone has been called coronoid, but it is doubtless not homologous with the coronoid bone of reptiles. In a few fishes, _Amia_, _Elopidæ_, and certain fossil dipnoans, there is a bony gular plate, a membrane bone across the throat behind the chin on the lower jaw. =The Suspensorium of the Mandible.=--The lower jaw is attached to the cranium by a chain of suspensory bones, which vary a good deal with different groups of fishes. The articular is jointed with the flat quadrate bone (19), which lies behind the pterygoid. A slender bone passes upward (18) under the preopercle and the metapterygoid, forming a connection above with a large flattish bone, the _hyomandibular_ (17), which in turn joins the cranium. The slender bone which thus keys together the upper and lower elements, hyomandibular and quadrate, forming the suspensorium of the lower jaw, is known as _symplectic_ (18). The hyomandibular is thought to be homologous with the stapes, or stirrup-bone, of the ear in higher animals. In this case the symplectic may be homologous with its small orbicular bone, and the malleus is a transformation of the articular. The incus, or anvil-bone, may be formed from part of Meckel's cartilage. All these homologies are however extremely hypothetical. The core of the lower jaw is formed of a cartilage called Meckel's cartilage, outside which the membrane bones, dentary, etc., are developed. This cartilage forms the lower jaw in sharks, true jaw-bones not being developed in these fishes. In lampreys and lancelets there is no lower jaw. =Membrane Bones of Face.=--The membrane bones lie on the surface of the head, when they are usually covered by thin skin and have only a superficial connection with the cranium. Such bones, formed of ossified membrane, are not found in the earlier or less specialized fishes, the lancelets and lampreys, nor in the sharks, rays, and chimæras. They are chiefly characteristic of the bony fishes, although in some of these they have undergone degradation. The _preorbital_ (49) lies before and below the eye, its edge more or less parallel with that of the maxillary. It may be broad or narrow. When broad it usually forms a sheath into which the maxillary slips. The _nasal_ (51) lies before the preorbital, a small bone usually lying along the spine of the premaxillary. Behind and below the eye is a series of about three flat bones, the _suborbitals_ (50), small in the striped bass, but sometimes considerably modified. In the great group of loricate fishes (sculpins, etc.), the third suborbital sends a bony process called the suborbital stay backward across the cheek toward the preopercle. The suborbital stay is present in the rosefish. In some cases, as in the gurnard, this stay covers the whole cheek with a bony coat of mail. In some fishes, but not in the striped bass, a small supraorbital bone exists over the eye, forming a sort of cap on an angle of the frontal bone. The largest uppermost flat bone of the gill-covers is known as the _opercle_ (25). Below it, joined by a suture, is the _subopercle_ (26). Before it is the prominent ridge of the _preopercle_ (24), which curves forward below and forms a more or less distinct angle, often armed with serrations or spines. In some cases this armature is very highly developed. The _interopercle_ (27) lies below the preopercle and parallel with the lower limb. =Branchial Bones.=--The bones of the branchial apparatus or gills are very numerous and complex, as well as subject to important variations. In many fishes some of these bones are coossified, and in other cases some are wanting. The tongue may be considered as belonging to this series, as the bones of the gills are attached to its axis below. In the striped bass, as in most fishes, the tongue, gristly and immovable, is formed anteriorly by a bone called the _glossohyal_ (37). Behind this are the _basihyals_ (36), and still farther back, on the side, is the _ceratohyal_ (35). To the basihyals is attached a bone extending downward and free behind the _urohyal_ (38). Behind the ceratohyal and continuous with it is the _epihyal_ (34), to which behind is attached the narrow _interhyal_ (33). On the under surface of the _ceratohyal_ and the _epihyal_ are attached the _branchiostegals_ (39). These are slender rays supporting a membrane beneath the gills, seven in number on each side in the striped bass, but much more numerous in some groups of fishes. The gill membranes connecting the branchiostegals are in the striped bass entirely separate from each other. In other fishes they may be broadly joined across the fleshy interspace between the gill-openings, known as the _isthmus_, or again they may be grown fast to the isthmus itself, so that the gill-openings of the two sides are widely separated. =The Gill-arches.=--The gills are attached to four bony arches with a fifth of the same nature, but totally modified by the presence of teeth, and very rarely having on it any of the gill-fringes. The fifth arch thus modified to serve in mastication instead of respiration is known collectively as the _lower pharyngeals_ (46). Opposite these are the _upper pharyngeals_ (45). The gill-arches are suspended to the cranium from above by the _suspensory pharyngeal_ (44). Each arch contains three parts--the _epibranchial_ (43), above, the _ceratobranchial_ (42), forming the middle part, and the _hypobranchial_ (41), the lower part articulating with the series of _basibranchials_ (40) which lie behind the epihyal of the tongue. On the three bones forming the first gill-arch are attached numerous appendages called _gill-rakers_ (47). These gill-rakers vary very greatly in number and form. In the striped bass they are few and spear-shaped. In the shad they are very many and almost as fine as hairs. In some fishes they form an effective strainer in separating the food, or perhaps in keeping extraneous matter from the gills. In some fishes they are short and lumpy, in others wanting altogether. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Roccus lineatus._ Branchial arches. (After Starks.) 40. Basibranchial. 41. Hypobranchial. 42. Ceratobranchial. 43. Epibranchial. 44. Suspensory pharyngeal. 45. Upper pharyngeals. 46. Lower pharyngeals. 47. Gill-rakers.] =The Pharyngeals.=--The hindmost gill-arch, as above stated, is modified to form a sort of jaw. The tooth-bearing bones above, 2 to 4 pairs, are known as _upper pharyngeals_ (45), those below, single pair, as _lower pharyngeals_ (46). Of these the lower pharyngeals are most highly specialized and the most useful in classification. These are usually formed much as in the striped bass. Occasionally they are much enlarged, with large teeth for grinding. In many families the lower pharyngeals are grown together in one large bone. In the suckers (_Catostomidæ_) the lower pharyngeal preserves its resemblance to a gill-arch. In the carp family (_Cyprinidæ_) retaining this resemblance, it possesses highly specialized teeth. =Vertebral Column.=--The vertebral column is composed of a series of vertebræ, 24 in number in the striped bass and in many of the higher fishes, but varying in different groups from 16 to 18 to upwards of 400, the higher numbers being evidence of unspecialized or more usually degenerate structure. Each vertebra consists of a double concave body or _centrum_ (66). Above it are two small projections often turned backward, _zygapophyses_ (71), and two larger ones, _neurapophyses_ (67), which join above to form the _neural spine_ (68) and thus form the _neural canal_, through which passes the spinal cord from end to end of the body. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--Pharyngeal bone and teeth of European Chub, _Leuciscus cephalus_ (Linnæus). (After Seelye.)] [Illustration: FIG. 30.--Upper pharyngeals of a Parrot-fish, _Scarus strongylocephalus_.] [Illustration: FIG. 31.--Lower pharyngeals of a Parrot-fish, _Scarus strongylocephalus_ (Bleeker).] Below in the vertebræ of the posterior half of the body the _hæmapophyses_ (69) unite to form the _hæmal spine_ (70), and through the _hæmal canal_ thus formed passes a great artery. The vertebræ having hæmal as well as neural spines are known as _caudal vertebræ_, and occupy the posterior part of the body, usually that behind the attachment of the _anal fin_ (78). The anterior vertebræ known as _abdominal vertebræ_, bounding the body-cavity, possess neural spines similar to those of the caudal vertebræ. In place, however, of the hæmapophyses are projections known as _parapophyses_ (72), which do not meet below, but extend outward, forming the upper part of the wall of the abdominal cavity. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--Pharyngeals of Italian Parrot-fish, _Sparisoma cretense_ (L.). _a_, upper; _b_, lower.] To the parapophyses, or near them, the ribs (73) are rather loosely attached and each rib may have one or more accessory branches (74) called _epipleurals_. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--_Roccus lineatus._ Vertebral column and appendages, with a typical vertebra. (After Starks.) 64. Abdominal vertebræ. 65. Caudal vertebræ. 66. Centrum. 67. Neurapophysis. 68. Neural spine. 69. Hæmapophysis. 70. Hæmal spine. 71. Zygapophysis. 72. Parapophysis. 73. Ribs. 74. Epipleurals. 75. Interneural. 76. Dorsal fin. 77. Interhæmal. 78. Anal fin. 79. Hypural. 80. Caudal fin.] In the striped bass the dorsal vertebræ are essentially similar in form, but in some fishes, as the carp and the catfish, 4 or 5 anterior vertebræ are greatly modified, coossified, and so arranged as to connect the air-bladder with the organ of hearing. Fishes with vertebræ thus altered are called _plectospondylous_. In the garpike the vertebræ are convex anteriorly, concave behind, being joined by ball-and-socket joints (opisthocoelian). In most other fishes they are double concave (amplicoelian). In sharks the vertebræ are imperfectly ossified, a number of terms, asterospondylous, cyclospondylous, tectospondylous, being applied to the different stages of ossification, these terms referring to the different modes of arrangement of the calcareous material within the vertebra. =The Interneurals and Interhæmals.=--The vertical fins are connected with the skeletons by bones placed loosely in the flesh and not joined by ligament or suture. Below the dorsal fin (76) lies a series of these bones, dagger-shaped, with the point downward. These are called _interneurals_ (75) and to these the spines and soft rays of the fin are articulated. In like fashion the spines and rays of the anal fin (18) are jointed at base to bones called _interhæmals_ (77). In certain cases the second interhæmal is much enlarged, made hollow and quill-shaped, and in its concave upper end the tip of the air-bladder is received. This structure is seen in the plume-fishes (_Calamus_). These two groups of bones, interneural and interhæmal, are sometimes collectively called _inter-spinals_. The flattened basal bone of the _caudal fin_ (80) is known as _hypural_ (79). [Illustration: FIG. 34.--Basal bone of dorsal fin, _Holoptychius leptopterus_ (Agassiz). (After Woodward.)] The tail of the striped bass, ending in a broad plate which supports the caudal, is said to be homocercal. In more primitive forms the tail is turned upward more or less, the fin being largely thrown to its lower side. Such a tail as in the sturgeon is said to be heterocercal. In the isocercal tail of the codfish and its relatives the vertebræ are progressively smaller behind and the hypural plate is obsolete or nearly so, the vertebræ remaining in the line of the axis of the body and dividing the caudal fin equally. The simplest form of tail, called diphycercal, is extended horizontally, tapering backward, the fin equally divided above and below, without hypural plate. In any form of the tail, it may through degeneration be attenuate or whip-like, a form called leptocercal. =The Pectoral Limb.=--The four limbs of the fish are represented by the paired fins. The anterior limb is represented by the pectoral fin and its basal elements with the shoulder-girdle, which in the bony fishes reaches a higher degree of complexity than in any other vertebrates. It is in connection with the shoulder-girdle that the greatest confusion in names has occurred. This is due to an attempt to homologize its parts with the shoulder-girdle (scapula, coracoid, and clavicle) of higher vertebrates. But it is not evident that a bony fish possesses a real scapula, coracoid, or even clavicle. The parts of its shoulder-girdle are derived by one line of descent from the undifferentiated elements of the cartilaginous shoulder-girdle of ancestral crossopterygian or dipnoan forms. From a similar ancestry by another line of differentiation has come the amphibian and reptilian shoulder-girdle and its derivative, the girdle of birds and mammals. =The Shoulder-girdle.=--In the higher fishes the uppermost bone of the shoulder-girdle is called the _post-temporal_ (_suprascapula_) (53). In the striped bass and in most fishes this bone is jointed to the temporal region of the cranium. Sometimes, as in the trigger-fishes, it is grown fast to the skull, but it usually rests lightly with the three points of its upper end. In sharks and skates the shoulder-girdle, which is formed of a continuous cartilage, does not touch the skull. In the eels and their allies, it has, by degradation, lost its connection and the post-temporal rests in the flesh behind the cranium. The post-temporal sometimes projects behind through the skin and may bear spines or serrations. In front of the post-temporal and a little to the outside of it is the small _supratemporal_ (52) also usually connecting the shoulder-girdle with the skull. Below the post-temporal, extending downward and backward, is the flattish _supraclavicle_ (_posterotemporal_) (54). To this is joined the long _clavicle_ (_proscapula_) (55), which runs forward and downward in the bony fishes, meeting its fellow on the opposite side in a manner suggesting the wishbone of a fowl. Behind the base of the clavicle, the sword-shaped post-clavicle (56) extends downward through the muscles behind the base of the pectoral fin. In some fishes, as the stickleback and the trumpet-fish, a pair of flattish or elongate bones called _interclavicles_ (_infraclavicles_) lie between and behind the lower part of the clavicle. These are not found in most fishes and are wanting in the striped bass. They are probably in all cases merely extensions of the hypocoracoid. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--Inner view of shoulder-girdle of the Buffalo-fish, _Ictiobus bubalus_ Rafinesque, showing the mesocoracoid (59). (After Starks.)] Two flat bones side by side lie at the base of the pectoral fin, their anterior edges against the upper part of the clavicle. These are the _hypercoracoid_ (57), above, and _hypocoracoid_ (58), below. These have been variously called scapula, coracoid, humerus, radius, and ulna, but being found in the higher fishes only and not in the higher vertebrates, they should receive names not used for other structures. The hypercoracoid is usually pierced by a round foramen or fenestra, but in some fishes (cods, weavers) the fenestra is between the two bones. Attached to the hypercoracoid in the striped bass are four little bones shaped like an hour-glass. These are the _actinosts_ (60) (_carpals_ or _pterygials_), which support the rays of the pectoral fin (61). In most bony fishes these are placed much as in the striped bass, but in certain specialized or aberrant forms their form and position are greatly altered. In the anglers (_Pediculati_) the "carpals" are much elongated, forming a kind of arm, by which the fish can execute a motion not unlike walking. In the Alaska blackfish (_Dallia pectoralis_) the two coracoids are represented by a thin, cartilaginous plate, imperfectly divided, and there are no actinosts. In almost all bony fishes, however, these bones are well differentiated and distinct. In most of the soft-rayed fishes an additional V-shaped bone or arch exists on the inner surface of the shoulder-girdle near the insertion of the hypercoracoid. This is known as the _mesocoracoid_ (59). It is not found in the striped bass, but is found in the carp, catfish, salmon, and all their allies. [Illustration: FIG. 36.--Sargassum-fish, _Pterophryne tumida_ (Osbeck). One of the Anglers. Family _Antennariidæ_.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--Shoulder-girdle of _Sebastolobus alascanus_ Gilbert. (After Starks.) POT. Post-temporal. CL. Clavicle. PCL. Postclavicle. HYC. Hypercoracoid. HYPC. Hypocoracoid.] =The Posterior Limbs.=--The posterior limb or ventral fin (63) is articulated to a single bone on either side, the _pelvic girdle_ (62). [Illustration: FIG. 38.--Cranium of _Sebastolobus alascanus_ Gilbert. (After Starks.) V. Vomer. N. Nasal. E. Ethmoid. PF. Prefrontal. FR. Frontal. PAS. Parasphenoid. ALS. Alisphenoid. P. Parietal. BA. Basisphenoid. PRO. Prootic. BO. Basioccipital. SO. Supraoccipital. EO. Exoccipital. EPO. Epiotic. SPO. Sphenotic. PTO. Pterotic.] In the shark the pelvic girdle is rather largely developed, but in the more specialized fishes it loses its importance. In the less specialized of the bony fishes the pelvis is attached at a distance from the head among the muscles of the side, and free from the shoulder-girdle and other parts of the skeleton. The ventral fins are then said to be abdominal. When very close to the clavicle, but not connected with it, as in the mullet, the fin is still said to be abdominal or subabdominal. In the striped bass the pelvis is joined by ligament between the clavicles, near their tip. The ventral fins thus connected, as seen in most spiny-rayed fishes, are said to be thoracic. In certain forms the pelvis is thrown still farther forward and attached at the throat or even to the chin. When the ventral fins are thus inserted before the shoulder-girdle, they are said to be jugular. Most of the fishes with spines in the fins have thoracic ventrals. In the fishes with jugular ventrals these fins have begun a process of degeneration by which the spines or soft rays or both are lost or atrophied. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--Lower jaw and palate of _Sebastolobus alascanus_. (After Starks.) PA. Palatine. MSPT. Mesopterygoid. PT. Pterygoid. MPT. Metapterygoid. D. Dentary. AR. Articular. AN. Angular. Q. Quadrate. SY. Symplectic. HM. Hyomandibular. POP. Preopercle. IOP. Interopercle. SOP. Subopercle. OP. Opercle.] =Degeneration.=--By degeneration or degradation in biology is meant merely a reduction to a lower degree of complexity or specialization in structure. If in the process of development of the individual some particular organ loses its complexity it is said to be degenerate. If in the geological history of a type the same change takes place the same term is used. Degeneration in this sense is, like specialization, a phase of adaptation. It does not imply disease, feebleness, or mutilation, or any tendency toward extinction. It is also necessary to distinguish clearly phases of primitive simplicity from the apparent simplicity resulting from degeneration. =The Skeleton in Primitive Fishes.=--To learn the names of bones we can deal most satisfactorily with the higher fishes, those in which the bony framework has attained completion. But to understand the origin and relation of parts we must begin with the lowest types, tracing the different stages in the development of each part of the system. [Illustration: FIG. 40.--Maxillary and premaxillary of _Sebastolobus alascanus_. M, maxillary; PM, premaxillary.] In the lancelets (_Leptocardii_), the vertebral column consists simply of a gelatinous notochord extending from one end of the fish to the other, and pointed at both ends, no skull being developed. The notochord never shows traces of segmentation, although cartilaginous rods above it are thought to forecast apophyses. In these forms there is no trace of jaws, limbs, or ribs. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--Part of skeleton of _Selene vomer_ (Linnæus).] In the embryo of the bony fish a similar notochord precedes the segmentation and ossification of the vertebral column. In most of the extinct types of fishes a notochord more or less modified persisted through life, the vertebræ being strung upon it spool fashion in various stages of development. In the Cyclostomi (lampreys and hagfishes) the limbs and lower jaw are still wanting, but a distinct skull is developed. The notochord is still present, but its anterior pointed end is wedged into the base of a cranial capsule, partly membranous, partly cartilaginous. There is no trace of segmentation in the notochord itself in these or any other fishes, but neutral arches are foreshadowed in a series of cartilages on each side of the spinal chord. The top of the head is protected by broad plates. There are ring-like cartilages supporting the mouth and other cartilages in connection with the tongue and gill structures. [Illustration: FIG. 42.--Hyostylic skull of _Chiloscyllium indicum_, a Scyliorhinoid Shark. (After Parker and Haswell.)] [Illustration: FIG. 43.--Skull of _Heptranchias indicus_ (Gmelin), a notidanoid shark. (After Parker and Haswell.)] [Illustration: FIG. 44.--Basal bones of pectoral fin of Monkfish, _Squatina_. (After Zittel.)] =The Skeleton of Sharks.=--In the Elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, chimæras) the tissues surrounding the notochord are segmented and in most forms distinct vertebræ are developed. Each of these has a conical cavity before and behind, with a central canal through which the notochord is continued. The form and degree of ossification of these vertebræ differ materially in the different groups. The skull in all these fishes is cartilaginous, forming a continuous undivided box containing the brain and lodging the organs of sense. To the skull in the shark is attached a suspensorium of one or two pieces supporting the mandible and the hyoid structures. In the chimæra the mandible is articulated directly with the skull, the hyomandibular and quadrate elements being fused with the cranium. The skull in such case is said to be _autostylic_, that is, with self-attached mandible. In the shark it is said to be _hyostylic_, the hyomandibular intervening. The upper jaw in the shark consists not of maxillary and premaxillary but of palatine elements, and the two halves of the lower jaw are representatives of Meckel's cartilage, which is the cartilaginous centre of the dentary bone in the bony fishes. These jaw-bones in the higher fishes are in the nature of membrane bones, and in the sharks and their relatives all such bones are undeveloped. The hyoid structures are in the shark relatively simple, as are also the gill-arches, which vary in number. The vertical fins are supported by interneural and interhæmal cartilages, to which the soft fin-rays are attached without articulation. [Illustration: FIG. 45.--Pectoral fin of _Heterodontus philippi_. (From nature.)] [Illustration: FIG. 46.--Pectoral fin of _Heptranchias indicus_ (Gmelin). (After Dean.)] The shoulder-girdle is made of a single cartilage, touching the back-bone at a distance behind the head. To this cartilage three smaller ones are attached, forming the base of the pectoral fin. These are called _mesopterygium_, _propterygium_, and _metapterygium_, the first named being in the middle and more distinctly basal. These three segments are subject to much variation. Sometimes one of them is wanting; sometimes two are grown together. Behind these the fin-rays are attached. In most of the skates the shoulder-girdle is more closely connected with the anterior vertebræ, which are more or less fused together. [Illustration: FIG. 47.--Shoulder-girdle of a Flounder, _Paralichthys californicus_ (Ayres).] The pelvis, remote from the head, is formed, in the shark, of a single or paired cartilage with smaller elements at the base of the fin-rays. In the males a cartilaginous generative organ, known as the clasper, is attached to the pelvis and the ventral fins. In the Elasmobranchs the tail vertebræ are progressively smaller backward. If a caudal fin is present, the last vertebræ are directed upward (_heterocercal_) and the greater part of the fin is below the axis. In other forms (sting-rays) the tail degenerates into a whip-like organ (_leptocercal_), often without fins. In certain primitive sharks (Ichthyotomi), as well as in the Dipnoi and Crossopterygii, the tail is _diphycercal_, the vertebræ growing progressively smaller backward and not bent upward toward the tip. In the chimæras (_Holocephali_) the notochord persists and is surrounded by a series of calcified rings. The palate with the suspensorium is coalesced with the skull, and the teeth are grown together into bony plates. [Illustration: FIG. 48.--Shoulder-girdle of a Toadfish, _Batrachoides pacifici_ (Günther).] [Illustration: FIG. 49.--Shoulder-girdle of a Garfish, _Tylosurus fodiator_ (Jordan and Gilbert).] =The Archipterygium.=--The Dipnoans, Crossopterygians, and Ganoids represent various phases of transition from the ancient cartilaginous types to the modern bony fishes. In the Ichthyotomous sharks, Dipnoans, and Crossopterygians the segments of the pectoral limb are arranged axially, or one beyond another. This type of fin has been called _archipterygium_ by Gegenbaur, on the theory that it represents the condition shown on the first appearance of the pectoral fin. This theory is now seriously questioned, but it will be convenient to retain the name for the pectoral fin with segmented axis fringed on one or both sides by soft rays. [Illustration: FIG. 50.--Shoulder-girdle of a Hake, _Merluccius productus_ (Ayres).] The archipterygium of the Dipnoan genus _Neoceratodus_ is thus described by Dr. Günther ("Guide to the Study of Fishes," p. 73): "The pectoral limb is covered with small scales along the middle from the root to the extremity, and is surrounded by a rayed fringe similar to the rays of the vertical fins. A muscle split into numerous fascicles extends all the length of the fin, which is flexible in every part and in every direction. The cartilaginous framework supporting it is joined to the scapular arch by a broad basal cartilage, generally single, sometimes showing traces of a triple division. Along the middle of the fin runs a jointed axis gradually becoming smaller and thinner towards the extremity. Each joint bears on each side a three-, two-, or one-jointed branch." In the genus _Lepidosiren_, also a Dipnoan, the pectoral limb has the same axial structure, but is without fin-rays, although in the breeding season the posterior limb or ventral fin in the male is covered with a brush of fine filaments. This structure, according to Prof. J. G. Kerr,[3] is probably without definite function, but belongs to the "category of modifications so often associated with the breeding season (cf. the newts' crest) commonly called ornamental, but which are perhaps more plausibly looked upon as expressions of the intense vital activity of the organisms correlated with its period of reproductive activity." Professor Kerr, however, thinks it not unlikely that this brush of filaments with its rich blood-supply may serve in the function of respiration, a suggestion first made by Professor Lankester. FOOTNOTES: [3] Philos. Trans., Lond., 1900. CHAPTER V MORPHOLOGY OF THE FINS =Origin of the Fins of Fishes.=--One of the most interesting problems in vertebrate morphology, and one of the most important from its wide-reaching relations, is that of the derivation of the fins of fishes. This resolves itself at once into two problems, the origin of the median fins, which appear in the lancelets, at the very bottom of the fish-like series, and the origin of the paired fins or limbs, which are much more complex, and which first appear with the primitive sharks. In this study the problem is to ascertain not what theoretically should happen, but what, as a matter of fact, has happened in the early history of the fish-like groups. That these structures, with the others in the fish body, have sprung from simple origins, growing more complex with the demands of varied conditions, and then at times again simple, through degeneration, there can be no doubt. It is also certain that each structure must have had some element of usefulness in all its stages. In such studies we have, as Hæckel has expressed it, "three ancestral documents, paleontology, morphology, and ontogeny"--the actual history as shown by fossil remains, the sidelight derived from comparison of structures, and the evidence of the hereditary influences shown in the development of the individual. As to the first of these ancestral documents, the evidence of paleontology is conclusive where it is complete. But in very few cases are we sure of any series of details. The records of geology are like a book with half its leaves torn out, the other half confused, displaced, and blotted. Still each record actually existing represents genuine history, and in paleontology we must in time find our final court of appeal in all matters of biological origins. The evidence of comparative anatomy is most completely secured, but it is often indecisive as to relative age and primitiveness of origin among structures. As to ontogeny, it is, of course, true that through heredity "the life-history of the individual is an epitome of the life-history of the race." "Ontogeny repeats phylogeny," and phylogeny, or line of descent of organisms and structures, is what we are seeking. But here the repetition is never perfect, never nearly so perfect in fact as Hæckel and his followers expected to find it. The demands of natural selection may lead to the lengthening, shortening, or distortion of phases of growth, just as they may modify adult conditions. The interpolation of non-ancestral stages is recognized in several groups. The conditions of the individual development may, therefore, furnish evidence in favor of certain theories of origins, but they cannot alone furnish the absolute proof. In the process of development the median or vertical fins are doubtless older than the paired fins or limbs, whatever be the origin of the latter. They arise in a dermal keel which is developed in a web fitting and accentuating the undulatory motion of the body. In the embryo of the fish the continuous vertical fin from the head along the back and around the tail precedes any trace of the paired fins. In this elementary fin-fold slender supports, the rudiments of fin-rays, tend to appear at intervals. These are called by Ryder ray-hairs or actinotrichia. They are the prototype of fin-rays in the embryo fish, and doubtless similarly preceded the latter in geological time. In the development of fishes the caudal fin becomes more and more the seat of propulsion. The fin-rays are strengthened, their basal supports are more and more specialized, and the fin-fold ultimately divides into distinct fins, the longest rays developed where most needed. That the vertical fins, dorsal, anal, and caudal, have their origin in a median fold of the skin admits of no question. In the lowest forms which bear fins these structures are dermal folds, being supported by very feeble rays. Doubtless at first the vertical fins formed a continuous fold, extending around the tail, this fold ultimately broken, by atrophy of parts not needed, into distinct dorsal, anal, and caudal fins. In the lower fishes, as in the earlier sharks, there is an approach to this condition of primitive continuity, and in the embryos of almost all fishes the same condition occurs. Dr. John A. Ryder points out the fact that there are certain unexplained exceptions to this rule. The sea-horse, pipefish, and other highly modified forms do not show this unbroken fold, and it is wanting in the embryo of the top-minnow, _Gambusia affinis_. Nevertheless the existence of a continuous vertical fold in the embryo is the rule, almost universal. The codfish with three dorsals, the Spanish mackerel with dorsal and anal finlets, the herring with one dorsal, the stickleback with a highly modified one, all show this character, and we may well regard it as a certain trait of the primitive fish. This fold springs from the ectoblast or external series of cells in the embryo. The fin-rays and bony supports of the fins spring from the mesoblast or middle series of cells, being thrust upward from the skeleton as supports for the fin-fold. =Origin of the Paired Fins.=--The question of the origin of the paired fins is much more difficult and is still far from settled, although many, perhaps the majority of recent writers favor the theory that these fins are parts of a once continuous lateral fold of skin, corresponding to the vertical fold which forms the dorsal, anal, and caudal. In this view the lateral fold, at first continuous, became soon atrophied in the middle, while at either end it is highly specialized, at first into an organ of direction, then into fan-shaped and later paddle-shaped organs of locomotion. According to another view, the paired fins originated from gill structures, originally both close behind the head, the ventral fin migrating backward with the progress of evolution of the species. =Evidence of Paleontology.=--If we had representations of all the early forms of fishes arranged in proper sequence, we could decide once for all, by evidence of paleontology, which form of fin appears first and what is the order of appearance. As to this, it is plain that we do not know the most primitive form of fin. Sharks of unknown character must have existed long before the earliest remains accessible to us. Hence the evidence of paleontology seems conflicting and uncertain. On the whole it lends most support to the fin-fold theory. In the later Devonian, a shark, _Cladoselache fyleri_, is found in which the paired fins are lappet-shaped, so formed and placed as to suggest their origin from a continuous fold of skin. In this species the dorsal fins show much the same form. Other early sharks, constituting the order of _Acanthodei_, have fins somewhat similar, but each preceded by a stiff spine, which may be formed from coalescent rays. [Illustration: FIG. 51.--_Cladoselache fyleri_ (Newberry), restored. Upper Devonian of Ohio. (After Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 52.--Fold-like pectoral and ventral fins of _Cladoselache fyleri_. (After Dean.)] Long after these appears another type of sharks represented by _Pleuracanthus_ and _Cladodus_, in which the pectoral fin is a jointed organ fringed with rays arranged serially in one or two rows. This form of fin has no resemblance to a fold of skin, but accords better with Gegenbaur's theory that the pectoral limb was at first a modified gill-arch. In the Coal Measures are found also teeth of sharks (_Orodontidæ_) which bear a strong resemblance to still existing forms of the family of _Heterodontidæ_, which originates in the Permian. The existing _Heterodontidæ_ have the usual specialized form of shark-fin, with three of the basal segments especially enlarged and placed side by side, the type seen in modern sharks. Whatever the primitive form of shark-fin, it may well be doubted whether any one of these three (_Cladoselache_, _Pleuracanthus_, or _Heterodontus_) actually represents it. The beginning is therefore unknown, though there is some evidence that _Cladoselache_ is actually more nearly primitive than any of the others. As we shall see, the evidence of comparative anatomy may be consistent with either of the two chief theories, while that of ontogeny or embryology is apparently inconclusive, and that of paleontology is apparently most easily reconciled with the theory of the fin-fold. [Illustration: FIG. 53.--Pectoral fin of shark, _Chiloscyllium_. (After Parker and Haswell.)] =Development of the Paired Fins in the Embryo.=--According to Dr. John A. Ryder ("Embryography of Osseous Fishes," 1882) "the paired fins in Teleostei arise locally, as short longitudinal folds, with perhaps a few exceptions. The pectorals of _Lepisosteus_ originate in the same way. Of the paired fins, the pectoral or anterior pair seems to be the first to be developed, the ventral or pelvic pair often not making its appearance until after the absorption of the yolk-sac has been completed, in other cases before that event, as in _Salmo_ and in _Gambusia_. The pectoral fin undergoes less alteration of position during its evolution than the posterior pair." In the codfish (_Gadus callarias_) the pectoral fin-fold "appears as a slight longitudinal elevation of the skin on either side of the body of the embryo a little way behind the auditory vesicles, and shortly after the tail of the embryo begins to bud out. At the very first it appears to be merely a dermal fold, and in some forms a layer of cells extends out underneath it from the sides of the body, but does not ascend into it. It begins to develop as a very low fold, hardly noticeable, and, as growth proceeds, its base does not expand antero-posteriorly, but tends rather to become narrowed, so that it has a pedunculated form. With the progress of this process the margin of the fin-fold also becomes thinner at its distal border, and at the basal part mesodermal cells make their appearance more noticeably within the inner contour-line. The free border of the fin-fold grows out laterally and longitudinally, expanding the portion outside of the inner contour-line of the fin into a fan-shape. This distal thinner portion is at first without any evidence of rays; further than that there is a manifest tendency to a radial disposition of the histological elements of the fin." The next point of interest is found in the change of position of the pectoral fin by a rotation on its base. This is associated with changes in the development of the fish itself. The ventral fin is also, in most fishes, a short horizontal fold and just above the preanal part of the median vertical fold which becomes anal, caudal, and dorsal. But in the top-minnow (_Gambusia_), of the order Haplomi, the ventral first appears as "a little papilla and not as a fold, where the body-walls join the hinder upper portion of the yolk-sac, a very little way in front of the vent." "These two modes of origin," observes Dr. Ryder, "are therefore in striking contrast and well calculated to impress us with the protean character of the means at the disposal of Nature to achieve one and the same end." =Current Theories as to Origin of Paired Fins.=--There are three chief theories as to the morphology and origin of the paired fins. The earliest is that of Dr. Karl Gegenbaur, supported by various workers among his students and colleagues. In his view the pectoral and ventral fins are derived from modifications of primitive gill-arches. According to this theory, the skeletal arrangements of the vertebrate limb are derived from modifications of one primitive form, a structure made up of successive joints, with a series of fin-rays on one or both sides of it. To this structure Gegenbaur gives the name of archipterygium. It is found in the shark, _Pleuracanthus_, in _Cladodus_, and in all the Dipnoan and Crossopterygian fishes, its primitive form being still retained in the Australian genus of Dipnoans, _Neoceratodus_. This biserial archipterygium with its limb-girdle is derived from a series of gill-rays attached to a branchial arch. The backward position of the ventral fin is due to a succession of migrations in the individual and in the species. As to this theory, Mr. J. Graham Kerr observes: [Illustration: FIG. 54.--Skull and shoulder-girdle of _Neoceratodus forsteri_ (Günther), showing the archipterygium.] "The Gegenbaur theory of the morphology of vertebrate limbs thus consists of two very distinct portions. The first, that the archipterygium is the ground-form from which all other forms of presently existing fin skeletons are derived, concerns us only indirectly, as we are dealing here only with the _origin_ of the limbs, i.e., their origin from other structures that were not limbs. "It is the second part of the view that we have to do with, that deriving the archipterygium, the skeleton of the primitive paired fin, from a series of gill-rays and involving the idea that the limb itself is derived from the septum between two gill-clefts. "This view is based on the skeletal structures within the fin. It rests upon (1) the assumption that the archipterygium is the primitive type of fin, and (2) the fact that amongst the Selachians is found a tendency for one branchial ray to become larger than the others, and, when this has happened, for the base of attachment of neighboring rays to show a tendency to migrate from the branchial arch on to the base of the larger or, as we may call it, primary ray; a condition coming about which, were the process to continue rather farther than it is known to do in actual fact, would obviously result in a structure practically identical with the archipterygium. Gegenbaur suggests that the archipterygium actually has arisen in this way in phylogeny." [Illustration: FIG. 55.--_Acanthoessus wardi_ (Egerton). Carboniferous. Family _Acanthoessidæ_. (After Woodward.)] [Illustration: FIG. 56.--Shoulder-girdle of _Acanthoessus_. (After Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 57.--Pectoral fin of _Pleuracanthus_. (After Dean.)] The fin-fold theory of Balfour, adopted by Dohrn, Weidersheim, Thacher, Mivart, Ryder, Dean, Boulenger, and others, and now generally accepted by most morphologists as plausible, is this: that "The paired limbs are persisting and exaggerated portions of a fin-fold once continuous, which stretched along each side of the body and to which they bear an exactly similar phylogenetic relation as do the separate dorsal and anal fins to the once continuous median fin-fold." "This view, in its modern form, was based by Balfour on his observation that in the embryos of certain Elasmobranchs the rudiments of the pectoral and pelvic fins are at a very early period connected together by a longitudinal ridge of thickened epiblast--of which indeed they are but exaggerations. In Balfour's own words referring to these observations: 'If the account just given of the development of the limb is an accurate record of what really takes place, it is not possible to deny that some light is thrown by it upon the first origin of the vertebrate limbs. The facts can only bear one interpretation, viz., that the limbs are the remnants of continuous lateral fins.' [Illustration: FIG. 58.--Shoulder-girdle of _Polypterus bichir_. Specimen from the White Nile.] "A similar view to that of Balfour was enunciated almost synchronously by Thacher and a little later by Mivart--in each case based on anatomical investigation of Selachians--mainly relating to the remarkable similarity of the skeletal arrangements in the paired and unpaired fins." A third theory is suggested by Mr. J. Graham Kerr (_Cambridge Philos. Trans._, 1899), who has recently given a summary of the theories on this subject. Mr. Kerr agrees with Gegenbaur as to the primitive nature of the archipterygium, but believes that it is derived, not from the gill-septum, but from an external gill. Such a gill is well developed in the young of all the living sharks, Dipnoans and Crossopterygians, and in the latter types of fishes it has a form analogous to that of the archipterygium, although without bony or cartilaginous axis. We may now take up the evidence in regard to each of the different theories, using in part the language of Kerr, the paragraphs in quotation-marks being taken from his paper. We may first consider Balfour's theory of the lateral fold. =Balfour's Theory of the Lateral Fold.=--"The evidence in regard to this view may be classed under three heads, as ontogenetic, comparative anatomical, and paleontological. The ultimate fact on which it was founded was Balfour's discovery that in certain Elasmobranch embryos, but especially in _Torpedo_ (_Narcobatus_), the fin rudiments were, at an early stage, connected by a ridge of epiblast. I am not able to make out what were the other forms in which Balfour found this ridge, but subsequent research, in particular by Mollier, a supporter of the lateral-fold view, is to the effect that it does not occur in such ordinary sharks as _Pristiurus_ and _Mustelus_, while it is to be gathered from Balfour himself that it does not occur in _Scyllium_ (_Scyliorhinus_). "It appears to me that the knowledge we have now that the longitudinal ridge is confined to the rays and absent in the less highly specialized sharks greatly diminishes its security as a basis on which to rest a theory. In the rays, in correlation with their peculiar mode of life, the paired fins have undergone (in secondary development) enormous extension along the sides of the body, and their continuity in the embryo may well be a mere foreshadowing of this. [Illustration: FIG. 59.--Arm of a frog.] "An apparently powerful support from the side of embryology came in Dohrn and Rabl's discoveries that in _Pristiurus_ all the interpterygial myotomes produce muscle-buds. This, however, was explained away by the Gegenbaur school as being merely evidence of the backward migration of the hind limb--successive myotomes being taken up and left behind again as the limb moved farther back. As either explanation seems an adequate one, I do not think we can lay stress upon this body of facts as supporting either one view or the other. The facts of the development of the skeleton cannot be said to support the fold view; according to it we should expect to find a series of metameric supporting rays produced which later on become fused at their bases. Instead of this we find a _longitudinal_ bar of cartilage developing quite continuously, the rays forming as projections from its outer side. "The most important evidence for the fold view from the side of comparative anatomy is afforded by (1) the fact that the limb derives its nerve supply from a large number of spinal nerves, and (2) the extraordinary resemblance met with between the skeletal arrangements of paired and unpaired fins. The believers in the branchial arch hypothesis have disposed of the first of these in the same way as they did the occurrence of interpterygial myotomes, by looking on the nerves received from regions of the spinal cord anterior to the attachment of the limb as forming a kind of trail marking the backward migration of the limb. "The similarity in the skeleton is indeed most striking, though its weight as evidence has been recently greatly diminished by the knowledge that the apparently metameric segmentation of the skeletal and muscular tissues of the paired fins is quite secondary and does not at all agree with the metamery of the trunk. What resemblance there is may well be of a homoplastic character when we take into account the similarity in function of the median and unpaired fins, especially in such forms as _Raja_, where the anatomical resemblances are especially striking. There is a surprising dearth of paleontological evidence in favor of this view." The objection to the first view is its precarious foundation. Such lateral folds are found only in certain rays, in which they may be developed as a secondary modification in connection with the peculiar form of these fishes. Professor Kerr observes that this theory must be looked upon and judged: "Just as any other view at the present time regarding the nature of the vertebrate limb, rather as a speculation, brilliant and suggestive though it be, than as a logically constructed theory of the now known facts. It is, I think, on this account allowable to apply to it a test of a character which is admittedly very apt to mislead, that of 'common sense.' "If there is any soundness in zoological speculation at all, I think it must be admitted that the more primitive vertebrates were creatures possessing a notochordal axial skeleton near the dorsal side, with the main nervous axis above it, the main viscera below it, and the great mass of muscle lying in myotomes along its sides. Now such a creature is well adapted to movements of the character of lateral flexure, and not at all for movements in the sagittal plane--which would be not only difficult to achieve, but would tend to alternately compress and extend its spinal cord and its viscera. Such a creature would swim through the water as does a Cyclostome, or a _Lepidosiren_, or any other elongated vertebrate without special swimming organs. Swimming like this, specialization for more and more rapid movement would mean flattening of the tail region and is extension into an at first not separately mobile median tail-fold. It is extremely difficult to my mind to suppose that a new purely _swimming_ arrangement should have arisen involving up-and-down movement, and which, at its first beginnings, while useless as a swimming organ itself, must greatly detract from the efficiency of that which already existed." =Objections to Gegenbaur's Theory.=--We now return to the Gegenbaur view--that the limb is a modified gill-septum. "Resting on Gegenbaur's discovery already mentioned, that the gill-rays in certain cases assume an arrangement showing great similarity to that of the skeletal elements of the archipterygium, it has, so far as I am aware, up to the present time received no direct support whatever of a nature comparable with that found for the rival view in the fact that, in certain forms at all events, the limbs actually do arise in the individual in the way that the theory holds they did in phylogeny. No one has produced either a form in which a gill-septum becomes the limb during ontogeny, or the fossil remains of any form which shows an intermediate condition. "The portion of Gegenbaur's view which asserts that the biserial archipterygial fin is of an extremely primitive character is supported by a large body of anatomical facts, and is rendered further probable by the great frequency with which fins apparently of this character occur amongst the oldest known fishes. On the lateral-fold view we should have to regard these as independently evolved, which would imply that fins of this type are of a very perfect character, and in that case we may be indeed surprised at their so complete disappearance in the more highly developed forms, which followed later on." [Illustration: FIG. 60.--_Pleuracanthus decheni_ (Goldfuss). (After Dean.)] As to Gegenbaur's theory it is urged that no form is known in which a gill-septum develops into a limb during the growth of the individual. The main thesis, according to Professor Kerr, "that the archipterygium was derived from gill-rays, is supported only by evidence of an indirect character. Gegenbaur in his very first suggestion of his theory pointed out, as a great difficulty in the way of its acceptance, the position of the limbs, especially of the pelvic limbs, in a position far removed from that of the branchial arches. This difficulty has been entirely removed by the brilliant work of Gegenbaur's followers, who have shown from the facts of comparative anatomy and embryology that the limbs, and the hind limbs especially, actually have undergone, and in ontogeny do undergo, an extensive backward migration. In some cases Braus has been able to find traces of this migration as far forward as a point just behind the branchial arches. Now, when we consider the numbers, the enthusiasm, and the ability of Gegenbaur's disciples, we cannot help being struck by the fact that the _only_ evidence in favor of this derivation of the limbs has been that which tends to show that a migration of the limbs backwards has taken place from a region somewhere near the last branchial arch, and that they have failed utterly to discover any intermediate steps between gill-rays and archipterygial fin. And if for a moment we apply the test of common sense we cannot but be impressed by the improbability of the evolution of a gill-septum, which in all the lower forms of fishes is fixed firmly in the body-wall, and beneath its surface, into an organ of locomotion. [Illustration: FIG. 61.--Embryos of _Heterodontus japonicus_ Maclay and Macleay, a Cestraciont shark, showing the backward migration of the gill-arches and the forward movement of the pectoral fin. _a_, _b_, _c_, representing different stages of growth. (After Dean.)] "May I express the hope that what I have said is sufficient to show in what a state of uncertainty our views are regarding the morphological nature of the paired fins, and upon what an exceedingly slender basis rest both of the two views which at present hold the field?" As to the backward migration of the ventral fins, Dr. Bashford Dean has recently brought forward evidence from the embryo of a very ancient type of shark (_Heterodontus japonicus_) that this does not actually occur in that species. On the other hand, we have a forward migration of the pectoral fin, which gradually takes its place in advance of the hindmost gill-arches. The accompanying cut is from Dean's paper, "Biometric Evidence in the Problem of the Paired Limbs of the Vertebrates" (American Naturalist for November, 1902). Dean concludes that in _Heterodontus_ "there is no evidence that there has ever been a migration of the fins in the Gegenbaurian sense." "The gill region, at least in its outer part, shows no affinity during proportional growth with the neighboring region of the pectoral fin. In fact from an early stage onward, they are evidently growing in opposite directions." =Kerr's Theory of Modified External Gills.=--"It is because I feel that in the present state of our knowledge neither of the two views I have mentioned has a claim to any higher rank than that of extremely suggestive speculations that I venture to say a few words for the third view, which is avowedly a mere speculation. "Before proceeding with it I should say that I assume the serial homology of fore and hind limbs to be beyond dispute. The great and deep-seated resemblances between them are such as to my mind seem not to be adequately explicable except on this assumption. "In the Urodela (salamanders) the external gills are well-known structures--serially arranged projections from the body-wall near the upper ends of certain of the branchial arches. When one considers the ontogenetic development of these organs, from knob-like outgrowth from the outer face of the branchial arch, covered with ectoderm and possessing a mesoblastic core, and which frequently if not always appear before the branchial clefts are open, one cannot but conclude that they are morphologically projections of the outer skin and that they have nothing whatever to do with the gill-pouches of the gut-wall. Amongst the Urodela one such gill projects from each of the first three branchial arches. In _Lepidosiren_ there is one on each of the branchial arches I-IV. In _Polypterus_ and _Calamoichthys_ (_Erpetoichthys_) there is one on the hyoid arch. Finally, in many Urodelan larvæ we have present at the same time as the external gills a pair of curious structures called balancers. At an early stage of my work on _Lepidosiren_, while looking over other vertebrate embryos and larvæ for purposes of comparison, my attention was arrested by these structures, and further examinations, by section or otherwise, convinced me that there were serial homologues of the external gills, situated on the mandibular arch. On then looking up the literature, I found that I was by no means first in this view. Rusconi had long ago noticed the resemblance, and in more recent times both Orr and Maurer had been led to the same conclusion as I had been. Three different observers having been independently led to exactly the same conclusions, we may, I think, fairly enough regard the view I have mentioned of the morphological nature of the balancers as probably a correct one. "Here, then, we have a series of homologous structures projecting from each of the series of visceral arches. They crop up on the Crossopterygii, the Dipnoi, and the Urodela, i.e., in three of the most archaic of the groups of Gnathostomata. But we may put it in another way. The groups in which they do not occur are those whose young possess a very large yolk-sac (or which are admittedly derived from such forms). Now wherever we have a large yolk-sac we have developed on its surface a rich network of blood-vessels for purposes of nutrition. But such a network _must necessarily_ act as an extraordinarily efficient organ of respiration, and did we not know the facts we might venture to prophesy that in forms possessing it any other small skin-organ of respiration would tend to disappear. "No doubt these external gills are absent also in a few of the admittedly primitive forms such as, e.g., (_Neo-_) _Ceratodus_. But I would ask that in this connection one should bear in mind one of the marked characteristics of external gills--their great regenerative power. This involves their being extremely liable to injury and consequently a source of danger to their possessor. Their absence, therefore, in certain cases may well have been due to natural selection. On the other hand, the _presence_ in so many lowly forms of these organs, the general close similarity in structure that runs through them in different forms, and the exact correspondence in their position and relations to the body can, it seems to me, _only_ be adequately explained by looking on them as being homologous structures inherited from a common ancestor and consequently of great antiquity in the vertebrate stem." As to the third theory, Professor Kerr suggests tentatively that the external gill may be the structure modified to form the paired limbs. Of the homology of fore and hind limbs and consequently of their like origin there can be no doubt. The general gill-structures have, according to Kerr, "the primary function of respiration. They are also, however, provided with an elaborate muscular apparatus comprising elevators, depressors, and adductors, and larvæ possessing them may be seen every now and then to give them a sharp backward twitch. They are thus _potentially_ motor organs. In such a Urodele as _Amblystoma_ their homologues on the mandibular arch are used as supporting structures against a solid substratum exactly as are the limbs of the young _Lepidosiren_. [Illustration: FIG. 62.--_Polypterus congicus_, a _Crossopterygian_ fish from the Congo River. Young, with external gills. (After Boulenger.)] "I have, therefore, to suggest that the more ancient Gnathostomata possessed a series of potentially motor, potentially supporting structures projecting from their visceral arches; it was inherently extremely probable that these should be made use of when actual supporting, and motor appendages had to be developed in connection with clambering about a solid substratum. If this had been so, we should look upon the limb as a modified external gill; the limb-girdle, with Gegenbaur, as a modified branchial arch. "This theory of the vertebrate paired limb seems to me, I confess, to be a more plausible one on the face of it than either of the two which at present hold the field. If untrue, it is so dangerously plausible as to surely deserve more consideration than it appears to have had. One of the main differences between it and the other two hypotheses is that, instead of deriving the swimming-fin from the walking and supporting limb, it goes the other way about. That this is the safer line to take seems to me to be shown by the consideration that a very small and rudimentary limb could _only_ be of use if provided with a fixed _point d'appui_. Also on this view, the pentadactyle limb and the swimming-fin would probably be evolved independently from a simple form of limb. This would evade the great difficulties which have beset those who have endeavored to establish the homologies of the elements of the pentadactyle limb with those of any type of fully formed fin." =Uncertain Conclusions.=--In conclusion we may say that the evidence of embryology in this matter is inadequate, though possibly favoring on the whole the fin-fold theory; that of morphology is inconclusive, and probably the final answer may be given by paleontology. If the records of the rocks were complete, they would be decisive. At present we have to decide which is the more primitive of two forms of pectoral fin actually known among fossils. That of _Cladoselache_ is a low, horizontal fold of skin, with feeble rays, called by Cope _ptychopterygium_. That of _Pleuracanthus_ is a jointed paddle-shaped appendage with a fringe of rays on either side. In the theory of Gegenbaur and Kerr _Pleuracanthus_ must be, so far as the limbs are concerned, the form nearest the primitive limb-bearing vertebrate. In Balfour's theory _Cladoselache_ is nearest the primitive type from which the other and with it the archipterygium of later forms may be derived. Boulenger and others question even this, believing that the archipterygium in _Pleuracanthus_ and other primitive sharks and that in _Neoceratodus_ and its Dipnoan and Crossopterygian allies and ancestors have been derived independently, not the latter from the former. In this view there is no real homology between the archipterygium in the sharks possessing it and that in the _Dipnoans_ and _Crossopterygians_. In the one theory the type of _Pleuracanthus_ would be ancestral to the other sharks on the one hand, and to Crossopterygians and all higher vertebrates on the other. With the theory of the origin of the pectoral from a lateral fold, _Pleuracanthus_ would be merely a curious specialized offshoot from the primitive sharks, without descendants and without special significance in phylogeny. As elements bearing on this decision we may note that the tapering unspecialized diphycercal tail of _Pleuracanthus_ seems very primitive in comparison with the short heterocercal tail of _Cladoselache_. This evidence, perhaps deceptive, is balanced by the presence on the head of _Pleuracanthus_ of a highly specialized serrated spine, evidence of a far from primitive structure. Certainly neither the one genus nor the other actually represents the primitive shark. But as _Cladoselache_ appears in geological time, long before _Pleuracanthus_, _Cladodus_, or any other shark with a jointed, archipterygial fin, the burden of proof, according to Dean, rests with the followers of Gegenbaur. If the remains found in the Ordovician at Cañon City referred to Crossopterygians are correctly interpreted, we must regard the shark ancestry as lost in pre-Silurian darkness, for in sharks of some sort the Crossopterygians apparently must find their remote ancestry. [Illustration: FIG. 63.--Heterocercal tail of Sturgeon, _Acipenser sturio_ (Linnæus). (After Zittel.)] =Forms of the Tail in Fishes.=--In the process of development the median or vertical fins are, as above stated, older than the paired fins or limbs, whatever be the origin of the latter. They arise in a dermal keel, its membranes fitting and accentuating the undulatory motion of the body. In this elementary fin-fold slender supports (actinotrichia), the rudiments of fin-rays, appear at intervals. In those fins of most service in the movement of the fish, the fin-rays are strengthened, and their basal supports specialized. Dean calls attention to the fact that in fishes which swim, when adult, by an undulatory motion, the paired fins tend to disappear, as in the eel and in all eel-like fishes, as blennies and eel-pouts. The form of the tail at the base of the caudal fin varies in the different groups. In most primitive types, as in most embryonic fishes, the vertebræ grow smaller to the last (diphycercal). In others, also primitive, the end of the tail is directed upward, and the most of the caudal fin is below it. Such a tail is seen in most sharks, in the sturgeon, garpike, bowfin, and in the Ganoid fishes. It is known as heterocercal, and finally in ordinary fishes the tail becomes homocercal or fan-shaped, although usually some trace of the heterocercal condition is traceable, gradually growing less with the process of development. Since Professor Agassiz first recognized, in 1833, the distinction between the heterocercal and homocercal tail, this matter has been the subject of elaborate investigation and a number of additional terms have been proposed, some of which are in common use. A detailed discussion of these is found in a paper by Dr. John A. Ryder "On the Origin of Heterocercy" in the Report of the U. S. Fish Commissioner for 1884. In this paper a dynamic or mechanical theory of the causes of change of form is set forth, parts of this having a hypothetical and somewhat uncertain basis. Dr. Ryder proposes the name _archicercal_ to denote the cylindroidal worm-like caudal end of the larva of fishes and amphibians before they acquire median fin-folds. The term _lophocercal_ is proposed by Ryder for the form of caudal fin which consists of a rayless fold of skin continuous with the skin of the tail, the inner surfaces of this fold being more or less nearly in contact. To the same type of tail Dr. Jeffries Wyman in 1864 gave the name _protocercal_. This name was used for the tail of the larval ray when it acquires median fin-folds. The term implies, what cannot be far from true, that this form of tail is the first in the stages of evolution of the caudal fin. To the same type of tail Mr. Alexander Agassiz gave, in 1877, the name of _leptocardial_, on the supposition that it represented the adult condition of the lancelet. In this creature, however, rudimentary basal rays are present, a condition differing from that of the early embryos. The diphycercal tail, as usually understood, is one in which the end of the vertebral column bears "not only hypural but also epural intermediary pieces which support rays." The term is used for the primitive type of tail in which the vertebræ, lying horizontally, grow progressively smaller, as in _Neoceratodus_, _Protopterus_, and other Dipnoans and Crossopterygians. The term was first applied by McCoy to the tails of the Dipnoan genera _Diplopterus_ and _Gyroptychius_, and for tails of this type it should be reserved. [Illustration: FIG. 64.--Heterocercal tail of Bowfin, _Amia calva_ (Linnæus). (After Zittel.)] [Illustration: FIG. 65.--Heterocercal tail of Garpike, _Lepisosteus osseus_ (Linnæus).] The heterocercal tail is one in which the hindmost vertebræ are bent upwards. The term is generally applied to those fishes only in which this bending is considerable and is externally evident, as in the sharks and Ganoids. The character disappears by degrees, changing sometimes to diphycercal or leptocercal by a process of degeneration, or in ordinary fishes becoming _homocercal_. Dr. Ryder uses the term heterocercal for all cases in which any up-bending of the axis takes place, even though it involves the modification of but a single vertebra. With this definition, the tail of salmon, herring, and even of most bony fishes would be considered heterocercal, and most or all of these pass through a heterocercal stage in the course of development. The term is, however, usually restricted to those forms in which the curving of the axis is evident without dissection. [Illustration: FIG. 66.--_Coryphænoides carapinus_ (Goode and Bean), showing leptocercal tail. Gulf Stream.] The homocercal tail is the fan-shaped or symmetrical tail common among the Teleosts, or bony fishes. In its process of development the individual tail is first archicercal, then lophocercal, then diphycercal, then heterocercal, and lastly homocercal. A similar order is indicated by the sequence of fossil fishes in the rocks, although some forms of diphycercal tail may be produced by degeneration of the heterocercal tail, as suggested by Dr. Dollo and Dr. Boulenger, who divide diphycercal tails into primitive and secondary. The peculiar tapering tail of the cod, the vertebræ growing progressively smaller behind, is termed _isocercal_ by Professor Cope. This form differs little from diphycercal, except in its supposed derivation from the homocercal type. A similar form is seen in eels. [Illustration: FIG. 67.--Heterocercal tail of Young Trout, _Salmo fario_ (Linnæus). (After Parker and Haswell.)] The term _leptocercal_ has been suggested by Gaudry, 1883, for those tails in which the vertebral column ends in a point. We may, perhaps, use it for all such as are attenuate, ending in a long point or whip, as in the _Macrouridæ_, or grenadiers, the sting-rays, and in various degenerate members of almost every large group. The term _gephyrocercal_ is devised by Ryder for fishes in which the end of the vertebral axis is aborted in the adult, leaving the caudal elements to be inserted on the end of this axis, thus bridging over the interval between the vertical fins, as the name (~gephyros~, bridge; ~kerkos~, tail) is intended to indicate. Such a tail has been recognized in four genera only, _Mola_, _Ranzania_, _Fierasfer_, and _Echiodon_, the head-fishes and the pearl-fishes. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--Isocercal tail of Hake, _Merluccius productus_ (Ayres).] [Illustration: FIG. 69.--Homocercal tail of a Flounder, _Paralichthys californicus_.] The part of the body of the fish which lies behind the vent is known as the urosome. The urostyle is the name given to a modified bony structure, originally the end of the notochord, turned upward in most fishes. The term _opisthure_ is suggested by Ryder for the exserted tip of the vertebral column, which in some larvæ (_Lepisosteus_) and in some adult fishes (_Fistularia_, _Chimæra_) projects beyond the caudal fin. The urosome, or posterior part of the body, must be regarded as a product of evolution and specialization, its function being largely that of locomotion. In the theoretically primitive fish there is no urosome, the alimentary canal, as in the worm, beginning at one end of the body and terminating at the other. [Illustration: FIG. 70.--Gephyrocercal tail of _Mola mola_ (Linnæus). (After Ryder.)] =Homologies of the Pectoral Limb.=--Dr. Gill has made an elaborate attempt to work out the homologies of the bones of the pectoral limb.[4] From his thesis we take the following: "The following are assumed as premises that will be granted by all zootomists: "1. Homologies of parts are best determinable, _ceteris paribus_, in the most nearly related forms. "2. Identification should proceed from a central or determinate point outwards. "The applications of these principles are embodied in the following conclusions: "1. The forms that are best comparable and that are most nearly related to each other are the Dipnoi, an order of fishes at present represented by _Lepidosiren_, _Protopterus_, and _Ceratodus_, and the Batrachians as represented by the _Ganocephala_, Salamanders, and Salamander-like animals. "2. The articulation of the anterior member with the shoulder-girdle forms the most obvious and determinable point for comparison in the representatives of the respective classes. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--Shoulder-girdle of _Amia calva_ (Linnæus).] [Illustration: FIG. 72.--Shoulder-girdle of a Sea Catfish, _Selenaspis dowi_.] =The Girdle in Dipnoans.=--"The proximal element of the anterior limb in the Dipnoi has almost by common consent been regarded as homologous with the _humerus_ of the higher vertebrates. "The humerus of Urodele Batrachians, as well as the extinct Ganocephala and Labyrinthodontia, is articulated chiefly with the coracoid. Therefore the element of the shoulder-girdle with which the humerus of the Dipnoi is articulated must also be regarded as the _coracoid_ (subject to the proviso hereinafter stated), unless some specific evidence can be shown to the contrary. No such evidence has been produced. "The scapula in the Urodele and other Batrachians is entirely or almost wholly excluded from the glenoid foramen, and above the coracoid. Therefore the corresponding element in Dipnoi must be the _scapula_. "The other elements must be determined by their relation to the preceding, or to those parts from or in connection with which they originate. All those elements in _immediate_ connection with the pectoral fin and the scapula must be homologous as a whole with the coraco-scapular plate of the Batrachians; that is, it is infinitely more probable that they represent, as a whole or as dismemberments therefrom, the coraco-scapular element than that they independently originated. But the homogeneity of that coraco-scapular element forbids the identification of the several elements of the fish's shoulder-girdle with regions of the Batrachian's coraco-scapular plate. [Illustration: FIG. 73.--Clavicles of a Sea Catfish, _Selenaspis dowi_ (Gill).] "And it is equally impossible to identify the fish's elements with those of the higher reptiles or other vertebrates which have developed from the Batrachians. The elements in the shoulder-girdles of the distantly separated classes _may_ be (to use the terms introduced by Dr. Lankester) homoplastic, but they _are not_ homogenetic. Therefore they must be named accordingly. The element of the Dipnoan's shoulder-girdle, continuous downward from the scapula, and to which the coracoid is closely applied, may be named _ectocoracoid_. "Neither the scapula in Batrachians nor the cartilaginous extension thereof, designated suprascapula, is dissevered from the coracoid. Therefore there is an _a priori_ improbability against the homology with the scapula of any part having a distant and merely ligamentous connection with the humerus-bearing element. Consequently, as an element better representing the scapula exists, the element named scapula (by Owen, Günther, etc.) cannot be the homologue of the scapula of Batrachians. On the other hand, its more intimate relations with the skull and the mode of development indicate that it is rather an element originating and developed in more intimate connection with the skull. It may therefore be considered, with Parker, as a _post-temporal_. "The shoulder-girdle in the Dipnoi is connected by an azygous differentiated cartilage, swollen backwards. It is more probable that this is the homologue of the _sternum_ of Batrachians, and that in the latter that element has been still more differentiated and specialized than that it should have originated _de novo_ from an independently developed nucleus." [Illustration: FIG. 74.--Shoulder-girdle of a Batfish, _Ogcocephalus radiatus_ (Mitchill).] =The Girdle in Fishes Other than Dipnoans.=--"Proceeding from the basis now obtained, a comparative examination of other types of fishes successively removed by their affinities from the Lepidosirenids may be instituted. "With the humerus of the Dipnoans, the element of the Polypterids (single at the base, but immediately divaricating and with its limbs bordering an intervening cartilage which supports the pectoral and its basilar ossicles) must be homologous. But it is evident that the external elements of the so-called carpus of the teleosteoid Ganoids are homologous with that element in Polypterids. Therefore those elements cannot be carpal, but must represent the humerus. [Illustration: FIG. 75.--Shoulder-girdle of a Threadfin, _Polydactylus approximans_ (Lay and Bennett).] "The element with which the homologue of the humerus, in Polypterids, is articulated must be homologous with the analogous element in Dipnoans, and therefore with the _coracoid_. The coracoid of Polypterids is also evidently homologous with the corresponding element in the other Ganoids, and the latter consequently must be also _coracoid_. It is equally evident, after a detailed comparison, that the single coracoid element of the Ganoids represents the three elements developed in the generalized Teleosts (Cyprinids, etc.) in connection with the basis of the pectoral fin, and, such being the case, the nomenclature should correspond. Therefore the upper element may be named _hypercoracoid_; the lower, _hypocoracoid_; and the transverse or median, _mesocoracoid_. "The two elements of the arch named by Parker, in _Lepidosiren_, 'supraclavicle' (scapula) and 'clavicle' (ectocoracoid) seem to be comparable together, and as a whole, with the single element carrying the humerus and pectoral fin in the Crossopterygians (_Polypterus_ and _Calamoichthys_) and other fishes, and therefore not identical respectively with the 'supraclavicle' and 'clavicle' (except in part) recognized by him in other fishes. As this compound bone, composed of the scapula and ectocoracoid fused together, has received no name which is not ambiguous or deceptive in its homologous allusions, it may be designated as _proscapula_. "The post-temporal of the Dipnoans is evidently represented by the analogous element in the Ganoids generally, as well as in the typical fishes. The succeeding elements (outside those already alluded to) appear from their relations to be developed from or in connection with the post-temporal, and not from the true scapular apparatus; they may therefore be named _post-temporal_, _posterotemporal_, and _teleo-temporal_. It will be thus seen that the determinations here adopted depend mainly (1) on the interpretation of the homologies of the elements with which the pectoral limbs are articulated, and (2) on the application of the term 'coracoid.' The name 'coracoid,' originally applied to the process so called in the human scapula and subsequently extended to the independent element homologous with it in birds and other vertebrates, has been more especially retained (e.g., by Parker in mammals, etc.) for the region including the glenoid cavity. On the assumption that this may be preferred by some zootomists, the preceding terms have been applied. But if the name should be restricted to the proximal element, nearest the glenoid cavity, in which ossification commences, the name _paraglenal_ given by Dugès to the cartilaginous glenoid region can be adopted, and the coracoid would then be represented (in part) rather by the element so named by Owen. That eminent anatomist, however, reached his conclusion (only in part the same as that here adopted) by an entirely different course of reasoning, and by a process, as it may be called, of elimination; that is, recognizing first the so-called 'radius' and 'ulna,' the 'humerus,' the 'scapula,' and the 'coracoid' were successively identified from their relations to the elements thus determined and because they were numerically similar to the homonymous parts among higher vertebrates." FOOTNOTES: [4] Catalogue of the Families of Fishes, 1872. CHAPTER VI THE ORGANS OF RESPIRATION =How Fishes Breathe.=--The fish breathes the air which is dissolved in water. It cannot use the oxygen which is a component part of water, nor can it, as a rule, make use of atmospheric air. The amount of oxygen required for the low vegetative processes of the fish is comparatively small. According to Dr. Günther, a man consumes 50,000 times as much oxygen as a tench. But some fishes demand more oxygen than others. Some, like the catfish or the loach, will survive long out of water, while others die almost instantly if removed from their element or if the water is allowed to become foul. In most cases the temperature of the blood of the fish is but little above that of the water in which they live, but in the mackerel and other muscular fishes the temperature of the body may be somewhat higher. Some fishes which live in mud, especially in places which become dry in summer, have special contrivances by which they can make use of atmospheric air. In a few primitive fishes (Dipnoans, Crossopterygians, Ganoids) the air-bladder retains its original function of a lung. In other cases some peculiar structure exists in connection with the gills. Such a contrivance for holding water above the gills is seen in the climbing perch of India (_Anabas scandens_) and other members of the group called Labyrinthici. In respiration, in fishes generally, the water is swallowed through the mouth and allowed to pass out through the gill-openings, thus bathing the gills. In a few of the lower types a breathing-pore takes the place of the gill-openings. The gills, or branchiæ, are primarily folds of the skin lining the branchial cavity. In most fishes they form fleshy fringes or laminæ throughout which the capillaries are distributed. In the embryos of sharks, skates, chimæras, lung-fishes, and Crossopterygians external gills are developed, but in the more specialized forms these do not appear outside the gill-cavity. In some of the sharks, and especially the rays, a spiracle or open foramen remains behind the eye. Through this spiracle, leading from the outside into the cavity of the mouth, water is drawn downwards to pass outward over the gills. The presence of this breathing-hole permits these animals to lie on the bottom without danger of inhaling sand. [Illustration: FIG. 76.--Gill-basket of Lamprey. (After Dean.)] =The Gill-structures.=--The three main types of gills among fishes are the following: (_a_) the purse-shaped gills found in the hagfishes and lampreys, known as a class as Marsipobranchs, or purse-gills. These have a number (5 to 12) of sac-like depressions on the side of the body, lined with gill-fringes and capillaries, the whole supported by an elaborate branchial basket formed of cartilage. (_b_) The plate-gills, found among the sharks, rays, and chimæras, thence called Elasmobranchs, or plate-gills. In these the gill-structures are flat laminæ, attached by one side to the gill-arches. (_c_) The fringe-gills found in ordinary fishes, in which the gill-filaments containing the capillaries are attached in two rows to the outer edge of each gill-arch. The so-called tuft-gills (Lophobranchs) of the sea-horse and pipefish are like these in structure, but the filaments are long, while the arches are very short. In most of the higher fishes a small accessory gill (pseudobranchia) is developed in the skin of the inner side of the opercle. =The Air-bladder.=--The air-bladder, or swim-bladder, must be classed among the organs of respiration, although in the higher fishes its functions in this regard are rudimentary, and in some cases it has taken collateral functions (as a hydrostatic organ of equilibrium, or perhaps as an organ of hearing) which have no relation to its original purpose. [Illustration: FIG. 77.--Weberian apparatus and air-bladder of Carp. (From Günther, after Weber.)] The air-bladder is an internal sac possessed by many fishes, but not by all. It lies in the dorsal part of the abdominal cavity above the intestines and below the kidneys. In some cases it is closely adherent to the surrounding tissues. In others it is almost entirely free, lying almost loose in the cavity of the body. In some cases it is enclosed in a bony capsule. In the allies of the carp and catfish, which form the majority of fresh-water fishes, its anterior end is connected through a chain of modified vertebræ to the ear. Sometimes its posterior end fits into an enlarged and hollow interhæmal bone. Sometimes, again, a mass of muscle lies in front of it or is otherwise attached to it. Sometimes it is divided into two or three parts by crosswise constrictions. Sometimes it is constricted longitudinally, and at other times it has attached to it a complication of supplemental tubes of the same character as the air-bladder itself. In still other cases it is divided by many internal partitions into a cellular body, similar to the lung of the higher vertebrates, though the cells are coarser and less intricate. This condition is evidently more primitive than that of the empty sac. The homology of the air-bladder with the lung is evident. This is often expressed in the phrase that the lung is a developed air-bladder. This is by no means true. To say that the air-bladder is a modified and degenerate lung is much nearer the truth, although we should express the fact more exactly to say that both air-bladder and lung are developed from a primitive cellular breathing-sac, originally a diverticulum from the ventral walls of the oesophagus. The air-bladder varies in size as much as in form. In some fishes it extends from the head to the tail, while in others it is so minute as to be scarcely traceable. It often varies greatly in closely related species. The common mackerel (_Scomber scombrus_) has no air-bladder, while in the closely related colias or chub mackerel (_Scomber japonicus_) the organ is very evident. In other families, as the rockfishes (_Scorpænidæ_), genera with and those without the air-bladder are scarcely distinguishable externally. In general, fishes which lie on the bottom, those which inhabit great depths, and those which swim freely in the open sea, as sharks and mackerel, lack the air-bladder. In the sharks, rays, and chimæras there is no trace of an air-bladder. In the mackerel and other bony fishes without it, it is lost in the process of development. The air-bladder is composed of two layers of membrane, the outer one shining, silvery in color, with muscular fibres, the inner well supplied by blood-vessels. The gas within the air-bladder must be in most cases secreted from the blood-vessels. In river fishes it is said to be nearly pure nitrogen. In marine fishes it is mostly oxygen, with from 6 to 10 per cent of carbonic-acid gas, while in the deep-sea fishes oxygen is greatly in excess. In _Lopholatilus_, a deep-sea fish, Professor R. W. Tower finds 66 to 69 per cent of oxygen. In _Trigla lyra_ Biot records 87 per cent. In _Dentex dentex_, a shore fish of Europe, 40 per cent of oxygen was found in the air-bladder. Fifty per cent is recorded from the European porgy, _Pagrus pagrus_. In a fish dying from suffocation the amount of carbonic-acid gas (CO2) is greatly increased, amounting, according to recent researches of Professor Tower on the weak-fish, _Cynoscion regalis_, to 24 to 29 per cent. This shows conclusively that the air-bladder is to some degree a reservoir of oxygen secreted from the blood, to which channel it may return through a kind of respiration. The other functions of the air-bladder have been subject to much question and are still far from understood. The following summary of the various views in this regard we copy from Professor Tower's paper on "The Gas in the Swim-bladder of Fishes": "The function of the swim-bladder of fishes has attracted the attention of scientists for many centuries. The rôle that this structure plays in the life of the animal has been interpreted in almost as many ways as there have been investigators, and even now there is apparently much doubt as to the true functions of the swim-bladder. Consequently any additional data concerning this organ are of immediate scientific value. "Aristotle, writing about the noises made by fishes, states that 'some produce it by rubbing the gill-arches ...; others by means of the air-bladder. Each of these fishes contains air, by rubbing and moving of which the noise is produced.' The bladder is thus considered a sound-producing organ, and it is probable that he arrived at this result by his own investigations. "Borelli (De Motu Animalium, 1680) attributed to the air-bladder a hydrostatic function which enabled the fish to rise and fall in the water by simply distending or compressing the air-bladder. This hypothesis, which gives to the fish a volitional control over the air-bladder--it being able to compress or distend the bladder at pleasure--has prevailed, to a greater or less degree, from the time of Borelli to the present. To my knowledge, however, there are no investigations which warrant such a theory, while, on the other hand, there are many facts, as shown by Moreau's experiment, which distinctly contradict this belief. Delaroche (Annales du Mus. d'Hist. Nat., tome XIV, 1807-1809) decidedly opposed the ideas of Borelli, and yet advanced an hypothesis similar to it in many respects. Like Borelli, he said that the fish could compress or dilate the bladder by means of certain muscles, but this was to enable the fish to keep the same specific gravity as the surrounding medium, and thus be able to remain at any desired depth (and not to rise or sink). This was also disproved later by Moreau. Delaroche proved that there existed a constant exchange between the air in the air-bladder and the air in the blood, although he did not consider the swim-bladder an organ of respiration. "Biot (1807), Provençal and Humboldt (1809), and others made chemical analyses of the gas in the swim-bladder, and found 1 to 5 per cent of CO_{2}, 1 to 87 per cent of O_{2}, and the remainder nitrogen. The most remarkable fact discovered about this mixture was that it frequently consisted almost entirely of oxygen, the per cent of oxygen increasing with the depth of the water inhabited by the fish. The reasons for this phenomenon have never been satisfactorily explained. "In 1820 Weber described a series of paired ossicles which he erroneously called stapes, malleus, and incus, and which connected the air-bladder in certain fishes with a part of the ear--the atrium sinus imparis. Weber considered the swim-bladder to be an organ by which sounds striking the body from the outside are intensified, and these sounds are then transmitted to the ear by means of the ossicles. The entire apparatus would thus function as an organ of hearing. Weber's views remained practically uncontested for half a century, but recently much has been written both for and against this theory. Whatever the virtues of the case may be, there is certainly an inviting field for further physiological investigations regarding this subject, and more especially on the phenomena of hearing in fishes. "Twenty years later Johannes Müller described, in certain Siluroid fishes, a mechanism, the so-called 'elastic-spring' apparatus, attached to the anterior portion of the air-bladder, which served to aid the fish in rising and sinking in the water according as the muscles of this apparatus were relaxed or contracted to a greater or lesser degree. This interpretation of the function of the 'elastic-spring' mechanism was shown by Sörensen to be untenable. Müller also stated that in some fish, at least, there was an exchange of gas between blood and air-bladder--the latter having a respiratory function--and regarded the gas in the air-bladder as the result of active secretion. In _Malapterurus_ (_Torpedo electricus_) he stated that it is a sound-producing organ. "Hasse, in 1873, published the results of his investigations on the functions of the ossicles of Weber, stating that their action was that of a manometer, acquainting the animal with the degree of pressure that is exerted by the gases in the air-bladder against its walls. This pressure necessarily varies with the different depths of water which the fish occupies. Hasse did not agree with Weber that the ear is affected by the movements of these ossicles. "One year later Dufosse described in some fishes an air-bladder provided with extrinsic muscles by whose vibration sound was produced, the sound being intensified by the air-bladder, which acted as a resonator. He also believed that certain species produced a noise by forcing the gas from the air-bladder through a pneumatic duct. "At about the same time Moreau published his classical work on the functions of the air-bladder. He proved by ingenious experiments that many of the prevailing ideas about the action of the air-bladder were erroneous, and that this organ serves to equilibrate the body of the fish with the water at any level. This is not accomplished quickly, but only after sufficient time for the air in the bladder to become adjusted to the increase or decrease in external pressure that has taken place. The fish, therefore, makes no use of any muscles in regulating the volume of its air-bladder. The animal can accommodate itself only gradually to considerable changes in depth of water, but can live equally comfortably at different depths, provided that the change has been gradual enough. Moreau's experiments also convinced him that the gas is actually secreted into the air-bladder, and that there is a constant exchange of gas between it and the blood. In these investigations he has also noticed that section of the sympathetic-nerve fibres supplying the walls of the air-bladder hastens the secreting of the gas into the empty bladder. Since then Bohr has shown that section of the vagus nerve causes the secretion to cease. Moreau noticed in one fish (_Trigla_) having an air-bladder supplied with muscles that the latter served to make the air-bladder produce sound. "Again, in 1885, the Weberian mechanism was brought to our attention with a new function attributed to it by Sagemehl who stated that this mechanism exists not for any auditory purposes, nor to tell the fish at what level of the water it is swimming, but to indicate to the fish the variations in the atmospheric pressure. Sörensen tersely contrasts the views of Hasse and Sagemehl by saying that 'Hasse considers the air-bladder with the Weberian mechanism as a manometer; Sagemehl regards it as a barometer.' The theory of Sagemehl has, naturally enough, met with little favor. Sörensen (1895) held that there is but little evidence for attributing to the air-bladder the function of a lung. It is to be remembered, however, that, according to Sörensen's criterion no matter what exchange of gases takes place between blood and air-bladder, it cannot be considered an organ of respiration, 'unless its air is renewed by mechanical respiration.' "Sörensen also refutes, from anatomical and experimental grounds, the many objections to Weber's theory of the function of the ossicles. He would thus attribute to the air-bladder the function of hearing; indeed in certain species the only reason for the survival of the air-bladder is that 'the organ is still of acoustic importance; that it acts as a resonator.' This idea, Sörensen states, is borne out by the anatomical structure found in _Misgurnus_ and _Chlarias_, which resembles the celebrated 'Colladon resonator.' This author attributes to the air-bladder with its 'elastic spring' and various muscular mechanisms the production of sound as its chief function." =Origin of the Air-bladder.=--In the more primitive forms, and probably in the embryos of all species, the air-bladder is joined to the oesophagus by an air-duct. This duct is lost entirely in the adult of all or nearly all of the thoracic and jugular fishes, and in some of the abdominal forms. The lancelets, lampreys, sharks, rays, and chimæras have no air-bladder, but in the most primitive forms of true fishes (Dipnoans and Crossopterygians), having the air-bladder cellular or lung-like, the duct is well developed, freely admitting the external air which the fish may rise to the surface to swallow. In most fishes the duct opens into the oesophagus from the dorsal side, but in the more primitive forms it enters from the ventral side, like the windpipe of the higher vertebrates. In some of the Dipnoans the air-bladder divides into two parts, in further resemblance to the true lungs. =The Origin of the Lungs.=--The following account of the function of the air-bladder and of its development and decline is condensed from an article by Mr. Charles Morris:[5] "If now we seek to discover the original purpose of this organ, there is abundant reason to believe that it had nothing to do with swimming. Certainly the great family of the sharks, which have no bladder, are at no disadvantage in changing their depth or position in the water. Yet if the bladder is necessary to any fish as an aid in swimming, why not to all? And if this were its primary purpose, how shall we explain its remarkable variability? No animal organ with a function of essential importance presents such extraordinary modifications in related species and genera. In the heart, brain, and other organs there is one shape, position, and condition of greatest efficiency, and throughout the lower forms we find a steady advance towards this condition. Great variation, on the other hand, usually indicates that the organ is of little functional importance, or that it has lost its original function. Such we conceive to be the case with the air-bladder. The fact of its absence from some and its presence in other fishes of closely related species goes far to prove that it is a degenerating organ; and the same is shown by the fact that it is useless in some species for the purpose to which it is applied in others. That it had, at some time in the past, a function of essential importance there can be no question. That it exists at all is proof of this. But its modern variations strongly indicate that it has lost this function and is on the road towards extinction. Larval conditions show that it had originally a pneumatic duct as one of its essential parts, but this has in most cases disappeared. The bladder itself has in many cases partly or wholly disappeared. Where preserved, it seems to be through its utility for some secondary purpose, such as an aid in swimming or in hearing. That its evolution began very long ago there can be no question; and the indications are that it began long ago to degenerate, through the loss of its primitive function. "What was this primitive function? In attempting to answer this question we must first consider the air-bladder in relation to the fish tribe as a whole. No shark or ray possesses the air-bladder. In some few sharks, indeed, there is a diverticulum of the pharynx which may be a rudimentary approach to the air-bladder; but this is very questionable. The conditions of its occurrence in the main body of modern fishes, the Teleostean, we have already considered. But in the most ancient living orders of fishes it exists in an interesting condition. In every modern Dipnoan, Crossopterygian, and Ganoid the air-bladder has an effective pneumatic duct. This in the Ganoids opens into the dorsal side of the oesophagus, but in the Dipnoans and Crossopterygians, like the windpipe of lung-breathers, it opens into the ventral side. In the Dipnoans, also survivors from the remote past, the duct not only opens ventrally into the oesophagus, but the air-bladder does duty as a lung. Externally it differs in no particular from an air-bladder; but internally it presents a cellular structure which nearly approaches that of the lung of the batrachians. There are three existing representatives of the Dipnoans. One of these, the Australian lung-fish (_Neoceratodus_) has a single bladder, which, however, is provided with breathing-pouches having a symmetrical lateral arrangement. It has no pulmonary artery, but receives branches from the _arteria coeliaca_. In the other two forms, _Lepidosiren_ and _Protopterus_, the kindred 'mudfishes' of the Amazon basin and tropical Africa, the bladder or lung is divided into two lateral chambers, as in the land animals, and is provided with a separate pulmonary artery. "The opinion seems to have been tacitly entertained by physiologists that this employment of the air-bladder by the Dipnoans as a lung is a secondary adaptation, a side issue from its original purpose. It is more likely that this is the original purpose, and that its degeneration is due to the disappearance of the necessity of such a function. As regards the gravitative employment of the bladder, the Teleostean fishes, to which this function is confined, are of comparatively modern origin; while the Dipnoans are surviving representatives of a very ancient order of fishes, which flourished in the Devonian age of geology, and in all probability breathed air then as now; and the Crossopterygians and Ganoids, which approach them in this particular, are similarly ancient in origin, and were the ancestors of the Teleosteans. The natural presumption, therefore, is that the duty which it subserved in the most ancient fishes was its primitive function. "The facts of embryology lend strong support to this hypothesis. For the air-bladder is found to arise in a manner very similar to the development of the lung. They each begin as an outgrowth from the fore part of the alimentary tract, the only difference being that the air-bladder usually rises dorsally and the lung ventrally. The fact already cited, that the pneumatic duct is always present in the larval form in fishes that possess a bladder, is equally significant. All the facts go to show that the introduction of external air into the body was a former function of the air-bladder, and that the atrophy of the duct in many cases, and the disappearance of the bladder in others, are results of the loss of this function. "Such an elaborate arrangement for the introduction of air into the body could have, if we may judge from analogy, but one purpose, that of breathing, to which purpose the muscular and other apparatus for compressing and dilating the bladder, now seemingly adapted to gravitative uses, may have been originally applied. The same may be said of the great development of blood-capillaries in the inner tunic of the bladder. These may now be used only for the secretion of gas into its interior, but were perhaps originally employed in the respiratory secretion of oxygen. In fact all the circumstances mentioned--the similarity in larval development between the bladder and lung, the larval existence of the pneumatic duct, the arrangements for compressing and dilating the bladder, and the capillary vessels on its inner tunic--point to the breathing of air as its original purpose. "It is probable that the Ganoid, as well as the Dipnoan, air-bladder is to some extent still used in breathing. The Dipnoans have both lungs and gills, and probably breathe with the latter in ordinary cases, but use their lungs when the inland waters in which they live become thick and muddy, or are charged with gases from decomposing organic matter. The Ganoid fishes to some extent breathe the air. In _Polypterus_ the air-bladder resembles the Dipnoan lung in having lateral divisions and a ventral connection with the oesophagus, while in _Lepisosteus_ (the American garpike) it is cellular and lung-like. This fish keeps near the surface, and may be seen to emit air-bubbles, probably taking in a fresh supply of air. The American bowfin, or mudfish (_Amia_), has a bladder of the same lung-like character, and has been seen to come to the surface, open its jaws widely, and apparently swallow a large quantity of air. He considers that both _Lepisosteus_ and _Amia_ inhale and exhale air at somewhat regular intervals, resembling in this the salamanders and tadpoles, 'which, as the gills shrink and the lungs increase, come more frequently to the surface for air.' "As the facts stand there is no evident line of demarcation between the gas-containing bladders of many of the Teleosteans, the air-containing bladders of the others and the Ganoids, and the lung of the Dipnoans, and the indications are in favor of their having originally had the same function, and of this being the breathing of air. "If now we ask what were the conditions of life under which this organ was developed, and what the later conditions which rendered it of no utility as a lung, some definite answer may be given. The question takes us back to the Devonian and Silurian geological periods, during which the original development of the bladder probably took place. In this era the seas were thronged with fishes of several classes, the Elasmobranchs among others, followed by the Dipnoi and Crossopterygians. The sharks were without, the Dipnoans and Crossopterygians doubtless with, an air-bladder--a difference in organization which was most likely due to some marked difference in their life-habits. The Elasmobranchs were the monarchs of the seas, against whose incursions the others put on a thick protective armor, and probably sought the shallow shore waters, while their foes held chief possession of the deeper waters without. "We seem, then, to perceive the lung-bearing fishes, driven by their foes into bays and estuaries, and the waters of shallow coasts, ascending streams and dwelling in inland waters. Here two influences probably acted on them. The waters they dwelt in were often thick with sediment, and were doubtless in many instances poorly aerated, rendering gill-breathing difficult. And the land presented conditions likely to serve as a strong inducement to fishes to venture on shore. Its plant-life was abundant, while its only animal inhabitants seem to have been insects, worms, and snails. There can be little doubt that the active fish forms of that period, having no enemies to fear on the land, and much to gain, made active efforts to obtain a share of this vegetable and animal food. Even to-day, when they have numerous foes to fear, many fishes seek food on the shore, and some even climb trees for this purpose. Under the conditions of the period mentioned there was a powerful inducement for them to assume this habit. "Such conditions must have strongly tended to induce fishes to breathe the air, and have acted to develop an organ for this purpose. In addition to the influences of foul or muddy water and of visits to land may be named that of the drying-out of pools, by which fishes are sometimes left in the moist mud till the recurrence of rains, or are even buried in the dried mud during the rainless season. This is the case with the modern Dipnoi, which use their lungs under such circumstances. In certain other fresh-water fishes, of the family Ophiocephalidæ, air is breathed while the mud continues soft enough for the fish to come to the surface, but during the dry period the animal remains in a torpid state. These fishes have no lungs, but breathe the air into a simple cavity in the pharynx, whose opening is partly closed by a fold of the mucous membrane. Other Labyrinthici, of similar habits, possess a more developed breathing organ. This is a cavity formed by the walls of the pharynx, in which are thin laminæ, or plates, which undoubtedly perform an oxygenating function. The most interesting member of this family is _Anabas scandens_, the climbing perch. In this fish, which not only leaves the water, but is said to climb trees, the air-breathing organ is greatly developed. The labyrinthici, moreover, have usually large air-bladders. As regards the occasional breathing of air by fishes, even in species which do not leave the water, it is quite common, particularly among fresh-water species. Cuvier remarks that air is perhaps necessary to every kind of fish; and that, particularly when the atmosphere is warm, most of our lacustrine species sport on the surface for no other purpose. "It is not difficult to draw a hypothetical plan of the development of the air-bladder as a breathing organ. In the two families of fishes just mentioned, whose air-bladders indicate that they once possessed the air-breathing function and have lost it, we perceive the process of formation of an air-breathing organ beginning over again under stress of similar circumstances. The larval development of the air-bladder points significantly in the same direction. In fact we have strong reason to believe that air-breathing in fishes was originally performed, as it probably often is now, by the unchanged walls of the oesophagus. Then these walls expanded inwardly, forming a simple cavity, partly closed by a fold of membrane, like that of the Ophiocephalidæ. A step further reduced this membranous fold to a narrow opening, leading to an inner pouch. As the air-breathing function developed, the opening became a tube, and the pouch a simple lung, with compressing muscles and capillary vessels. By a continuation of the process the smooth-walled pouch became sacculated, its surface being increased by folding into breathing cells. Finally, a longitudinal constriction divided it into two lateral pouches, such as we find in the lung of the Dipnoans. This brings us to the verge of the lung of the amphibians, which is but a step in advance, and from that the line of progress is unbroken to the more intricate lung of the higher land animals. "The dorsal position of the bladder and its duct would be a difficulty in this inquiry, but for the fact that the duct is occasionally ventral. This dorsal position may have arisen from the upward pressure of air in the swimming fish, which would tend to lift the original pouch. But in the case of fishes which made frequent visits to the shore new influences must have come into play. The effect of gravity tended to draw the organ and its duct downward, as we find in the Crossopterygians and in all the Dipnoans, and its increased use in breathing required a more extended surface. Through this requirement came the pouched and cellular lung of the Dipnoans. Of every stage of the process here outlined examples exist, and there is great reason to believe that the development of the lung followed the path above pointed out. "When the carboniferous era opened there may have been many lung- and gill-breathing fishes which spent much of their time on land, and some of which, by a gradual improvement of their organs of locomotion, changed into batrachians. But with the appearance of the latter, and of their successors, the reptiles, the relations of the fish to the land radically changed. The fin, or the simple locomotor organ, of the Dipnoans could not compete with the leg and foot as organs of land locomotion, and the fish tribe ceased to be lords of the land, where, instead of feeble prey, they now found powerful foes, and were driven back to their native habitat, the water. Nor did the change end here. In time the waters were invaded by the reptiles, numerous swimming forms appearing, which it is likely were abundant in the shallower shore-line of the ocean, while they sent many representatives far out to sea. These were actively carnivorous, making the fish their prey, the great mass of whom were doubtless driven into the deeper waters, beyond the reach of their air-breathing foes. "In this change of conditions we seem to perceive an adequate cause for the loss of air-breathing habits in those fishes in which the lung development had not far progressed. It may indeed have been a leading influence in the development of the Teleostean or bony fishes, as it doubtless was in the loss of its primitive function by, and the subsequent changes of, the air-bladder. "Such of the Crossopterygians and Dipnoans as survived in their old condition had to contend with adverse circumstances. Most of them in time vanished, while their descendants which still exist have lost in great measure their air-breathing powers, and the Dipnoans, in which the development of the lung had gone too far for reversal, have degenerated into eel-like, mud-haunting creatures, in which the organs of locomotion have become converted into the feeble paddle-like limbs of Neoceratodus and the filamentary appendages of the other species. "As regards the presence of a large quantity of oxygen in the bladders of deep-swimming marine fishes, it not unlikely has a respiratory purpose, the bladder being, as suggested by Semper, used as a reservoir for oxygen, to serve the fish when sleeping, or when, from any cause, not actively breathing. The excess of oxygen is not due to any like excess in the gaseous contents of sea-water, for the percentage of oxygen decreases from the surface downward, while that of nitrogen remains nearly unchanged. In all cases, indeed, the bladder may preserve a share of its old function, and act as an aid in respiration. Speaking of this, Cuvier says: 'With regard to the presumed assistance which the swim-bladder affords in respiration, it is a fact that when a fish is deprived of that organ, the production of carbonic acid by the branchiæ is very trifling,' thus strongly indicating that the bladder still plays a part in the oxygenation of the blood. "Under the hypothesis here presented the process of evolution involved may be thus summed up. Air-breathing in fishes was originally performed by the unchanged walls of the oesophagus perhaps at specially vascular localities. Then the wall folded inward, and a pouch was finally formed, opening to the air. The pouch next became constricted off, with a duct of connection. Then the pouch became an air-bladder with respiratory function, and finally developed into a simple lung. These air-breathing fishes haunted the shores, their fins becoming converted into limbs suitable for land locomotion, and in time developed into the lung- and gill-breathing batrachia, and these in their turn into the lung-breathing reptilia, the locomotor organs gradually increasing in efficiency. Of these pre-batrachia we have existing representatives in the mud-haunting Dipnoi, with their feeble limbs. In the great majority of the Ganoid fishes the bladder served but a minor purpose as a breathing organ, the gills doing the bulk of the work. In the Teleostean descendants of the Ganoids the respiratory function of the bladder in great measure or wholly ceased, in the majority of cases the duct closing up or disappearing, leaving the pouch as a closed internal sac, far removed from its place of origin. In this condition it served as an aid in swimming, perhaps as a survival of one of its ancient uses. It gained also in certain cases some connection with the organ of hearing. But these were makeshift and unimportant functions, as we may gather from the fact that many fishes found no need for them, the bladder, in these cases, decreasing in size until too small to be of use in swimming, and in other cases completely disappearing after having travelled far from its point of origin. In some other cases, above cited, the process seems to have begun again, in modern times, in an eversion of the wall of the oesophagus for respiratory purposes. The whole process, if I have correctly conceived it, certainly forms a remarkable organic cycle of development and degeneration, which perhaps has no counterpart of similarly striking character in the whole range of organic life." =The Heart of the Fish.=--The heart of the fish is simple in structure, small in size, and usually placed far forward, just behind the branchial cavity, and separated from the abdominal cavity by a sort of "diaphragm" formed of thickened peritoneum. In certain eels the heart is remote from the head. The heart consists of four parts, the sinus venosus, into which the veins enter, the auricle or atrium, the ventricle, and the arterial bulb at the base of the great artery which carries the blood to the gills. Of these parts the ventricle is deepest in color and with thickest walls. The arterial bulb varies greatly in structure, being in the sharks, rays, Ganoids, and Dipnoans muscular and provided with a large number of internal valves, and contracting rhythmically like the ventricle. In the higher fishes these structures are lost, the walls of the arterial bulb are not contractile, and the interior is without valves, except the pair that separate it from the ventricle. In the lancelet there is no proper heart, the function of the heart being taken by a contractile blood-vessel situated on the ventral side of the alimentary canal. In the Dipnoans, which are allied to the ancestors of the higher vertebrates, there is the beginning of a division of the ventricle, and sometimes of the auricle, into parts by a median septum. In the higher vertebrates this septum becomes more and more specialized, separating auricle and ventricle into right and left cavities. The blood in the fish is not returned to the heart after purification, but is sent directly over the body. =The Flow of Blood.=--The blood in fishes is thin and pale red (colorless in the lancelet) and with elliptical blood-corpuscles. It enters the _sinus venosus_ from the head through the jugular vein, from the kidney and body walls through the cardinal vein, and from the liver through the hepatic veins. Hence it passes to the auricle and ventricle, and from the ventricle through the arterial bulb, or conus arteriosus to the ventral aorta. Thence it flows to the gills, where it is purified. After passing through the capillaries of the gill-filaments it is collected in paired arteries from each pair of gills. These vessels unite to form the dorsal aorta, which extends the length of the body just below the back-bone. From the dorsal aorta the subclavian arteries branch off toward the pectoral fins. From a point farther back arise the mesenteric arteries carrying blood to the stomach, intestine, liver, and spleen. In the tail the caudal vein carries blood to the kidneys. These secrete impurities arising from waste of tissues, after which the blood again passes to the heart through the _cardinal vein_. From the intestine the blood, charged with nutritive materials in solution, is carried by the _portal vein_ to the liver. Here it again passes by the _hepatic sinus_ to the _sinus venosus_ and the heart. The details of the circulatory system vary a good deal in the different groups, and a comparative study of the direction of veins and arteries is instructive and interesting. The movement of the blood in fishes is relatively slow, and its temperature is raised but little above that of the surrounding water. FOOTNOTES: [5] The Origin of Lungs: A Chapter in Evolution. American Naturalist, December, 1892. CHAPTER VII THE NERVOUS SYSTEM =The nerves of the Fish.=--The nervous system in the fish, as in the higher vertebrates, consists of brain and spinal cord with sensory, or afferent, and motor, or efferent, nerves. As in other vertebrates, the nerve substance is divided into gray matter and white matter, or nerve-cells and nerve-fibres. In the fish, however, the whole nervous system is relatively small, and the gray matter less developed than in the higher forms. According to Günther the brain in the pike (_Esox_) forms but 1/1305 part of the weight of the body; in the burbot (_Lota_) about 1/720 part. The cranium in fishes is relatively small, but the brain does not nearly fill its cavity, the space between the dura mater, which lines the skull-cavity, and the arachnoid membrane, which envelops the brain, being filled with a soft fluid containing a quantity of fat. =The Brain of the Fish.=--It is most convenient to examine the fish-brain, first in its higher stages of development, as seen in the sunfish, striped bass, or perch. As seen from above the brain of a typical fish seems to consist of five lobes, four of them in pairs, the fifth posterior to these and placed on the median line. The posterior lobe is the _cerebellum_, or _metencephalon_, and it rests on the _medulla oblongata_, the posterior portion of the brain, which is directly continuous with the spinal cord. In front of the cerebellum lies the largest pair of lobes, each of them hollow, the optic nerves being attached to the lower surface. These are known as the _optic lobes_, or _mesencephalon_. In front of these lie the two lobes of the cerebrum, also called the hemispheres, or _prosencephalon_. These lobes are usually smaller than the optic lobes and solid. In some fishes they are crossed by a furrow, but are never corrugated as in the brain of the higher animals. In front of the cerebrum lie the two small olfactory lobes, which receive the large olfactory nerve from the nostrils. From its lower surface is suspended the hypophysis or pituitary gland. [Illustration: FIG. 78.--Brain of a Shark (_Squatina squatina L._). (After Dean.) I. First cranial nerve (olfactory). P. Prosencephalon (cerebrum). E. Epiphysis. T. Thalamencephalon. II. Second cranial nerve. IV. Fourth cranial nerve. V. Fifth cranial nerve. VII. Seventh cranial nerve. V4. Fourth ventricle. M. Mesencephalon (optic lobes). MT. Metencephalon (medulla). EP. Epencephalon (cerebellum).] [Illustration: FIG. 79.--Brain of _Chimæra monstrosa_. (After Wilder per Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 80.--Brain of _Protopterus annectens_. (After Burckhardt per Dean.)] In most of the bony fishes the structure of the brain does not differ materially from that seen in the perch. In the sturgeon, however, the parts are more widely separated. In the Dipnoans the cerebral hemispheres are united, while the optic lobe and cerebellum are very small. In the sharks and rays the large cerebral hemispheres are usually coalescent into one, and the olfactory nerves dilate into large ganglia below the nostrils. The optic lobes are smaller than the hemispheres and also coalescent. The cerebellum is very large, and the surface of the medulla oblongata is more or less modified or specialized. The brain of the shark is relatively more highly developed than that of the bony fishes, although in most other regards the latter are more distinctly specialized. =The Pineal Organ.=--Besides the structures noted in other fishes the epiphysis, or pineal organ, is largely developed in sharks, and traces of it are found in most or all of the higher vertebrates. In some of the lizards this epiphysis is largely developed, bearing at its tip a rudimentary eye. This leaves no doubt that in these forms it has an optic function. For this reason the structure wherever found has been regarded as a rudimentary eye, and the "pineal eye" has been called the "unpaired median eye of chordate" animals. [Illustration: FIG. 81.--Brain of a Perch, _Perca flavescens_. (After Dean.) R. Olfactory lobe. P. Cerebrum (prosencephalon). E. Epiphysis. M. Optic lobes (mesencephalon). EP. Cerebellum (epencephalon). ML. Medulla oblongata (metencephalon). I. First cranial nerve. II. Second cranial nerve. IV. Fourth cranial nerve. V. Fifth cranial nerve. VII. Seventh cranial nerve. VIII. Eighth cranial nerve. IX. Ninth cranial nerve. X. Tenth cranial nerve.] [Illustration: FIG. 82.--_Petromyzon marinus unicolor_ (Dekay). Head of Lake Lamprey, showing pineal body. (After Gage.)] It has been supposed that this eye, once possessed by all vertebrate forms, has been gradually lost with the better development of the paired eyes, being best preserved in reptiles as "an outcome of the life-habit which concealed the animal in sand or mud, and allowed the forehead surface alone to protrude, the median eye thus preserving its ancestral value in enabling the animal to look directly upward and backward." This theory receives no support from the structures seen in the fishes. In none of the fishes is the epiphysis more than a nervous enlargement, and neither in fishes nor in amphibia is there the slightest suggestion of its connection with vision. It seems probable, as suggested by Hertwig and maintained by Dean that the original function of the pineal body was a nervous one and that its connection with or development into a median eye in lizards was a modification of a secondary character. On consideration of the evidence, Dr. Dean concludes that "the pineal structures of the true fishes do not tend to confirm the theory that the epiphysis of the ancestral vertebrates was connected with a median unpaired eye. It would appear, on the other hand, that both in their recent and fossil forms the epiphysis was connected in its median opening with the innervation of the sensory canals of the head. This view seems essentially confirmed by ontogeny. The fact that three successive pairs of epiphyseal outgrowths have been noted in the roof of the thalamencephalon[6] appears distinctly adverse to the theory of a median eye."[7] =The Brain of Primitive Fishes.=--The brain of the hagfish differs widely from that of the higher fishes, and the homologies of the different parts are still uncertain. The different ganglia are all solid and are placed in pairs. It is thought that the cerebellum is wanting in these fishes, or represented by a narrow commissure (_corpus restiforme_) across the front of the medulla. In the lamprey the brain is more like that of the ordinary fish. In the lancelet there is no trace of brain, the band-like spinal cord tapering toward either end. =The Spinal Cord.=--The spinal cord extends from the brain to the tail, passing through the neural arches of the different vertebræ when these are developed. In the higher fishes it is cylindrical and inelastic. In a few fishes (headfish, trunkfish) in which the posterior part of the body is shortened or degenerate, the spinal cord is much shortened, and replaced behind by a structure called cauda equina. In the headfish it has shrunk into "a short and conical appendage to the brain." In the Cyclostomes and chimæra the spinal cord is elastic and more or less flattened or band-like, at least posteriorly. =The Nerves.=--The nerves of the fish correspond in general in place and function with those of the higher animals. They are, however, fewer in number, both large nerve-trunks and smaller nerves being less developed than in higher forms. The _olfactory nerves_, or first pair, extend through the ethmoid bone to the nasal cavity, which is typically a blind sac with two roundish openings, but is subject to many variations. The _optic nerves_, or second pair, extend from the eye to the base of the optic lobes. In Cyclostomes these nerves run from each eye to the lobe of its own side. In the bony fishes, or Teleostei, each runs from the eye to the lobe of the opposite side. In the sharks, rays, chimæras, and Ganoids the two optic nerves are joined in a chiasma as in the higher vertebrates. Other nerves arising in the brain are the third pair, or _nervus oculorum motorius_, and the fourth pair, _nervus trochlearis_, both of which supply the muscles of the eye. The fifth pair, _nervus trigeminus_, and the seventh pair, _nervus facialis_, arise from the medulla oblongata and are very close together. Their various branches, sensory and motor, ramify among the muscles and sensory areas of the head. The sixth pair, _nervus abducens_, passes also to muscles of the eye, and in sharks to the nictitating membrane or third eyelid. The eighth pair, _nervus acousticus_, leads to the ear. The ninth pair, _glosso-pharyngeal_, passes to the tongue and pharynx, and forms a ganglion connected with the sympathetic system. The tenth pair, _nervus vagus_, or pneumogastric nerve, arises from strong roots in the corpus restiforme and the lower part of the medulla oblongata. Its nerves, motor and sensory, reach the muscles of the gill-cavity, heart, stomach, and air-bladder, as well as the muscular system and the skin. In fishes covered with bony plates the skin may be nearly or quite without sensory nerves. The eleventh pair, _nervus accessorius_, and twelfth pair, _nervus hypoglossus_, are wanting in fishes. The spinal nerves are subject to some special modifications, but in the main correspond to similar structures in higher vertebrates. The anterior root of each nerve is without ganglionic enlargement and contains only motor elements. The posterior or dorsal root is sensory only and widens into a ganglionic swelling near the base. A sympathetic system corresponding to that in the higher vertebrates is found in all the Teleostei, or bony fishes, and in the body of sharks and rays in which it is not extended to the head. FOOTNOTES: [6] The thalamencephalon or the interbrain is a name given to the region of the optic thalami, between the bases of the optic lobes and cerebrum. [7] Fishes Recent and Fossil, p. 55. CHAPTER VIII THE ORGANS OF SENSE =The Organs of Smell.=--The sense-organs of the fish correspond in general to those of the higher vertebrates. The sense of taste is, however, feeble or wanting, and that of hearing is muffled and without power of acute discrimination, if indeed it exists at all. According to Dr. Kingsley (Vert. Zool., p. 75), "recent experiments tend to show that in fishes the ears are without auditory functions and are solely organs of equilibration." The sense of smell resides in the nostrils, which have no relation to the work of breathing. No fish breathes through its nostrils, and only in a few of the lowest forms (hagfishes) does the nostril pierce through the roof of the mouth. In the bony fishes the nostril is a single cavity, on either side, lined with delicate or fringed membrane, well provided with blood-vessels, and with nerves from the olfactory lobe. In most cases each nasal cavity has two external openings. These may be simple, or the rim of the nostril may be elevated, forming a papilla or even a long barbel. Either nostril may have a papilla or barbel, or the two may unite in one structure with two openings or with sieve-like openings, or in some degenerate types (_Tropidichthys_) with no obvious openings at all, the olfactory nerves spreading over the skin of a small papilla. The openings may be round, slit-like, pore-like, or may have various other forms. In certain families of bony fishes (_Pomacentridæ_, _Cichlidæ_, _Hexagrammidæ_), there is but one opening to each nostril. In the sharks, rays, and chimæras there is also but one opening on either side and the nostril is large and highly specialized, with valvular flaps controlled by muscles which are said to enable them "to scent actively as well as to smell passively." In the lancelet there is a single median organ supposed to be a nostril, a small depression at the front of the head, covered by ciliated membrane. In the hagfish the single median nostril pierces the roof of the mouth, and is strengthened by cartilaginous rings, like those of the windpipe. In the lamprey the single median nostril leads to a blind sac. In the _Barramunda_ (_Neoceratodus_) there are both external and internal nares, the former being situated just within the upper lip. In all other fishes there is a nasal sac on either side of the head. This has usually, but not always, two openings. There is little doubt that the sense of smell in fishes is relatively acute, and that the odor of their prey attracts them to it. It is known that flesh, blood, or a decaying carcass will attract sharks, and other predatory fish are drawn in a similar manner. At the same time the strength of this function is yet to be tested by experiments. [Illustration: FIG. 83.--Dismal Swamp Fish, _Chologaster cornutus_ Agassiz. Supposed ancestor of _Typhlichthys_. Virginia.] [Illustration: FIG. 84.--Blind Cavefish, _Typhlichthys subterraneus_ Girard. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.] =The Organs of Sight.=--The eyes of fishes differ from those of the higher vertebrates mainly in the spherical form of the crystalline lens. This extreme convexity is necessary because the lens itself is not very much denser than the fluid in which the fishes live. The eyes vary very much in size and somewhat in form and position. They are larger in fishes living at a moderate depth than in shore fishes or river fishes. At great depths, as a mile or more, where all light is lost, they may become aborted or rudimentary, and may be covered by the skin. Often species with very large eyes, making the most of a little light or of light from their own luminous spots, will inhabit the same depths with fishes having very small eyes or eyes apparently useless for seeing, retained as vestigial structures through heredity. Fishes which live in caves become also blind, the structures showing every possible phase of degradation. The details of this gradual loss of eyes, whether through reversed selection or hypothetically through inheritance of atrophy produced by disuse, have been given in a number of memoirs on the blind fishes of the Mississippi Valley by Dr. Carl H. Eigenmann. In some fishes the eye is raised on a short, fleshy stalk and can be moved about at the will of the fish. It is said that the vision of the pond-skipper, _Periophthalmus_, when hunting insects on the mud flats of Japan or India is "quite equal to that of a frog." It is known also that trout possess keen eyesight, and that they show a marked preference for one sort or another of real or artificial fly. Nevertheless the vision of fishes in general is probably not very precise. They apparently notice motion rather than outline, changes rather than objects, while the extreme curvature of the crystalline lens would seem to render them all near-sighted. [Illustration: FIG. 85.--Four-eyed Fish, _Anableps dovii_ Gill. Tehuantepec, Mexico.] In the eyes of the fishes there is no lachrymal gland. True eyelids no fishes possess; the integuments of the head pass over the eye, becoming transparent as they cross the orbit. In some fishes part of this integument is thickened, covering the eye fully although still transparent. This forms the adipose eyelid characteristic of the mullet, mackerel, and ladyfish. Many of the sharks possess a distinct nictitating membrane or special eyelid, moved by a set of muscles. The iris in most fishes surrounds a round pupil without much power of contraction. It is frequently brightly colored, red, orange, black, blue, or green. In fishes, like rays or flounders, which lie on the bottom, a dark lobe covers the upper part of the pupil--a curtain to shut out light from above. The cornea is little convex, leaving small space for aqueous humor. In two genera of fishes, _Anableps_, _Dialommus_, the cornea is divided by a horizontal partition into two parts. This arrangement permits these fishes, which swim at the surface of the water, to see both in and out of the medium. _Anableps_, the four-eyed fish, is a fresh-water fish of tropical America, which swims at the surface like a top-minnow, feeding on insects. _Dialommus_ is a marine blenny from the Panama region, apparently of similar habit. [Illustration: FIG. 86.--_Ipnops murrayi_ Günther.] In one genus of deep-sea fishes, _Ipnops_, the eyes are spread out to cover the whole upper surface of the head, being modified as luminous areas. Whether these fishes can see at all is not known. [Illustration: FIG. 87.--Pond-skipper, _Boleophthalmus chinensis_ (Osbeck). Bay of Tokyo, Japan; from nature. K. Morita. (Eye-stalks shrunken in preservation.)] The position of the optic nerves is described in a previous chapter. In ordinary fishes there is one eye on each side of the head, but in the flounders, by a distortion of the cranium, both appear on the same side. This side is turned uppermost as the fish swims in the water or when it lies on the bottom. This distortion is a matter of development. The very young flounder swims with its broad axis vertical in the water, and it has one eye on either side. As soon as it rests on the bottom it begins to lean to one side. The lower eye changes its axis and by degrees travels across the face of the fish, part of the bony interorbital moving with it across to the other side. In some soles it is said to pass through the substance of the head, reappearing on the other side. In all species which the writer has examined the cranium is twisted, the eye moving with the bones; and the frontal bone is divided, a new orbit being formed by this division. In most northern flounders the eyes are on the right side in the adult, in tropical forms more frequently on the left, these distinctions corresponding with others in the structure of the fish. In the lowest of the fish-like forms, the lancelet, the eye is simply a minute pigment-spot situated in the anterior wall of the ventricle at the anterior end of the central nervous system. In the hagfishes, which stand next highest in the series, the eye, still incomplete, is very small and hidden by the skin and muscles. This condition is very different from that of the blind fishes of the higher groups, in which the eye is lost through atrophy, because in life in caves or under rocks the function of seeing is no longer necessary. =The Organs of Hearing.=--The ear of the typical fish consists of the labyrinth only, including the vestibule and usually three semicircular canals, these dilating into sacs which contain one or more large, loose bones, the ear-stones or otoliths. In the lampreys there are two semicircular canals, in the hagfish but one. There is no external ear, no tympanum, and no Eustachian tube. The ear-sac on each side is lodged in the skull or at the base of the cranial cavity. It is externally surrounded by bone or cartilage, but sometimes it lies near a fontanelle or opening in the skull above. In some fishes it is brought into very close connection with the anterior end of the air-bladder. The latter organ it is thought may form part of the apparatus for hearing. The arrangement for this purpose is especially elaborate in the carp and the catfish families. In these fishes and their relatives (called _Ostariophysi_) the two vestibules are joined in a median sac (_sinus impar_) in the substance of the basioccipital. This communicates with two cavities in the atlas, which again are supported by two small bones, these resting on a larger one in connection with the front of the air-bladder. The system of bones is analogous to that found in the higher vertebrates, but it connects with the air-bladder, not with an external tympanum. The bones are not homologous with those of the ear of higher animals, being processes of the anterior vertebræ. The tympanic chain of higher vertebrates has been thought homologous with the suspensory of the mandible. [Illustration: FIG. 88.--Brook Lamprey, _Lampetra wilderi_ Jordan and Evermann. (After Gage.) Cayuga Lake.] The otoliths, commonly two in each labyrinth, are usually large, firm, calcareous bodies, with enamelled surface and peculiar grooves and markings. Each species has its own form of otolith, but they vary much in different groups of fishes. [Illustration: FIG. 89.--European Lancelet, _Branchiostoma lanceolatum_ (Pallas). (After Parker and Haswell.)] In the Elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) and in the Dipnoans the ear-sac is enclosed in the cartilaginous substance of the skull. There is a small canal extending to the surface of the skull, ending sometimes in a minute foramen. The otoliths in these fishes are soft and chalk-like. The lancelet shows no trace of an ear. In the cyclostomes, hagfishes, and lampreys it forms a capsule of relatively simple structure conspicuous in the prepared skeleton. The sense of hearing in fishes cannot be very acute, and is at the most confined to the perception of disturbances in the water. Most movements of the fish are governed by sight rather than by sound. It is in fact extremely doubtful whether fishes really hear at all, in a way comparable to the auditory sense in higher vertebrates. Recent experiments of Professor G. H. Parker on the killifish tend to show a moderate degree of auditory sense which grades into the sense of touch, the tubes of the lateral line assisting in both hearing and touch. While the killifish responds to a bass-viol string, there may be some fishes wholly deaf. =Voices of Fishes.=--Some fishes make distinct noises variously described as quivering, grunting, grating, or singing. The name grunt is applied to species of _Hæmulon_ and related genera, and fairly describes the sound these fishes make. The Spanish name ronco or roncador (grunter or snorer) is applied to several fishes, both sciænoid and hæmuloid. The noise made by these fishes may be produced by forcing air from part to part of the complex air-bladder, or it may be due to grating one on another of the large pharyngeals. The grating sounds arise, no doubt, from the pharyngeals, while the quivering or singing sounds arise in the air-bladder. The midshipman, _Porichthys notatus_, is often called singing fish, from a peculiar sound it emits. These sounds have not yet been carefully investigated. =The Sense of Taste.=--It is not certain that fishes possess a sense of taste, and it is attributed to them only through their homology with the higher animals. The tongue is without delicate membranes or power of motion. In some fishes certain parts of the palate or pharyngeal region are well supplied with nerves, but no direct evidence exists that these have a function of discrimination among foods. Fishes swallow their food very rapidly, often whole, and mastication, when it takes place, is a crushing or cutting process, not one likely to be affected by the taste of the food. =The Sense of Touch.=--The sense of touch is better developed among fishes. Most of them flee from contact with actively moving objects. Many fishes use sensitive structures as a means of exploring the bottom or of feeling their way to their food. The barbel or fleshy filament wherever developed is an organ of touch. In some fishes, barbels are outgrowths from the nostrils. In the catfish the principal barbel grows from the rudimentary maxillary bone. In the horned dace and gudgeon the little barbel is attached to the maxillary. In other fishes barbels grow from the skin of the chin or snout. In the goatfish and surmullet the two chin barbels are highly specialized. In _Polymixia_ the chin barbels are modified _branchiostegals_. In the codfish the single beard is little developed. In the gurnards and related forms the lower rays of the pectoral are separate and barbel-like. Detached rays of this sort are found in the thread-fins (_Polynemidæ_), the gurnards (_Triglidæ_), and in various other fishes. Barbels or fleshy flaps are often developed over the eyes and sometimes on the scales or the fins. [Illustration: FIG. 90.--Goatfish, _Pseudupeneus maculatus_ (Bloch). Woods Hole.] The structure of the lateral line and its probable relation as a sense-organ is discussed on page 23. It is probable that it is associated with sense of touch, and hearing as well, the internal ear being originally "a modified part of the lateral-line system," as shown by Parker,[8] who calls the skin the lateral line and the ear "three generations of sense-organs." The sense of pain is very feeble among fishes. A trout has been known to bite at its own eye placed on a hook, and similar insensibility has been noted in the pike and other fishes. "The Greenland shark, when feeding on the carcass of a whale, allows itself to be repeatedly stabbed in the head without abandoning its prey." (GÜNTHER.) FOOTNOTES: [8] See Parker, on the sense of hearing in fishes, American Naturalist for March, 1903. CHAPTER IX THE ORGANS OF REPRODUCTION =The Germ-cells.=--In most fishes the germ-cells are produced in large sacs, ovaries or testes, arranged symmetrically one on either side of the posterior part of the abdominal cavity. The sexes are generally but not always similar externally, and may be distinguished on dissection by the difference between the sperm-cells and the ova. The ovary with its eggs is more yellow in color and the contained cells appear granular. The testes are whitish or pinkish, their secretion milk-like, and to the naked eye not granular. [Illustration: FIG. 91.--Sword-tail Minnow, male, _Xiphophorus helleri_ Heckel. The anal fin modified as an intromittent organ. Vera Cruz.] In a very few cases both organs have been found in the same fish, as in _Serranus_, which is sometimes truly hermaphrodite. All fishes, however, seem to be normally dioecious, the two sexes in different individuals. Usually there are no external genital organs, but in some species a papilla or tube is developed at the end of the urogenital sinus. This may exist in the breeding season only, as in the fresh-water lampreys, or it may persist through life as in some gobies. In the Elasmobranchs, cartilaginous claspers, attached to the ventral fins in the male, serve as a conduit for the sperm-cells. =The Eggs of Fishes.=--The great majority of fishes are oviparous, the eggs being fertilized after deposition. The eggs are laid in gravel or sand or other places suitable for the species, and the milt containing the sperm-cells of the male is discharged over or among them in the water. A very small quantity of the sperm-fluid may impregnate a large number of eggs. But one sperm-cell can enter a particular egg. In a number of families the species are ovoviviparous, the eggs being hatched in the ovary or in a dilated part of the oviduct, the latter resembling a real uterus. In some sharks there is a structure analogous to the placenta of higher animals, but not of the same structure or origin. In the case of viviparous fishes actual copulation takes place and there is usually a modification of some organ to effect transfer of the sperm-cells. This is the purpose of the sword-shaped anal fin in many top-minnows (_Pæciliidæ_), the fin itself being placed in advance of its usual position. In the surf-fishes (_Embiotocidæ_) the structure of part of the anal fin is modified, although it is not used as an intromittent organ. In the Elasmobranchs, as already stated, large organs of cartilage (claspers) are developed from the ventral fins. [Illustration: FIG. 92.--White Surf-fish, viviparous, with young, _Cymatogaster aggregatus_ Gibbons. San Francisco.] In some viviparous fishes, as in the rockfishes (_Sebastodes_) and rosefishes (_Sebastes_), the young are very minute at birth. [Illustration: FIG. 93.--_Goodea luitpoldi_ (Steindachner). A viviparous fish from Lake Patzcuaro, Mexico. Family _Pæciliidæ_. (After Meek.)] In others, as the surf-fishes (_Embiotocidæ_), they are relatively large and few in number. In the viviparous sharks, which constitute the majority of the species of living sharks, the young are large at birth and prepared to take care of themselves. [Illustration: FIG. 94.--Egg of _Callorhynchus antarcticus_, the Bottle-nosed Chimæra. (After Parker and Haswell.)] The eggs of fishes vary very much in size and form. In those sharks and rays which lay eggs the ova are deposited in a horny egg-case, in color and texture suggesting the kelp in which they are laid. The eggs of the bullhead sharks (_Heterodontus_) are spirally twisted, those of the cat-sharks (_Scyliorhinidæ_) are quadrate with long filaments at the angles. Those of rays are wheelbarrow-shaped with four "handles." One egg-case of a ray may sometimes contain several eggs and develop several young. The eggs of lancelets are small, but those of the hagfishes are large, ovate, with fibres at each side, each with a triple hook at tip. The chimæra has also large egg-cases, oblong in form. [Illustration: FIG. 95.--Egg of the Hagfish, _Myxine limosa_ Girard, showing threads for attachment. (After Dean.)] In the higher fishes the eggs are spherical, large or small according to the species, and varying in the firmness of their outer walls. All contain food-yolk from which the embryo in its earlier stages is fed. The eggs of the eel (_Anguilla_) are microscopic. According to Günther 25,000 eggs have been counted in the herring, 155,000 in the lumpfish, 3,500,000 in the halibut, 635,200 in the sturgeon, and 9,344,000 in the cod. Smaller numbers are found in fishes with large ova. The red salmon has about 3500 eggs, the king salmon about 5200. Where an oviduct is present the eggs are often poured out in glutinous masses, as in the bass. When, as in the salmon, there is no oviduct, the eggs lie separate and do not cohere together. It is only with the latter class of fishes, those in which the eggs remain distinct, that artificial impregnation and hatching is practicable. In this regard the value of the salmon and trout is predominant. In some fishes, especially those of elongate form, as the needle-fish (_Tylosurus_), the ovary of but one side is developed. [Illustration: FIG. 96.--Egg of Port Jackson Shark, _Heterodontus philippi_ (Lacépède). (After Parker and Haswell.)] =Protection of the Young.=--In most fishes the parents take no care of their eggs or young. In some catfishes (_Platystacus_) the eggs adhere to the under surface of the female. In a kind of pipefish (_Solenostomus_), a large pouch for retention of the eggs is formed on the belly of the female. In the sea-horses and pipefishes a pouch is formed in the skin, usually underneath the tail of the male. Into this the eggs are thrust, and here the young fishes hatch out, remaining until large enough to take care of themselves. In certain sea catfishes (_Galeichthys, Conorhynchos_) the male carries the eggs in his mouth, thus protecting them from the attacks of other fishes. In numerous cases the male constructs a rough nest, which he defends against all intruders, against the female as well as against outside enemies. The nest-building habit is especially developed in the sticklebacks (_Gasterosteidæ_), a group in which the male fish, though a pygmy in size, is very fierce in disposition. In a minnow of Europe (_Rhodeus amarus_) the female is said to deposit her eggs within the shells of river mussels. =Sexual Modification.=--In the relatively few cases in which the sexes are unlike the male is usually the brighter in color and with more highly developed fins. Blue, red, black, and silvery-white pigment are especially characteristic of the male, the olivaceous and mottled coloration of the female. Sometimes the male has a larger mouth, or better developed crests, barbels, or other appendages. In some species the pattern of coloration in the two sexes is essentially different. In various species the male develops peculiar structures not found in the female, and often without any visible purpose. In the chimæra a peculiar cartilaginous hook armed with a brush of enamelled teeth at the tip is developed on the forehead in the male only. In the skates or true rays (_Raja_) the pectoral fin has near its edge two rows of stout incurved spines. These the female lacks. In the breeding season, among certain fishes, the male sometimes becomes much brighter by the accumulation of bright red or blue pigment accompanied by black or white pigment cells. This is especially true in the minnows (_Notropis_), the darters (_Etheostoma_), and other fresh-water species which spawn in the brooks of northern regions in the spring. In the minnows and suckers horny excrescences are also developed on head, body, or fins, to be lost after the deposition of the spawn. In the salmon, especially those of the Pacific, the adult male becomes greatly distorted in the spawning season, the jaws and teeth being greatly elongated and hooked or twisted so that the fish cannot shut its mouth. The Atlantic salmon and the trout show also some elongation of the jaws, but not to the same extent. In those fishes which pair the relation seems not to be permanent, nor is there anything to be called personal affection among them so far as the writer has noticed. There is no evidence that the bright colors or nuptial adornments of the males are enhanced by sexual selection. In most species the males deposit the sperm-cells in spawning-grounds without much reference to the preference of the females. In general the brightest colors are not found among viviparous fishes. None of the groups in which the males are showily colored, while the females are plain, belong to this class. The brightest colors are found on the individuals most mature or having greatest vitality. CHAPTER X EMBRYOLOGY AND GROWTH OF FISHES =Segmentation of the Egg.=--The egg of the fish develops only after fertilization (amphimixis). This process is the union of its nuclear substance with that of the sperm-cell from the male, each cell carrying its equal share in the function of heredity. When this process takes place the egg is ready to begin its segmentation. The eggs of all fishes are single cells containing more or less food-yolk. The presence of this food-yolk affects the manner of segmentation in general, those eggs having the least amount of food-yolk developing most typically. The simplest of all fish like vertebrates, the lancelet (_Branchiostoma_) has very small eggs, and in their early development it passes through stages that are typical for all many-celled animals. The first stage in development is the simple splitting of the egg into two halves. These two daughter cells next divide so that there are four cells; each of these divides, and this division is repeated until a great number of cells is produced. The phenomenon of repeated division of the germ-cell is called cleavage, and this cleavage is the first stage of development in the case of all many-celled animals. Instead of forming a solid mass the cells arrange themselves in such a way as to form a hollow ball, the wall being a layer one cell thick. The included cavity is called the segmentation cavity, and the whole structure is known as a blastula. This stage also is common to all the many-celled animals. The next stage is the conversion of the blastula into a double-walled cup, known as a gastrula by the pushing in of one side. All the cells of the blastula are very small, but those on one side are somewhat larger than those of the other, and here the wall first flattens and then bends in until finally the larger cells come into contact with the smaller and the segmentation cavity is entirely obliterated. There is now an inner layer of cells and an outer layer, the inner layer being known as the endoblast and the outer as the ectoblast. The cavity of the cup thus formed is the archenteron and gives rise primarily to the alimentary canal. This third well-marked stage is called the gastrula stage; and it is thought to occur either typically or in some modified form in the development of all metazoa, or many-celled animals. In the lampreys, the Ganoids, and the Dipnoans the eggs contain a much greater quantity of yolk than those of the lancelet, but the segmentation resembles that of the lancelet in that it is complete; that is, the whole mass of the egg divides into cells. There is a great difference, however, in the size of the cells, those at the upper pole being much smaller than those at the lower. In _Petromyzon_ and the Dipnoans blastula and gastrula stages result, which, though differing in some particulars from the corresponding stages of the lancelet, may yet readily be compared with them. In the hagfishes, sharks, rays, chimæras, and most bony fishes there is a large quantity of yolk, and the protoplasm, instead of being distributed evenly throughout the egg, is for the most part accumulated upon one side, the nucleus being within this mass of protoplasm. When the food substance or yolk is consumed and the little fish is able to shift for itself, it leaves the egg-envelopes and is said to be hatched. The figures on page 135 show some of the stages by which cells are multiplied and ultimately grouped together to form the little fish. =Post-embryonic Development.=--In all the fishes the development of the embryo goes on within the egg long after the gastrula stage is passed, and until the embryo becomes a complex body, composed of many differing tissues and organs. Almost all the development may take place within the egg, so that when the young animal hatches there is necessary little more than a rapid growth and increase of size to make it a fully developed mature animal. This is the case with most fishes: a little fish just hatched has most of the tissues and organs of a full-grown fish, and is simply a small fish. But in the case of some fishes the young hatches from the egg before it has reached such an advanced state of development, and the young looks very different from its parent. It must yet undergo considerable change before it reaches the structural condition of a fully developed and fully grown fish. Thus the development of most fishes is almost wholly embryonic development--that is, development within the egg or in the body of the mother--while the development of some of them is to a considerable degree post-embryonic or larval development. There is no important difference between embryonic and post-embryonic development. The development is continuous from egg-cell to mature animal and, whether inside or outside of an egg, it goes on with a degree of regularity. While certain fishes are subject to a sort of metamorphosis, the nature of this change is in no way to be compared with the change in insects which undergo a complete metamorphosis. In the insects all the organs of the body are broken down and rebuilt in the process of change. In all fishes a structure once formed maintains a more nearly continuous integrity although often considerably altered in form. =General Laws of Development.=--The general law of development may be briefly stated as follows: All many-celled animals begin life as a single cell, the fertilized egg-cell; each animal goes through a certain orderly series of developmental changes which, accompanied by growth, leads the animal to change from single-cell to many-celled, complex form characteristic of the species to which the animal belongs; this development is from simple to complex structural condition; the development is the same for all individuals of one species. While all animals begin development similarly, the course of development in the different groups soon diverges, the divergence being of the nature of a branching, like that shown in the growth of a tree. In the free tips of the smallest branches we have represented the various species of animals in their fully developed condition, all standing clearly apart from each other. But in tracing back the development of any kind of animal we soon come to a point where it very much resembles or becomes apparently identical with some other kind of animal, and going farther back we find it resembling other animals in their young condition, and so on until we come to that first stage of development, that trunk stage where all animals are structurally alike. Any animal at any stage in its existence differs absolutely from any other kind of animal, in this respect: it can develop into only its own kind. There is something inherent in each developing animal that gives it an identity of its own. Although in its young stages it may be indistinguishable from some other species of animal in its young stages, it is sure to come out, when fully developed, an individual of the same kind as its parents were or are. The young fish and the young salamander may be alike to all appearance, but one embryo is sure to develop into a fish, and the other into a salamander. This certainty of an embryo to become an individual of a certain kind is called the law of heredity. Viewed in the light of development, there must be as great a difference between one egg and another as between one animal and another, for the greater difference is included in the less. =The Significance of Facts of Development.=--The significance of the process of development in any species is yet far from completely understood. It is believed that many of the various stages in the development of an animal correspond to or repeat the structural condition of the animal's ancestors. Naturalists believe that all animals having a notochord at any stage in their existence are related to each other through being descended from a common ancestor, the first or oldest chordate or back-boned animal. In fact it is because all these chordate animals--the lancelets, lampreys, fishes, batrachians, the reptiles, the birds, and the mammals--have descended from a common ancestor that they all develop a notochord, and those most highly organized replace this by a complete back-bone. It is believed that the descendants of the first back-boned animal have, in the course of many generations, branched off little by little from the original type until there came to exist very real and obvious differences among the back-boned animals--differences which among the living back-boned animals are familiar to all of us. The course of development of an individual animal is believed to be a very rapid and evidently much condensed and changed recapitulation of the history which the species or kind of animal to which the developing individual belongs has passed through in the course of its descent through a long series of gradually changing ancestors. If this is true, then we can readily understand why the fish and the salamander and the tortoise and bird and rabbit are all alike in their earlier stages of development, and gradually come to differ more and more as they pass through later and later developmental stages. =Development of the Bony Fishes.[9]= The mode of development of bony fishes differs in many and apparently important regards from that of their nearest kindred, the Ganoids. In their eggs a large amount of yolk is present, and its relations to the embryo have become widely specialized. As a rule, the egg of a Teleost is small, perfectly spherical, and enclosed in delicate but greatly distended membranes. The germ disc is especially small, appearing on the surface as an almost transparent fleck. Among the fishes whose eggs float at the surface during development, as of many pelagic Teleosts, e.g., the sea-bass, _Centropristes striatus_, the yolk is lighter in specific gravity than the germ; it is of fluid-like consistency, almost transparent. In the yolk at the upper pole of the egg an oil globule usually occurs; this serves to lighten the relative weight of the entire egg, and from its position must aid in keeping this pole of the egg uppermost. [Illustration: FIG. 97.--Development of Sea-bass, _Centropristes striatus_ (Linnæus). _a_, egg prior to germination; _b_, germ-disk after first cleavage; _c_, germ-disk after third cleavage; _d_, embryo just before hatching. (After H. V. Wilson.)] In the early segmentation of the germ the first cleavage plane is established, and the nuclear divisions have taken place for the second; in the latter the third cleavage has been completed. As in other fishes these cleavages are vertical, the third parallel to the first. A segmentation cavity occurs as a central space between the blastomeres, as it does in the sturgeon and garpike. In stages of late segmentation the segmentation cavity is greatly flattened, but extends to the marginal cells of the germ-disk; its roof consists of two tiers of blastomeres, its floor of a thin film of the unsegmented substance of the germ; the marginal blastomeres are continuous with both roof and floor of the cavity, and are produced into a thin film which passes downward, around the sides of the yolk. Later the segmentation cavity is still further flattened; its roof is now a dome-shaped mass of blastomeres; the marginal cells have multiplied, and their nuclei are seen in the layer of the germ, below the plane of the segmentation cavity. These are seen in the surface view of the marginal cells of this stage; they are separated by cell boundaries only at the sides; below they are continuous in the superficial down-reaching layer of the germ. The marginal cells shortly lose all traces of having been separate; their nuclei, by continued division, spread into the layer of germ flooring the segmentation cavity, and into the delicate film of germ which now surrounds the entire yolk. Thus is formed the _periblast_ of the Teleost development, which from this point onward is to separate the embryo from the yolk; it is clearly the specialized inner part of the germ, which, becoming fluid-like, loses its cell-walls, although retaining and multiplying its nuclei. Later the periblast comes into intimate relations with the growing embryo; it lies directly against it, and appears to receive cell increments from it at various regions; on the other hand, the nuclei of the periblast, from their intimate relations with the yolk, are supposed to subserve some function in its assimilation. Aside from the question of periblast, the growth of the blastoderm appears not unlike that of the sturgeon. From the blastula stage to that of the early gastrula, the changes have been but slight; the blastoderm has greatly flattened out as its margins grow downward, leaving the segmentation cavity apparent. The rim of the blastoderm has become thickened as the 'germ-ring'; and immediately in front of the dorsal lip of the blastopore its thickening marks the appearance of the embryo. The germ-ring continues to grow downward, and shows more prominently the outline of the embryo; this now terminates at the head region; while on either side of this point spreads out tail-ward on either side the indefinite layer of outgrowing mesoderm. In the next stage the closure of the blastopore is rapidly becoming completed; in front of it stretches the widened and elongated form of the embryo. The yolk-plug is next replaced by periblast, the dorsal lip by the tail-mass, or more accurately the dorsal section of the germ-rim; the coelenteron under the dorsal lip has here disappeared, on account of the close approximation of the embryo to the periblast; its last remnant, the Kupffer's vesicle, is shortly to disappear. The germ-layers become confluent, but, unlike the sturgeon, the flattening of the dorsal germ-ring does not permit the formation of a neurenteric canal. [Illustration: FIG. 98. Sea-bass, _Centropristes striatus_, natural size. (From life, by R. W. Shufeldt.)--Page 137.] The process of the development of the germ-layers in Teleosts appears as an abbreviated one, although in many of its details it is but imperfectly known. In the development of the medullary groove, as an example, the following peculiarities exist: the medullary region is but an insunken mass of cells without a trace of the groove-like surface indentation. It is only later, when becoming separate from the ectoderm, that it acquires its rounded character; its cellular elements then group themselves symmetrically with reference to a sagittal plane, where later, by their dissociation, the canal of the spinal cord is formed. The growth of the entoderm is another instance of specialized development. In an early stage the entoderm exists in the axial region, its thickness tapering away abruptly on either side; its lower surface is closely apposed to the periblast; its dorsal thickening will shortly become separate as the notochord. In a following stage of development the entoderm is seen to arch upward in the median line as a preliminary stage in the formation of the cavity of the gut. Later, by the approximation of the entoderm-cells in the median ventral line, the condition is reached where the completed gut-cavity exists. The formation of the mesoderm in Teleosts is not definitely understood. It is usually said to arise as a process of 'delamination,' i.e., detaching itself in a mass from the entoderm. Its origin is, however, looked upon generally as of a specialized and secondary character. The mode of formation of the gill-slit of the Teleost does not differ from that in other groups; an evagination of the entoderm coming in contact with an invaginated tract of ectoderm fuses, and at this point an opening is later established. The late embryo of the Teleost, though of rounded form, is the more deeply implanted in the yolk-sac than that of the sturgeon; it is transparent, allowing notochord, primitive segments, heart, and sense-organs to be readily distinguished; at about this stage both anus and mouth are making their appearance. [Illustration: FIG. 99.--Young Sword-fish, _Xiphias gladius_ (Linnæus). (After Lütken.)] =The Larval Development of Fishes.[10]=--"When the young fish has freed itself from its egg-membranes it gives but little suggestion of its adult form. It enters upon a larval existence, which continues until maturity. The period of change of form varies widely in the different groups of fishes, from a few weeks' to longer than a year's duration; and the extent of the changes that the larva undergoes are often surprisingly broad, investing every organ and tissue of the body, the immature fish passing through a series of form stages which differ one from the other in a way strongly contrasting with the mode of growth of amniotes; since the chick, reptile, or mammal emerges from its embryonic membranes in nearly its adult form. [Illustration: FIG. 100.--Sword-fish, _Xiphias gladius_ (Linnæus). (After Day.)] The fish may, in general, be said to begin its existence as a larva as soon as it emerges from its egg-membranes. In some instances, however, it is difficult to decide at what point the larval stage is actually initiated: thus in sharks the excessive amount of yolk material which has been provided for the growth of the larva renders unnecessary the emerging from the egg at an early stage; and the larval period is accordingly to be traced back to stages that are still enclosed in the egg-membranes. In all cases the larval life may be said to begin when the following conditions have been fulfilled: the outward form of the larva must be well defined, separating it from the mass of yolk, its motions must be active, it must possess a continuous vertical fin-fold passing dorsally from the head region to the body terminal, and thence ventrally as far as the yolk region; and the following structures, characteristic in outward appearance, must also be established: the sense-organs--eye, ear, and nose--mouth and anus, and one or more gill-clefts. [Illustration: FIG. 101.--Larva of the Sail-fish, _Istiophorus_, very young. (After Lütken.)] [Illustration: FIG. 102.--Larva of Brook Lamprey, _Lampetra wilderi_, before transformation, being as large as the adult, toothless, and more distinctly segmented.] [Illustration: FIG. 103.--Common Eel. _Anguilla chrisypa_ Rafinesque. Family _Anguillidæ_.] Among the different groups of fishes the larval changes are brought about in widely different ways. These larval peculiarities appear at first of far-reaching significance, but may ultimately be attributed, the writer believes, to changed environmental conditions, wherein one process may be lengthened, another shortened. So, too, the changes from one stage to another may occur with surprising abruptness. As a rule, it may be said the larval stage is of longest duration in the Cyclostomes, and thence diminished in length in sharks, lung-fishes, Ganoids, and Teleosts; in the last-named group a very much curtailed (i.e., precocious) larval life may often occur. [Illustration: FIG. 104.--Larva of Common Eel, _Anguilla chrisypa_ (Rafinesque), called _Leptocephalus grassii_. (After Eigenmann.)] The metamorphoses of the newly hatched Teleost must finally be reviewed; they are certainly the most varied and striking of all larval fishes, and, singularly enough, appear to be crowded into the briefest space of time; the young fish, hatched often as early as on the fourth day, is then of the most immature character; it is transparent, delicate, easily injured, inactive; within a month, however, it may have assumed almost every detail of its mature form. A form hatching three millimeters in length may acquire the adult form before it becomes much longer than a centimeter. [Illustration: FIG. 105.--Larva of Sturgeon, _Acipenser sturio_ (Linnæus). (After Kupffer, per Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 106.--Larva (called _Tholichthys_) of _Chætodon sedentarius_ (Poey). Cuba. (After Lütken,)] [Illustration: FIG. 107.--Butterfly-fish, _Chætodon capistratus_ Linnæus. Jamaica.] =Peculiar Larval Forms.=--The young fish usually differs from the adult mainly in size and proportions. The head is larger in the young, the fins are lower, the appendages less developed, and the body more slender in the young than in the adult. But to most of these distinctions there are numerous exceptions, and in some fish there is a change so marked as to be fairly called a metamorphosis. In such cases the young fish in its first condition is properly called a larva. The larva of the lamprey (_Petromyzon_) is nearly blind and toothless, with slender head, and was long supposed to belong to a different genus (_Ammocoetes_) from the adult. The larva of sharks and rays, and also of Dipnoans and Crossopterygians, are provided with bushy external gills, which disappear in the process of development. In most soft-rayed fishes the embryonic fringe which precedes the development of the vertical fins persists for a considerable time. In many young fishes, especially the _Chætodontidæ_ and their allies (butterfly-fishes), the young fish has the head armed with broad plates formed by the backward extension of certain membrane-bones. In other forms the bones of the head are in the young provided with long spines or with serrations, which vanish totally with age. Such a change is noticeable in the swordfish. In this species the production of the bones of the snout and upper jaw into a long bony sword, or weapon of offense, takes place only with age. The young fish have jaws more normally formed, and armed with ordinary teeth. In the headfish (_Mola mola_) large changes take place in the course of growth, and the young have been taken for a different type of fishes. Among certain soft-rayed fishes and eels the young is often developed in a peculiar way, being very soft, translucent, or band-like, and formed of large or loosely aggregated cells. These peculiar organisms, long known as leptocephali, have been shown to be the normal young of fishes when mature very different. In the ladyfish (_Albula_) Dr. Gilbert has shown, by a full series of specimens, that in their further growth these pellucid fishes shrink in size, acquiring greater compactness of body, until finally reaching about half their maximum length as larvæ. After this, acquiring essentially the form of the adult fish, they begin a process of regular growth. This leptocephalous condition is thought by Günther to be due to arrest of growth in abnormal individuals, but this is not the case in _Albula_, and it is probably fully normal in the conger and other eels. In the surf-fishes the larvæ have their vertical fins greatly elevated, much higher than in the adult, while the body is much more closely compressed. In the deal-fish (_Trachypterus_) the form of the body and fins changes greatly with age, the body becoming more elongate and the fins lower. The differences between different stages of the same fish seem greater than the differences between distinct species. In fact with this and with other forms which change with age, almost the only test of species is found in the count of the fin-rays. So far as known the numbers of these structures do not change. In the moonfishes (_Carangidæ_) the changes with age are often very considerable. We copy Lütken's figure of the changes in the genus _Selene_ (fig. 113). Similar changes take place in _Alectis_, _Vomer_, and other genera. [Illustration: _Fig. 108._--_Mola mola_ (Linnæus). Very early larval stage of the Headfish, called _Centaurus boöps_. (After Richardson.)] [Illustration: FIG. 109.--_Mola mola_ (Linnæus). Early larval stage, called _Molacanthus nummularis_. (After Ryder.)] [Illustration: FIG. 110.--_Mola mola_ (Linnæus). Advanced larval stage. (After Ryder.)] =The Development of Flounders.=--In the great group of flounders and soles (_Heterosomata_) the body is greatly compressed and the species swim on one side or lie flat on the bottom, with one side uppermost. This upper side is colored like the bottom, sand-color, gray, or brown, while the lower side is mostly white. Both eyes are brought around to the upper side by a twisting of the cranium and a modification or division of the frontal bones. When the young flounder is hatched it is translucent and symmetrical, swimming vertically in the water, with one eye on either side of the head. After a little the young fish rests the ventral edge on the bottom. It then leans to one side, and as its position gradually becomes horizontal the eye on the lower side moves across with its frontal and other bones to the other side. In most species it passes directly under the first interneurals of the dorsal fin. These changes are best observed in the genus _Platophrys_. =Hybridism.=--Hybridism is very rare among fishes in a state of nature. Two or three peculiar forms among the snappers (_Lutianus_) in Cuba seem fairly attributable to hybridism, the single specimen of each showing a remarkable mixture of characters belonging to two other common species. Hybrids may be readily made in artificial impregnation among those fishes with which this process is practicable. Hybrids of the different salmon or trout usually share nearly equally the traits of the parent species. =The Age of Fishes.=--The age of fishes is seldom measured by a definite period of years. Most of them grow as long as they live, and apparently live until they fall victims to some stronger species. It is reputed that carp and pike have lived for a century, but the evidence needs verification. Some fishes, as the salmon of the Pacific (_Oncorhynchus_), have a definite period of growth (usually four years) before spawning. After this act all the individuals die so far as known. In Japan and China the Ice-fish (_Salanx_), a very long, slender, transparent fish allied to the trout, may possibly be annual in habit, all the individuals perhaps dying in the fall to be reproduced from eggs in the spring. But this alleged habit needs verification. [Illustration: FIG. 111.--Headfish (adult), _Mola mola_ (Linnæus). Virginia.] =Tenacity of Life.=--Fishes differ greatly in tenacity of life. In general, fishes of the deep seas die at once if brought near the surface. This is due to the reduction of external pressure. The internal pressure forces the stomach out through the mouth and may burst the air-bladder and the large blood-vessels. Marine fishes usually die very soon after being drawn out from the sea. [Illustration: FIG. 112.--_Albula vulpes_ (Linnæus). Transformation of the Ladyfish, from the translucent, loosely compacted larva to the smaller, firm-bodied young. Gulf of California. (After Gilbert.)] [Illustration: FIG. 113.--Development of the Horsehead-fish, _Selene vomer_ (Linnæus). Family _Carangidæ_. (After Lütken.)] Some fresh-water fishes are very fragile, dying soon in the air, often with injured air-bladder or blood-vessels. They will die even sooner in foul water. Other fishes are extremely tenacious of life. The mud-minnow (_Umbra_) is sometimes ploughed up in the half-dried mud of Wisconsin prairies. The related Alaskan blackfish (_Dallia_) has been fed frozen to dogs, escaping alive from their stomachs after being thawed out. Many of the catfishes (_Siluridæ_) will live after lying half-dried in the dust for hours. The Dipnoan, _Lepidosiren_, lives in a ball of half-dried mud during the arid season, and certain fishes, mostly Asiatic, belonging to the group _Labyrinthici_, with accessory breathing organ can long maintain themselves out of water. Among these is the China-fish (_Ophiocephalus_), often kept alive in the Chinese settlements in California and Hawaii. Some fishes can readily endure prolonged hunger, while others succumb as readily as a bird or a mammal. [Illustration: FIG. 114.--Ice-fish, _Salanx hyalocranius_ Abbott. Family _Salangidæ_. Tientsin, China.] [Illustration: FIG. 115.--Alaska Blackfish, _Dallia pectoralis_ (Bean). St. Michaels, Alaska.] =The Effects of Temperature on Fish.=--The limits of distribution of many fishes are marked by changes in temperature. Few marine fishes can endure any sudden or great change in this regard, although fresh-water fishes adapt themselves to the seasons. I have seen the cutlass-fish (_Trichiurus_) benumbed with cold off the coast of Florida while the temperature was still above the frost-line. Those fishes which are tenacious of life and little sensitive to changes in climate and food are most successfully acclimatized or domesticated. The Chinese carp (_Cyprinus carpio_) and the Japanese goldfish (_Carassius auratus_) have been naturalized in almost all temperate and tropical river basins. Within the limits of clear, cold waters most of the salmon and trout are readily transplanted. But some similar fishes (as the grayling) are very sensitive to the least change in conditions. Most of the catfish (_Siluridæ_) will thrive in almost any fresh waters except those which are very cold. [Illustration: FIG. 116.--Snake-headed China-fish, _Ophiocephalus barca_. India. (After Day.)] =Transportation of Fishes.=--The eggs of species of salmon, placed in ice to retard their development, have been successfully transplanted to great distances. The quinnat-salmon has been thus transferred from California to Australia. It has been found possible to stock rivers and lakes with desirable species, or to restock those in which the fish-supply has been partly destroyed, through the means of artificially impregnated eggs. The method still followed is said to be the discovery of J. L. Jacobi of Westphalia (about 1760). This process permits the saving of nearly all the eggs produced by the individuals taken. In a condition of nature very many of these eggs would be left unfertilized, or be destroyed by other animals. Fishes are readily kept in captivity in properly constructed aquaria. Unless injured in capture or transportation, there are few species outside the deep seas which cannot adapt themselves to life in a well-constructed aquarium. =Reproduction of Lost Parts.=--Fishes have little power to reproduce lost parts. Only the tips of fleshy structures are thus restored after injury. Sometimes a fish in which the tail has been bitten off will survive the injury. The wound will heal, leaving the animal with a truncate body, fin-rays sometimes arising from the scars. [Illustration: FIG. 117.--Monstrous Goldfish (bred in Japan), _Carassius auratus_ (Linnæus). (After Günther.)] =Monstrosities among Fishes.=--Monstrosities are rare among fishes in a state of nature. Two-headed young are frequently seen at salmon-hatcheries, and other abnormally divided or united young are not infrequent. Among domesticated species monstrosities are not infrequent, and sometimes, as in the goldfish, these have been perpetuated to become distinct breeds or races. Goldfishes with telescopic eyes and fantastic fins, and with the green coloration changed to orange, are reared in Japan, and are often seen in other countries. The carp has also been largely modified, the changes taking place chiefly in the scales. Some are naked (leather-carp), others (mirror-carp) have a few large scales arranged in series. FOOTNOTES: [9] This account of the normal development of the Teleost fishes is condensed from Dr. Dean's "Fishes Living and Fossil," in which work the details of growth in the Teleost are contrasted with those of other types of fishes. [10] This paragraph is condensed from Dean's "Fishes Living and Fossil." CHAPTER XI INSTINCTS, HABITS, AND ADAPTATIONS =The Habits of Fishes.=--The habits of fishes can hardly be summarized in any simple mode of classification. In the usual course of fish-life the egg is laid in the early spring, in water shallower than that in which the parents spend their lives. In most cases it is hatched as the water grows warmer. The eggs of the members of the salmon and cod families are, however, mostly hatched in cooling waters. The young fish gathers with others of its species in little schools, feeds on smaller fishes of other species or of its own, grows and changes until maturity, deposits its eggs, and the cycle of life begins again, while the old fish ultimately dies or is devoured. =Irritability of Animals.=--All animals, of whatever degree of organization, show in life the quality of irritability or response to external stimulus. Contact with external things produces some effect on each of them, and this effect is something more than the mere mechanical effect on the matter of which the animal is composed. In the one-celled animals the functions of response to external stimulus are not localized. They are the property of any part of the protoplasm of the body. In the higher or many-celled animals each of these functions is specialized and localized. A certain set of cells is set apart for each function, and each organ or series of cells is released from all functions save its own. =Nerve-cells and Fibres.=--In the development of the individual animal certain cells from the primitive external layer or ectoblast of the embryo are set apart to preside over the relations of the creature to its environment. These cells are highly specialized, and while some of them are highly sensitive, others are adapted for carrying or transmitting the stimuli received by the sensitive cells, and still others have the function of receiving sense-impressions and of translating them into impulses of motion. The nerve-cells are receivers of impressions. These are gathered together in nerve-masses or ganglia, the largest of these being known as the brain, the ganglia in general being known as nerve-centres. The nerves are of two classes. The one class, called sensory nerves, extends from the skin or other organ of sensation to the nerve-centre. The nerves of the other class, motor nerves, carry impulses to motion. =The Brain, or Sensorium.=--The brain or other nerve-centre sits in darkness, surrounded by a bony protecting box. To this main nerve-centre, or _sensorium_, come the nerves from all parts of the body that have sensation, the external skin as well as the special organs of sight, hearing, taste, and smell. With these come nerves bearing sensations of pain, temperature, muscular effort--all kinds of sensation which the brain can receive. These nerves are the sole sources of knowledge to any animal organism. Whatever idea its brain may contain must be built up through these nerve-impressions. The aggregate of these impressions constitute the world as the organism knows it. All sensation is related to action. If an organism is not to act, it cannot feel, and the intensity of its feeling is related to its power to act. =Reflex Action.=--These impressions brought to the brain by the sensory nerves represent in some degree the facts in the animal's environment. They teach something as to its food or its safety. The power of locomotion is characteristic of animals. If they move, their actions must depend on the indications carried to the nerve-centre from the outside; if they feed on living organisms, they must seek their food; if, as in many cases, other living organisms prey on them, they must bestir themselves to escape. The impulse of hunger on the one hand and of fear on the other are elemental. The sensorium receives an impression that food exists in a certain direction. At once an impulse to motion is sent out from it to the muscles necessary to move the body in that direction. In the higher animals these movements are more rapid and more exact. This is because organs of sense, muscles, nerve-fibres, and the nerve-cells are all alike highly specialized. In the fish the sensation is slow, the muscular response sluggish, but the method remains the same. This is simple reflex action, an impulse from the environment carried to the brain and then unconsciously reflected back as motion. The impulse of fear is of the same nature. Reflex action is in general unconscious, but with animals, as with man, it shades by degrees into conscious action, and into volition or action "done on purpose." =Instinct.=--Different animals show differences in method or degree of response to external influences. Fishes will pursue their prey, flee from a threatening motion, or disgorge sand or gravel swallowed with their food. Such peculiarities of different forms of life constitute the basis of instinct. Instinct is automatic obedience to the demands of conditions external to the nervous system. As these conditions vary with each kind of animal, so must the demands vary, and from this arises the great variety actually seen in the instincts of different animals. As the demands of life become complex, so do the instincts. The greater the stress of environment, the more perfect the automatism, for impulses to safe action are necessarily adequate to the duty they have to perform. If the instinct were inadequate, the species would have become extinct. The fact that its individuals persist shows that they are provided with the instincts necessary to that end. Instinct differs from other allied forms of response to external condition in being hereditary, continuous from generation to generation. This sufficiently distinguishes it from reason, but the line between instinct and reason and other forms of reflex action cannot be sharply drawn. It is not necessary to consider here the question of the origin of instincts. Some writers regard them as "inherited habits," while others, with apparent justice, doubt if mere habits or voluntary actions repeated till they become a "second nature" ever leave a trace upon heredity. Such investigators regard instinct as the natural survival of those methods of automatic response which were most useful to the life of the animal, the individual having less effective methods of reflex action perishing, leaving no posterity. =Classification of Instincts.=--The instincts of fishes may be roughly classified as to their relation to the individual into egoistic and altruistic instincts. _Egoistic instincts_ are those which concern chiefly the individual animal itself. To this class belong the instincts of feeding, those of self-defense and of strife, the instincts of play, the climatic instincts, and environmental instincts, those which direct the animal's mode of life. _Altruistic instincts_ are those which relate to parenthood and those which are concerned with the mass of individuals of the same species. The latter may be called the social instincts. In the former class, the instincts of parenthood, may be included the instinct of courtship, reproduction, home-making, nest-building, and care for the young. Most of these are feebly developed among fishes. The instincts of feeding are primitively simple, growing complex through complex conditions. The fish seizes its prey by direct motion, but the conditions of life modify this simple action to a very great degree. The instinct of self-defense is even more varied in its manifestations. It may show itself either in the impulse to make war on an intruder or in the desire to flee from its enemies. Among carnivorous forms fierceness of demeanor serves at once in attack and in defense. Herbivorous fishes, as a rule, make little direct resistance to their enemies, depending rather on swiftness of movement, or in some cases on simple insignificance. To the latter cause the abundance of minnows, anchovies, and other small or feeble fishes may be attributed, for all are the prey of carnivorous fishes, which they far exceed in number. The instincts of courtship relate chiefly to the male, the female being more or less passive. Among many fishes the male makes himself conspicuous in the breeding season, spreading his fins, intensifying his pigmented colors through muscular tension, all this supposedly to attract the attention of the female. That this purpose is actually accomplished by such display is not, however, easily proved. In the little brooks in spring, male minnows can be found with warts on the nose or head, with crimson pigment on the fins, or blue pigment on the back, or jet-black pigment all over the head, or with varied combination of all these. Their instinct is to display all these to the best advantage, even though the conspicuous hues lead to their own destruction. The movements of many migratory animals are mainly controlled by the impulse to reproduce. Some pelagic fishes, especially flying fishes and fishes allied to the mackerel, swim long distances to a region favorable for a deposition of spawn. Some species are known only in the waters they make their breeding homes, the individuals being scattered through the wide seas at other times. Many fresh-water fishes, as trout, suckers, etc., forsake the large streams in the spring, ascending the small brooks where they can rear their young in greater safety. Still others, known as anadromous fishes, feed and mature in the sea, but ascend the rivers as the impulse of reproduction grows strong. An account of these is given in a subsequent paragraph. [Illustration: FIG. 118.--Jaws of _Nemichthys avocetta_. Jordan and Gilbert.] =Variability of Instincts.=--When we study instincts of animals with care and in detail, we find that their regularity is much less than has been supposed. There is as much variation in regard to instinct among individuals as there is with regard to other characters of the species. Some power of choice is found in almost every operation of instinct. Even the most machine-like instinct shows some degree of adaptability to new conditions. On the other hand, in no animal does reason show entire freedom from automatism or reflex action. "The fundamental identity of instinct with intelligence," says Dr. Charles O. Whitman, "is shown in their dependence upon the same structural mechanism (the brain and nerves) and in their responsive adaptability." =Adaptation to Environment.=--In general food-securing structures are connected with the mouth, or, as in the anglers, are hung as lures above it; spines of offense and defense, electric organs, poison-glands, and the like are used in self-protection; the bright nuptial colors and adornments of the breeding season are doubtfully classed as useful in rivalry; the egg-sacs, nests, and other structures or habits may serve to defend the young, while skinny flaps, sand or weed-like markings, and many other features of mimicry serve as concessions to the environment. Each kind of fishes has its own ways of life, fitted to the conditions of environment. Some species lie on the bottom, flat, as a flounder, or prone on their lower fins, as a darter or a stone-roller. Some swim freely in the depths, others at the surface of the depths. Some leap out of the water from time to time, as the mullet (_Mugil_) or the tarpon (_Tarpon atlanticus_). [Illustration: FIG. 119.--Catalina Flying Fish, _Cypsilurus californicus_ (Cooper). Santa Barbara.] =Flight of Fishes.=--Some fishes called the flying-fishes sail through the air with a grasshopper-like motion that closely imitates true flight. The long pectoral fins, wing-like in form, cannot, however, be flapped by the fish, the muscles serving only to expand or fold them. These fishes live in the open sea or open channel, swimming in large schools. The small species fly for a few feet only, the large ones for more than an eighth of a mile. These may rise five to twenty feet above the water. The flight of one of the largest flying fishes (_Cypsilurus californicus_) has been carefully studied by Dr. Charles H. Gilbert and the writer. The movements of the fish in the water are extremely rapid. The sole motive power is the action under the water of the strong tail. No force can be acquired while the fish is in the air. On rising from the water the movements of the tail are continued until the whole body is out of the water. When the tail is in motion the pectorals seem in a state of rapid vibration. This is not produced by muscular action on the fins themselves. It is the body of the fish which vibrates, the pectorals projecting farthest having the greatest amplitude of movement. While the tail is in the water the ventral fins are folded. When the action of the tail ceases the pectorals and ventrals are spread out wide and held at rest. They are not used as true wings, but are held out firmly, acting as parachutes, enabling the body to skim through the air. When the fish begins to fall the tail touches the water. As soon as it is in the water it begins its motion, and the body with the pectorals again begins to vibrate. The fish may, by skimming the water, regain motion once or twice, but it finally falls into the water with a splash. While in the air it suggests a large dragon-fly. The motion is very swift, at first in a straight line, but is later deflected in a curve, the direction bearing little or no relation to that of the wind. When a vessel passes through a school of these fishes, they spring up before it, moving in all directions, as grasshoppers in a meadow. [Illustration: FIG. 120.--Sand-darter, _Ammocrypta clara_ (Jordan and Meek). Des Moines River.] =Quiescent Fishes.=--Some fishes, as the lancelet, lie buried in the sand all their lives. Others, as the sand-darter (_Ammocrypta pellucida_) and the hinalea (_Julis gaimard_), bury themselves in the sand at intervals or to escape from their enemies. Some live in the cavities of tunicates or sponges or holothurians or corals or oysters, often passing their whole lives inside the cavity of one animal. Many others hide themselves in the interstices of kelp or seaweeds. Some eels coil themselves in the crevices of rocks or coral masses, striking at their prey like snakes. Some sea-horses cling by their tails to gulfweed or sea-wrack. Many little fishes (_Gobiomorus_, _Carangus_, _Psenes_) cluster under the stinging tentacles of the Portuguese man-of-war or under ordinary jellyfishes. In the tide-pools, whether rock, coral, or mud, in all regions multitudes of little fishes abound. As these localities are neglected by most collectors, they have proved of late years a most prolific source of new species. The tide-pools of Cuba, Key West, Cape Flattery, Sitka, Unalaska, Monterey, San Diego, Mazatlan, Hilo, Kailua and Waiahæ in Hawaii, Apia and Pago-Pago in Samoa, the present writer has found peculiarly rich in rock-loving forms. Even richer are the pools of the promontories of Japan, Hakodate Head, Misaki, Awa, Izu, Waka, and Kagoshima, where a whole new fish fauna unknown to collectors in markets and sandy bays has been brought to light. Some of these rockfishes are left buried in the rock weeds as the tide flows, lying quietly until it returns. Others cling to the rocks by ventral suckers, while still others depend for their safety on their powers of leaping or on their quickness of their movements in the water. Those of the latter class are often brilliantly colored, but the others mimic closely the algæ or the rocks. Some fishes live in the sea only, some prefer brackish-water. Some are found only in the rivers, and a few pass more or less indiscriminately from one kind of water to another. [Illustration: FIG. 121.--Pearl-fish, _Fierasfer acus_ (Linnæus), issuing from a _Holothurian_. Coast of Italy. (After Emery.)] [Illustration: FIG. 122.--Portuguese Man-of-war Fish, _Gobiomorus gronovii_. Family _Stromateidæ_]. =Migratory Fishes.=--The movements of migratory fishes are mainly controlled by the impulse of reproduction. Some pelagic fishes, especially those of the mackerel and flying-fish families, swim long distances to a region favorable for the deposition of spawn. Others pursue for equal distances the schools of menhaden or other fishes which serve as their prey. Some species are known mainly in the waters they make their breeding homes, as in Cuba, Southern California, Hawaii, or Japan, the individuals being scattered at other times through the wide seas. =Anadromous Fishes.=--Many fresh-water fishes, as trout and suckers, forsake the large streams in the spring, ascending the small brooks where their young can be reared in greater safety. Still others, known as _anadromous_ fishes, feed and mature in the sea, but ascend the rivers as the impulse of reproduction grows strong. Among such fishes are the salmon, shad, alewife, sturgeon, and striped bass in American waters. The most remarkable case of the anadromous instinct is found in the king salmon or quinnat (_Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_) of the Pacific Coast. This great fish spawns in November, at the age of four years and an average weight of twenty-two pounds. In the Columbia River it begins running with the spring freshets in March and April. It spends the whole summer, without feeding, in the ascent of the river. By autumn the individuals have reached the mountain streams of Idaho, greatly changed in appearance, discolored, worn, and distorted. The male is humpbacked, with sunken scales, and greatly enlarged, hooked, bent, or twisted jaws, with enlarged dog-like teeth. On reaching the spawning beds, which may be a thousand miles from the sea in the Columbia, over two thousand in the Yukon, the female deposits her eggs in the gravel of some shallow brook. The male covers them and scrapes the gravel over them. The female salmon does as much as the male in covering the eggs. Then both male and female drift tail foremost helplessly down the stream; none, so far as certainly known, ever survive the reproductive act. The same habits are found in the five other species of salmon in the Pacific, but in most cases the individuals do not start so early nor run so far. The blue-back salmon or redfish, however, does not fall far short in these regards. The salmon of the Atlantic has a similar habit, but the distance traveled is everywhere much less, and most of the hook-jawed males drop down to the sea and survive to repeat the acts of reproduction. [Illustration: FIG. 123.--Tide-pools of Misaki. The Misaki Biological Station, from the north side.] _Catadromous_ fishes, as the true eel (_Anguilla_), reverse this order, feeding in the rivers and brackish estuaries, apparently finding their usual spawning-ground in the sea. [Illustration: FIG. 124.--Squaw-fish, _Ptychocheilus oregonensis_ (Richardson). Columbia River.] =Pugnacity of Fishes.=--Some fishes are very pugnacious, always ready for a quarrel with their own kind. The sticklebacks show this disposition, especially the males. In Hawaii the natives take advantage of this trait to catch the Uu (_Myripristis murdjan_), a bright crimson-colored fish found in those waters. The species lives in crevices in lava rocks. Catching a live one, the fishermen suspend it by a string in front of the rocks. It remains there with spread fins and flashing scales, and the others come out to fight it, when all are drawn to the surface by a concealed net. Another decoy is substituted and the trick is repeated until the showy and quarrelsome fishes are all secured. In Siam the fighting-fish (_Betta pugnax_) is widely noted. The following account of this fish is given by Cantor:[11] "When the fish is in a state of quiet, its dull colors present nothing remarkable; but if two be brought together, or if one sees its own image in a looking-glass, the little creature becomes suddenly excited, the raised fins and the whole body shine with metallic colors of dazzling beauty, while the projected gill membrane, waving like a black frill round the throat, adds something of grotesqueness to the general appearance. In this state it makes repeated darts at its real or reflected antagonist. But both, when taken out of each other's sight, instantly become quiet. The fishes were kept in glasses of water, fed with larvæ of mosquitoes, and had thus lived for many months. The Siamese are as infatuated with the combats of these fish as the Malays are with their cock-fights, and stake on the issue considerable sums, and sometimes their own persons and families. The license to exhibit fish-fights is farmed, and brings a considerable annual revenue to the king of Siam. The species abounds in the rivulets at the foot of the hills of Penang. The inhabitants name it 'Pla-kat,' or the 'fighting-fish'; but the kind kept especially for fighting is an artificial variety cultivated for the purpose." A related species is the equally famous tree-climber of India (_Anabas scandens_). In 1797 Lieutenant Daldorf describes his capture of an _Anabas_, five feet above the water, on the bark of a palm-tree. In the effort to do this, the fish held on to the bark by its preopercular spines, bent its tail, inserted its anal spines, then pushing forward, repeated the operation. =Fear and Anger in Fishes.=--From an interesting paper by Surgeon Francis Day[12] on Fear and Anger in Fishes we may make the following extracts, slightly condensed and with a few slight corrections in nomenclature. The paper is written in amplification of another by Rev. S. J. Whitmee, describing the behavior of aquarium fishes in Samoa. [Illustration: FIG. 125.--Squaw-fish, _Ptychocheilus grandis_ Agassiz. Running up a stream to spawn, the high water, after a rain, falling, leaves the fishes stranded. Kelsey Creek, Clear Lake, California, April 29, 1899. (Photograph by O. E. Meddaugh.)--Page 164.] The means of expression in animals adverted to by Mr. Darwin (excluding those of the ears, which would be out of place in fishes) are: sounds, vocally or otherwise produced; the erection of dermal appendages under the influence of anger or terror, which last would be analogous to the erection of scales and fin-rays among fishes. Regarding special expressions, as those of joy, pain, astonishment, etc., we could hardly expect such so well marked in fishes as in some of the higher animals, in which the play of the features often affords us an insight into their internal emotions. Eyes[13] destitute of movable eyelids, cheeks covered with scales, or the head enveloped in dermal plates, can scarcely mantle into a smile or expand into a broad grin. We possess, however, one very distinct expression in fishes which is absent or but slightly developed in most of the higher animals, namely, change of color. All are aware that when a fish sickens, its brilliant colors fade, but less so how its color may be augmented by anger, and a loss of it be occasioned by depression, the result of being vanquished by a foe. Some forms also emit sounds when actuated by terror, and perhaps in times of anger; but of this last I possess no decided proofs. Similar to the expression of anger in _Betta_ is that of the three-spined stickleback (_Gasterosteus aculeatus_).[14] After a fight between two examples, according to Couch, "a strange alteration takes place almost immediately in the defeated party: his gallant bearing forsakes him; his gay colors fade away; he becomes again speckled and ugly; and he hides his disgrace amongst his peaceable companions who occupy together that part of the tub which their tyrants have not taken possession of; he is, moreover, for some time the constant object of his conqueror's persecution." Fear is shown by fish in many ways. There is not an angler unacquainted with the natural timidity of fishes, nor a keeper in charge of a salmon-pass, who does not know how easy it is for poachers to deter the salmon from venturing along the path raised expressly for his use. Among the coral reefs of the Andaman Islands I found the little _Chromis lepisurus_ abundant. As soon as the water was splashed they appeared to retire for safety to the branching coral, where no large fish could follow them; so frightened did they become that on an Andamanese diving from the side of the boat, they at once sought shelter in the coral, in which they remained until it was removed from the sea. In Burma I observed, in 1869, that when weirs are not allowed to stretch across the rivers (which would impede navigation), the open side as far as the bank is studded with reeds; these, as the water passes over them, cause vibration, and occasion a curious sound alarming the fishes, which, crossing to the weired side of the river, become captured. Hooker, alluding to gulls, terns, wild geese, and pelicans in the Ganges Valley, observes: "These birds congregate by the sides of pools and beat the water with violence, so as to scare the fish, which then become an easy prey--a fact which was, I believe, first indicated by Pallas during his residence on the banks of the Caspian Sea."[15] Fishes, under the influence of terror, dash about with their fins expanded, and often run into places which must destroy them. Thus droves and droves of sardines in the east, impelled by the terror of pursuing sharks, bonitos, and other voracious fishes, frequently throw themselves on the shores in enormous quantities. Friar Odoric, who visited Ceylon about 1320, says: "There are fishes in those seas which come swimming towards the said country in such abundance, that for a great distance into the sea nothing can be seen but the backs of fishes, which, casting themselves on the shore, do suffer men for the space of three days to come, and to take as many of them as they please, and then they return again into the sea."[16] Pennant tells us that the river bullhead (_Cottus gobio_) "deposits its spawn in a hole it forms in the gravel, and quits it with great reluctance." General Hardwicke tells how the gouramy (_Osphromenus gouramy_), in the Mauritius, forms a nest amongst the herbage growing in the shallow water in the sides of tanks. Here the parent continues to watch the place with the greatest vigilance, driving away any interloping fish. The amphibious walking-fish of Mysore (_Ophiocephalus striatus_) appears to make a nest very similar to that of the gouramy, and over it the male keeps guard; but should he be killed or captured, the vacant post is filled by his partner. (Colonel Puckle.) When very young the fishes keep with and are defended by their parents, but so soon as they are sufficiently strong to capture prey for themselves they are driven away to seek their own subsistence. (See Fishes of India, p. 362.) But it is not only these monogamous amphibious fishes which show an affection for their eggs and also for their fry, but even the little _Etroplus maculatus_ has been observed to be equally fond of its ova. "The eggs are not very numerous and are deposited in the mud at the bottom of the stream, and, when hatched, both parents guard the young for many days, vigorously attacking any large fish that passes near them."[17] Although the proceedings of the members of the marine and estuary genus of sea-cat (_Tachysurus_) and its allies show not quite so distinctly signs of affection, still it must be a well-developed instinct which induces the male to carry about the eggs in its mouth until hatched, and to remove them in this manner when danger is imminent. I have taken the ova just ready for the young to come forth out of the mouth and fauces of the parent (male) fish; and in every animal dissected there was no trace of food in the intestinal tract. =Calling the Fishes.=--At many temples in India fishes are called to receive food by means of ringing bells or musical sounds. Carew, in Cornwall, is said to have called the gray mullet together by making a noise like chopping with a cleaver. Lacépède relates that some fishes, which had been kept in the basins out of the Tuileries for more than a century, would come when called by their names, and that in many parts of Germany trout, carp, and tench are summoned to their food by the sound of a bell. These instances are mostly due to the fishes having learned by experience that on the hearing certain sounds they may expect food. But Lacépède mentions that some were able to distinguish their individual names; and the same occurs in India. Lieutenant Connolly[18] remarked upon seeing numerous fishes coming to the ghaut at Sidhnath to be fed when called; and on "expressing our admiration of the size of the fish, 'Wait,' said a bystander, 'until you have seen Raghu.' The Brahmin called out his name in a peculiar tone of voice; but he would not hear. I threw in handful after handful of ottah (flour) with the same success, and was just leaving the ghaut, despairing and doubting, when a loud plunge startled me. I thought somebody had jumped off the bastion of the ghaut into the river, but was soon undeceived by the general shout of 'Raghu, raghu,' and by the fishes, large and small, darting away in every direction. Raghu made two or three plunges, but was so quick in his motions that I was unable to guess at his species." [It may be said in relation to these stories quoted by Dr. Day, that they probably belong to the mythology of fishes. It is very doubtful if fishes are able to make any such discrimination among sounds in the air.] =Sounds of Fishes.=--Pallegoix states that in Siam the dog's-tongue (_Cynoglossus_) is a kind of sole; it attaches itself to the bottom of boats, and makes a sonorous noise, which is more musical when several are stuck to the same boat and act in concert (vol. i. p. 193). These noises can scarcely be due to anger or fear. Sir J. Bowring (vol. ii. p. 276) also remarks upon having heard this fish, "which sticks to the bottoms of the boats, and produces a sound something like that of a jew's-harp struck slowly, though sometimes it increases in loudness, so as to resemble the full tones and sound of an organ. My men have pointed me out a fish about four inches long as the author of the music." Some years since, at Madras, I (Dr. Day) obtained several specimens of a fresh-water Siluroid fish (_Macrones vittatus_) which is termed the "fiddler" in Mysore. I touched one which was on the wet ground, at which it appeared to become very irate, erecting its dorsal fin, making a noise resembling the buzzing of a bee. Having put some small carp into an aquarium containing one of these fishes, it rushed at a small example, _seized it by the middle of its back_, and shook it like a dog killing a rat; at this time its barbels were stiffened out laterally like a cat's whiskers. Many fish when captured make noises, perhaps due to terror. Thus the _Carangus hippos_, _Tetraodon_, and others grunt like a hog. Darwin (Nat. Journ., vol. vii) remarks on a catfish found in the Rio Paraná, and called the armado, which is remarkable for a harsh grating noise when caught by hook and line; this noise can be distinctly heard when the fish is beneath the water. The cuckoo-gurnard (_Trigla pini_) and the maigre (_Pseudosciæna aquila_) utter sounds when taken out of the water; and herrings, when the net has been drawn over them, have been observed to do the same: "this effect has been attributed to an escape of air from the air-bladder; but no air-bladder exists in the _Cottus_, which makes a similar noise." The lesser weaver (_Trachinus_) buries itself in the loose soil at the bottom of the water, leaving only its head exposed, and awaits its prey. If touched, it strikes upwards or sideways; and Pennant says it directs its blows with as much judgment as a fighting-cock. (Yarrell, vol. i. p. 26.) Fishermen assert that wounds from its anterior dorsal spines are more venomous than those caused by the spines on its gill-covers. As regards fighting, I should suppose that, unless some portion of the body is peculiarly adapted for this purpose, as the rostrum of the swordfish, or the spine on the side of the tail in the lancet-fishes, we must look chiefly to the armature or covering of the jaws for weapons of offense. =Lurking Fishes.=--Mr. Whitmee supposes that most carnivorous fish capture their prey by outswimming them; but to this there are numerous exceptions; the angler or fishing-frog (_Lophis piscatorius_), "while crouching close to the ground, by the action of its ventral and pectoral fins stirs up the sand and mud; hidden by the obscurity thus produced, it elevates its anterior dorsal spines, moves them in various directions by way of attraction as a bait, and the small fishes, approaching either to examine or to seize them, immediately become the prey of the fisher." (Yarrell.) In India we find a fresh-water Siluroid (_Chaca lophioides_) which "conceals itself among the mud, from which, by its lurid appearance and a number of loose filamentous substances on its skin, it is scarcely distinguishable; and with an immense open mouth it is ready to seize any small prey that is passing along." (Ham. Buchanan.) In March, 1868, I obtained a fine example of _Ichthyscopus lebeck_ (Fishes of India, p. 261), which I placed in water having a bed of mud; into this it rapidly worked itself, first depressing one side and then another, until only the top of its head and mouth remained above the mud, whilst a constant current was kept up through its gills. It made a noise, half snapping and half croaking, when removed from its native element. In the Royal Westminster Aquarium, says Dr. Day, is a live example of the electric eel (_Electrophorus electricus_) which has in its electric organs the means of showing when it is affected by anger or terror. Some consider this curious property is for protection against alligators: it is certainly used against fishes for the purpose of obtaining food; but when we remember how, when the Indians drive in horses and mules to the waters infested by the eels, they immediately attack them, we must admit that such cannot be for the purpose of preying upon them, but is due to anger or terror at being disturbed. (DAY.) =Carrying Eggs in the Mouth.=--Many catfishes (_Siluridæ_) carry their eggs in the mouth until hatched. The first and most complete account of this habit of catfishes is that by Dr. Jeffries Wyman, which he communicated to the Boston Society of Natural History at its meeting on September 15, 1857. In 1859, in a paper entitled "On Some Unusual Modes of Gestation," Dr. Wyman published a full account of his observations as follows, here quoted from a paper on Surinam fishes by Evermann and Goldsborough: "Among the Siluroid fishes of Guiana there are several species which, at certain seasons of the year, have their mouths and branchial cavities filled either with eggs or young, and, as is believed, for the purpose of incubation. My attention was first called to this singular habit by the late Dr. Francis W. Cragin, formerly United States consul at Paramaribo, Surinam. In a letter dated August, 1854, he says: "'The eggs you will receive are from another fish. The different fishermen have repeatedly assured me that these eggs in their nearly mature state are carried in the mouths of the parent till the young are relieved by the bursting of the sac. Do you either know or believe this to be so, and, if possible, where are the eggs conceived and how do they get into the mouth?' "In the month of April, 1857, on visiting the market of Paramaribo, I found that this statement, which at first seemed to be very improbable, was correct as to the existence of eggs in the mouths of several species of fish. In a tray of fish which a negro woman offered for sale, I found the mouths of several filled with either eggs or young, and subsequently an abundance of opportunities occurred for repeating the observation. The kinds most commonly known to the colonists, especially to the negroes, are _jara-bakka_, _njinge-njinge_, _koepra_, _makrede_, and one or two others, all belonging either to the genus _Bagrus_ or one nearly allied to it. The first two are quite common in the market, and I have seen many specimens of them; for the last two I have the authority of negro fishermen, but have never seen them myself. The eggs in my collection are of three different sizes, indicating so many species, one of the three having been brought to me without the fish from which they were taken. "The eggs become quite large before they leave the ovaries, and are arranged in three zones corresponding to three successive broods, and probably to be discharged in three successive years; the mature eggs of a jara-bakka 18 inches long measure three-fourths of an inch in diameter; those of the second zone, one-fourth; and those of the third are very minute, about one-sixteenth of an inch. "A careful examination of eight specimens of njinge-njinge about 9 inches long gave the following results: "The eggs in all instances were carried in the mouths of the males. This protection, or gestation of the eggs by the males, corresponds with what has been long noticed with regard to other fishes, as, for example, _Syngnathus_, where the marsupial pouch for the eggs or young is found in the males only, and _Gasterosteus_, where the male constructs the nest and protects the eggs during incubation from the voracity of the females. "In some individuals the eggs had been recently laid, in others they were hatched and the foetus had grown at the expense of some other food than that derived from the yolk, as this last was not proportionally diminished in size, and the foetus weighed more than the undeveloped egg. The number of eggs contained in the mouth was between twenty and thirty. The mouth and branchial cavity were very much distended, rounding out and distorting the whole hyoid and branchiostegal region. Some of the eggs even partially protruded from the mouth. The ova were not bruised or torn as if they had been bitten or forcibly held by the teeth. In many instances the foetuses were still alive, though the parent had been dead for many hours. "No young or eggs were found in the stomach, although the mouth was crammed to its fullest capacity. "The above observations apply to njinge-njinge. With regard to jarra-bakka, I had but few opportunities for dissection, but in several instances the same conditions of the eggs were noticed as stated above; and in one instance, besides some nearly mature foetuses contained in the mouth, two or three were squeezed apparently from the stomach, but not bearing any marks of violence or of the action of the gastric fluid. It is probable that these found their way into that last cavity after death, in consequence of the relaxation of the sphincter which separates the cavities of the mouth and the stomach. These facts lead to the conclusion that this is a mouth gestation, as the eggs are found there in all stages of development, and even for some time after they are hatched. "The question will be very naturally asked, how under such circumstances these fishes are able to secure and swallow their food. I have made no observations bearing upon such a question. Unless the food consists of very minute particles it would seem necessary that during the time of feeding the eggs should be disgorged. If this supposition be correct, it would give a very probable explanation of the only fact which might be considered at variance with the conclusion stated above, viz., that we have in these fishes a mouth gestation. In the mass of eggs with which the mouth is filled I have occasionally found the eggs, rarely more than one or two, of another species. The only way in which their presence may be accounted for, it seems to me, is by the supposition that while feeding the eggs are disgorged, and as these fishes are gregarious in their habits, when the ova are recovered the stray eggs of another species may be introduced into the mouth among those which naturally belong there." One of the earliest accounts of this curious habit which we have seen is that by Dr. Günther, referring to specimens of _Tachysurus fissus_ from Cayenne received from Prof. R. Owen: "These specimens having had the cavity of the mouth and of the gills extended in an extraordinary manner, I was induced to examine the cause of it, when, to my great surprise, I found them filled with about twenty eggs, rather larger than an ordinary pea, perfectly uninjured, and with the embryos in a forward state of development. The specimens are males, from 6 to 7 inches long, and in each the stomach was almost empty. "Although the eggs might have been put into the mouth of the fish by their captor, this does not appear probable. On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that the American Siluroids take care of their progeny in various ways; and I have no doubt that in this species and in its allies the males carry the eggs in their mouths, depositing them in places of safety and removing them when they fear the approach of danger or disturbance." =The Unsymmetrical Eyes of Flounders.=--In the two great families of flounders and soles the head is unsymmetrically formed, the cranium being twisted and both eyes placed on the same side. The body is strongly compressed, and the side possessing the eyes is uppermost in all the actions of the fish. This upper side, whether right or left, is colored, while the eyeless side is white or very nearly so. It is well known that in the very young flounder the body rests upright in the water. After a little there is a tendency to turn to one side and the lower eye begins its migration to the other side, the interorbital bones or part of them moving before it. In most flounders the eye seems to move over the surface of the head, before the dorsal fin, or across the axil of its first ray. In the tropical genus _Platophrys_ the movement of the eye is most easily followed, as the species reach a larger size than do most flounders before the change takes place. The larva, while symmetrical, is in all cases transparent. [Illustration: FIG. 126.] [Illustration: FIG. 127. FIGS. 126, 127.--Larval stages of _Platophrys podas_, a flounder of the Mediterranean, showing the migration of the eye. (After Emery.)] In a recent study of the migration of the eye in the winter flounder (_Pseudopleuronectes americanus_) Mr. Stephen R. Williams reaches the following conclusions: 1. The young of _Limanda ferruginea_ (the rusty dab) are probably in the larval stage at the same time as those of _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_ (the winter flounder). 2. The recently hatched fish are symmetrical, except for the relative positions of the two optic nerves. 3. The first observed occurrence in preparation for metamorphosis in _P. americanus_ is the rapid resorption of the part of the supraorbital cartilage bar which lies in the path of the eye. 4. Correlated with this is an increase in distance between the eyes and the brain, caused by the growth of the facial cartilages. 5. The migrating eye moves through an arc of about 120 degrees. [Illustration: FIG. 128.--_Platophrys lunatus_ (Linnæus), the Wide-eyed Flounder. Family _Pleuronectidæ_. Cuba. (From nature by Mrs. H. C. Nash.)] 6. The greater part of this rotation (three-fourths of it in _P. americanus_) is a rapid process, taking not more than three days. 7. The anterior ethmoidal region is not so strongly influenced by the twisting as the ocular region. [Illustration: FIG. 129.--Young Flounder, just hatched, with symmetrical eyes. (After S. R. Williams.)] 8. The location of the olfactory nerves (in the adult) shows that the morphological midline follows the interorbital septum. 9. The cartilage mass lying in the front part of the orbit of the adult eye is a separate anterior structure in the larva. 10. With unimportant differences, the process of metamorphosis in the sinistral fish is parallel to that in the dextral fish. 11. The original location of the eye is indicated in the adult by the direction first taken, as they leave the brain, by those cranial nerves having to do with the transposed eye. 12. The only well-marked asymmetry in the adult brain is due to the much larger size of the olfactory nerve and lobe of the ocular side. 13. There is a perfect chiasma. 14. The optic nerve of the migrating eye is always anterior to that of the other eye. [Illustration: FIG. 130.--Larval Flounder, _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_. (After S. R. Williams.)] [Illustration: FIG. 131.--Larval Flounder, _Pseudopleuronectes americanus_. (After S. R. Williams.)] "The why of the peculiar metamorphosis of the _Pleuronectidæ_ is an unsolved problem. The presence or absence of a swim-bladder can have nothing to do with the change of habit of the young flatfish, for _P. americanus_ must lose its air-bladder before metamorphosis begins, since sections showed no evidence of it, whereas in _Lophopsetta maculata_, 'the windowpane flounder,' the air-sac can often be seen by the naked eye up to the time when the fish assumes the adult coloration, and long after it has assumed the adult form. "Cunningham has suggested that the weight of the fish acting upon the lower eye after the turning would press it toward the upper side out of the way. But in all probability the planktonic larva rests on the sea-bottom little if at all before metamorphosing. Those taken by Mr. Williams into the laboratory showed in resting no preference for either side until the eye was near the midline. "The fact that the change in all fishes is repeated during the development of each individual fish has been used to support the proposition that the flatfishes as a family are a comparatively recent product. They are, on the other hand, comparatively ancient. According to Zittel flatfishes of species referable to genera living at present, _Rhombus_ (_Bothus_) and _Solea_, are found in the Eocene deposits. These two genera are notable in that _Bothus_ is one of the least and _Solea_ the most unsymmetrical of the _Pleuronectidæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 132.--Face view of recently hatched Flounder. (After S. R. Williams.)] "The degree of asymmetry can be correlated with the habit of the animal. Those fishes, such as the sole and shore-dwelling flounders, which keep to the bottom are the most twisted representatives of the family, while the more freely swimming forms, like the sand-dab, summer flounder, and halibut, are more nearly symmetrical. Asymmetry must be of more advantage to those fishes which grub in the mud for their food than to those which capture other fishes; of the latter those which move with the greatest freedom are the most symmetrical. "This deviation from the bilateral condition must have come about either as a 'sport' or by gradual modification of the adults. If by the latter method--the change proving to be advantageous--selection favored its appearing earlier and earlier in ontogeny, until it occurred in the stages of planktonic life. Metamorphosis at a stage earlier than this would be a distinct disadvantage, because of the lack of the customary planktonic food at the sea-bottom. At present some forms of selection are probably continually at work fixing the limit of the period of metamorphosis by the removal of those individuals which attempt the transformation at unsuitable epochs; for instance, at the time of hatching. That there are such individuals is shown by Fullarton, who figures a fish just hatched 'anticipating the twisting and subsequent unequal development exhibited by the head of Pleuronectids.' Those larvæ which remain pelagic until better able to compete at the sea-bottom become the adults which fix the time of metamorphosis on their progeny." (S. R. WILLIAMS.) So far as known to the writer, the metamorphosis of flounders always occurs while the individual is still translucent and swimming at the surface of the sea before sinking to the bottom. FOOTNOTES: [11] Cantor, Catal. Malayan Fishes, 1850, p. 87. Bowring, Siam, p. 155, gives a similar account of the battles of these fishes. [12] Francis Day, on Fear and Anger in Fishes, Proc. Zool. Society, London, Feb. 19, 1878, pp. 214-221. [13] Couch (Illustrations, etc., p. 305) says: "The faculty of giving forth brilliant light from the eyes is said to have been observed by fishermen in the blue shark, as in a cat." [14] Couch, "British Fishes," 1865, vol. iv. p. 172. [15] Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 80. [16] Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 37. [17] Jerdon, "Madras Journal of Literature and Science," 1849, p. 143. [18] "Observations on the Past and Present Condition of Onjein," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vi, p. 820. CHAPTER XII ADAPTATIONS OF FISHES [Illustration: FIG. 133.--Mad-tom, _Schilbeodes furiosus_ Jordan and Meek. Showing the poisoned pectoral spine. Family _Siluridæ_. Neuse River.] =Spines of the Catfishes.=--The catfishes or horned pouts (_Siluridæ_) have a strong spine in the pectoral fin, one or both edges of this being jagged or serrated. This spine fits into a peculiar joint and by means of a slight downward or forward twist can be set immovably. It can then be broken more easily than it can be depressed. A slight turn in the opposite direction releases the joint, a fact known to the fish and readily learned by the boy. The sharp spine inflicts a jagged wound. Pelicans which have swallowed the catfish have been known to die of the wounds inflicted by the fish's spine. When the catfish was first introduced into the Sacramento, according to Mr. Will S. Green, it caused the death of many of the native "Sacramento perch" (_Archoplites interruptus_). This perch (or rather bass) fed on the young catfish, and the latter erecting their pectoral spines in turn caused the death of the perch by tearing the walls of its stomach. In like manner the sharp dorsal and ventral spines of the sticklebacks have been known to cause the death of fishes who swallow them, and even of ducks. In Puget Sound the stickleback is often known as salmon-killer. Certain small catfishes known as stone-cats and mad-toms (_Noturus_, _Schilbeodes_), found in the rivers of the Southern and Middle Western States, are provided with special organs of offense. At the base of the pectoral spine, which is sometimes very jagged, is a structure supposed by Professor Cope to be a poison gland the nature of which has not yet been fully ascertained. The wounds made by these spines are exceedingly painful like those made by the sting of a wasp. They are, however, apparently not dangerous. [Illustration: FIG. 134.--Black Nohu, or Poison-fish, _Emmydrichthys vulcanus_ Jordan. A species with stinging spines, showing resemblance to lumps of lava among which it lives. Family _Scorpænidæ_. From Tahiti.] =Venomous Spines.=--Many species of scorpion-fishes (_Scorpæna_, _Synanceia_, _Pelor_, _Pterois_, etc.), found in warm seas, as well as the European weavers (_Trachinus_), secrete poison from under the skin of each dorsal spine. The wounds made by these spines are very exasperating, but are not often dangerous. In some cases the glands producing these poisons form an oblong bag excreting a milky juice, and placed on the base of the spine. In _Thalassophryne_, a genus of toad-fishes of tropical America, is found the most perfect system of poison organs known among fishes. The spinous armature of the opercle and the two spines of the first dorsal fin constitute the weapons. The details are known from the dissections of Dr. Günther. According to his[19] observations, the opercle in _Thalassophryne_ "is very narrow, vertically styliform and very mobile. It is armed behind with a spine eight lines long and of the same form as the hollow venom-fang of a snake, being perforated at its base and at its extremity. A sac covering the base of the spine discharges its contents through the apertures and the canal in the interior of the spine. The structure of the dorsal spines is similar. There are no secretory glands imbedded in the membranes of the sacs and the fluid must be secreted by their mucous membrane. The sacs are without an external muscular layer and situated immediately below the thick, loose skin which envelops the spines at their extremity. The ejection of the poison into a living animal, therefore, can only be effected as in _Synanceia_, by the pressure to which the sac is subjected the moment the spine enters another body." [Illustration: FIG. 135.--Brown Tang, _Teuthis bahianus_ (Ranzani). Tortugas, Florida.] =The Lancet of the Surgeon-fish.=--Some fishes defend themselves by lashing their enemies with their tails. In the tangs, or surgeon-fishes (_Teuthis_), the tail is provided with a formidable weapon, a knife-like spine, with the sharp edge directed forward. This spine when not in use slips forward into a sheath. The fish, when alive, cannot be handled without danger of a severe cut. In the related genera, this lancet is very much more blunt and immovable, degenerating at last into the rough spines of _Balistapus_ or the hair-like prickles of _Monacanthus_. =Spines of the Sting-ray.=--In all the large group of sting-rays the tail is provided with one or more large, stiff, barbed spines, which are used with great force by the animal, and are capable of piercing the leathery skin of the sting-ray itself. There is no evidence that these spines bear any specific poison, but the ragged wounds they make are always dangerous and often end in gangrene. It is possible that the mucus on the surface of the spine acts as a poison on the lacerated tissues, rendering the wound something very different from a simple cut. [Illustration: FIG. 136.--Common Filefish, _Stephanolepis hispidus_ (Linnæus). Virginia.] =Protection Through Poisonous Flesh of Fishes.=--In certain groups of fishes a strange form of self-protection is acquired by the presence in the body of poisonous alkaloids, by means of which the enemies of the species are destroyed in the death of the individual devoured. Such alkaloids are present in the globefishes (_Tetraodontidæ_), the filefishes (_Monacanthus_), and in some related forms, while members of other groups (_Batrachoididæ_) are under suspicion in this regard. The alkaloids produce a disease known as ciguatera, characterized by paralysis and gastric derangements. Severe cases of ciguatera with men, as well as with lower animals, may end fatally in a short time. The flesh of the filefishes (_Stephanolepis tomentosus_), which the writer has tested, is very meager and bitter, having a decidedly offensive taste. It is suspected, probably justly, of being poisonous. In the globefishes the flesh is always more or less poisonous, that of _Tetraodon hispidus_, called muki-muki, or death-fish, in Hawaii, is reputed as excessively so. The poisonous fishes have been lately studied in detail by Dr. Jacques Pellegrin, of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris. He shows that any species of fish may be poisonous under certain circumstances, that under certain conditions certain species are poisonous, and that certain kinds are poisonous more or less at all times. The following account is condensed from Dr. Pellegrin's observations. [Illustration: FIG. 137.--_Tetraodon meleagris_ (Lacépède). Riu Kiu Islands.] The flesh of fishes soon undergoes decomposition in hot climates. The consumption of decayed fish may produce serious disorders, usually with symptoms of diarrhoea or eruption of the skin. There is in this case no specific poison, but the formation of leucomaines through the influence of bacteria. This may take place with other kinds of flesh, and is known as botulism, or allantiasis. For this disease, as produced by the flesh of fishes, Dr. Pellegrin suggests the name of ichthyosism It is especially severe in certain very oily fishes, as the tunny, the anchovy, or the salmon. The flesh of these and other fishes occasionally produces similar disorders through mere indigestion. In this case the flesh undergoes decay in the stomach. In certain groups (wrasse-fishes, parrot-fishes, etc.) in the tropics, individual fishes are sometimes rendered poisonous by feeding on poisonous mussels, holothurians, or possibly polyps, species which at certain times, and especially in their spawning season, develops alkaloids which themselves may cause ciguatera. In this case it is usually the very old or large fishes which are liable to be infected. In some markets numerous species are excluded as suspicious for this reason. Such a list is in use in the fish-market of Havana, where the sale of certain species, elsewhere healthful, or at the most suspected, was rigidly prohibited under the Spanish régime. A list of these suspicious fishes has been given by Prof. Poey. [Illustration: FIG. 138.--The Trigger-fish, _Balistes carolinensis_ Gmelin. New York.] In many of the eels the serum of the blood is poisonous, but its venom is destroyed by the gastric juice, so that the flesh may be eaten with impunity, unless decay has set in. To eat too much of the tropical morays is to invite gastric troubles, but no true ciguatera. The true ciguatera is produced by a specific poisonous alkaloid. This is most developed in the globefishes or puffers (_Tetraodon_, _Spheroides_, _Tropidichthys_, etc.). It is present in the filefishes (_Monacanthus_, _Alutera_, etc.), probably in some toad-fishes (_Batrachoides_, etc.), and similar compounds are found in the flesh of sharks and especially in sharks' livers. These alkaloids are most developed in the ovaries and testes, and in the spawning season. They are also found in the liver and sometimes elsewhere in the body. In many species otherwise innocuous, purgative alkaloids are developed in or about the eggs. Serious illness has been caused by eating the roe of the pike and the barbel. The poison is less virulent in the species which ascend the rivers. It is also much less developed in cooler waters. For this reason ciguatera is almost confined to the tropics. In Havana, Manila, and other tropical ports it is of frequent occurrence, while northward it is practically unknown as a disease requiring a special name or treatment. On the coast of Alaska, about Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet, a fatal disease resembling ciguatera has been occasionally produced by the eating of clams. [Illustration: FIG. 139.--Numbfish, _Narcine brasiliensis_ Henle, showing _electric cells_. Pensacola, Florida.] The purpose of the alkaloids producing ciguatera is considered by Dr. Pellegrin as protective, saving the species by the poisoning of its enemies. The sickness caused by the specific poison must be separated from that produced by ptomaines and leucomaines in decaying flesh or in the oil diffused through it. Poisonous bacteria may be destroyed by cooking, but the alkaloids which cause ciguatera are unaltered by heat. It is claimed in tropical regions that the germs of the bubonic plague may be carried through the mediation of fishes which feed on sewage. It is suggested by Dr. Charles B. Ashmead that leprosy may be so carried. It is further suggested that the custom of eating the flesh of fishes raw almost universal in Japan, Hawaii, and other regions may be responsible for the spread of certain contagious diseases, in which the fish acts as an intermediate host, much as certain mosquitoes spread the germ of malaria and yellow fever. =Electric Fishes.=--Several species of fishes possess the power to inflict electric shocks not unlike those of the Leyden jar. This is useful in stunning their prey and especially in confounding their enemies. In most cases these electric organs are evidently developed from muscular substance. Their action, which is largely voluntary, is in its nature like muscular action. The power is soon exhausted and must be restored by rest and food. The effects of artificial stimulation and of poisons are parallel with the effect of similar agents on muscles. [Illustration: FIG. 140.--Electric Catfish, _Torpedo electricus_ (Gmelin). Congo River. (Alter Boulenger.)] In the electric rays or torpedos (_Narcobatidæ_) the electric organs are large honeycomb-like structures, "vertical hexagonal prisms," upwards of 400 of them, at the base of the pectoral fins. Each prism is filled "with a clear trembling jelly-like substance." These fishes give a shock which is communicable through a metallic conductor, as an iron spear or the handle of a knife. It produces a peculiar and disagreeable sensation not at all dangerous. It is said that this living battery shows all the known qualities of magnetism, rendering the needle magnetic, decomposing chemical compounds, etc. In the Nile is an electric catfish (_Torpedo electricus_) having similar powers. Its electric organ extends over the whole body, being thickest below. It consists of rhomboidal cells of a firm gelatinous substance. The electric eel (_Electrophorus electricus_), the most powerful of electric fishes, is not an eel, but allied rather to the sucker or carp. It is, however, eel-like in form and lives in rivers of Brazil and Guiana. The electric organs are in two pairs, one on the back of the tail, the other on the anal fin. These are made up of an enormous number of minute cells. In the electric eel, as in the other electric fishes, the nerves supplying these organs are much larger than those passing from the spinal cord for any other purpose. In all these cases closely related species show a no trace of the electric powers. [Illustration: FIG. 141.--Star-gazer (_Astroscopus guttatus_) settling in the sand. (From life by R. W. Shufeldt.)] Dr. Gilbert has described the electric powers of species of star-gazer (_Astroscopus y-græcum_ and _A. zephyreus_), the electric cells lying under the naked skin of the top of the head. Electric power is ascribed to a species of cusk (_Urophycis regius_), but this perhaps needs verification. =Photophores or Luminous Organs.=--Many fishes, chiefly of the deep seas, develop organs for producing light. These are known as luminous organs, phosphorescent organs, or photophores. These are independently developed in four entirely unrelated groups of fishes. This difference in origin is accompanied by corresponding difference in structure. The best-known type is found in the Iniomi, including the lantern-fishes and their many relatives. These may have luminous spots, differentiated areas round or oblong which shine star-like in the dark. These are usually symmetrically placed on the sides of the body. They may have also luminous glands or diffuse areas which are luminous, but which do not show the specialized structure of the phosphorescent spots. These glands of similar nature to the spots are mostly on the head or tail. In one genus, _Æthoprora_, the luminous snout is compared to the headlight of an engine. [Illustration: FIG. 142.--Headlight Fish, _Æthoprora lucida_ Goode and Bean. Gulf Stream.] [Illustration: FIG. 143.--_Corynolophus reinhardti_ (Lütken), showing luminous bulb (modified after Lütken). Family _Ceratiidæ_. Deep sea off Greenland.] Entirely different are the photophores in the midshipman or singing-fish (_Porichthys_), a genus of toad-fishes or _Batrachoididæ_. This species lives near the shore and the luminous spots are outgrowths from pores of the lateral line. In one of the anglers (_Corynolophus reinhardti_) the complex bait is said to be luminous, and luminous areas are said to occur on the belly of a very small shark of the deep seas of Japan (_Etmopterus lucifer_). This phenomenon is now the subject of study by one of the numerous pupils of Dr. Mitsukuri. The structures in _Corynolophus_ are practically unknown. [Illustration: FIG. 144.--_Etmopterus lucifer_ Jordan and Snyder. Misaki, Japan.] =Photophores in Iniomous Fishes.=--In the _Iniomi_ the luminous organs have been the subject of an elaborate paper by Dr. R. von Lendenfeld (Deep-sea Fishes of the Challenger. Appendix B). These he divides into ocellar organs of regular form or luminous spots, and irregular glandular organs or luminous areas. The ocellar spots may be on the scales of the lateral line or on other definite areas. They may be raised above the surface or sunk below it. They may be simple, with or without black pigment, or they may have within them a reflecting surface. They are best shown in the _Myctophidæ_ and _Stomiatidæ_, but are found in numerous other families in nearly all soft-rayed fishes of the deep sea. The glandular areas may be placed on the lower jaw, on the barbels, under the gill cover, on the suborbital or preorbital, on the tail, or they may be irregularly scattered. Those about the eye have usually the reflecting membrane. In all these structures, according to Dr. von Lendenfeld, the whole or part of the organ is glandular. The glandular part is at the base and the other structures are added distally. The primitive organ was a gland which produced luminous slime. To this in the process of specialization greater complexity has been added. [Illustration: FIG. 145.--_Argyropelecus olfersi_ Cuvier. Gulf Stream.] The luminous organs of some fishes resemble the supposed original structure of the primitive photophore, though of course these cannot actually represent it. The simplest type of photophore now found is in _Astronesthes_, in the form of irregular glandular luminous patches on the surface of the skin. There is no homology between the luminous organs of any insect and those of any fish. =Photophores of Porichthys.=--Entirely distinct in their origin are the luminous spots in the midshipman (_Porichthys notatus_), a shore fish of California. These have been described in detail by Dr. Charles Wilson Greene (late of Stanford University, now of the University of Missouri) in the _Journal of Morphology_, xv., p. 667. These are found on various parts of the body in connection with the mucous pores of the lateral lines and about the mucous pores of the head. The skin in _Porichthys_ is naked, and the photophores arise from a modification of its epidermis. Each is spherical, shining white, and consists of four parts--the lens, the gland, the reflector, and the pigment. As to its function Prof. Greene observes: "I have kept specimens of _Porichthys_ in aquaria at the Hopkins Seaside Laboratory, and have made numerous observations on them with an effort to secure ocular proof of the phosphorescence of the living active fish. The fish was observed in the dark when quiet and when violently excited, but, with a single exception, only negative results were obtained. Once a phosphorescent glow of scarcely perceptible intensity was observed when the fish was pressed against the side of the aquarium. Then, this is a shore fish and quite common, and one might suppose that so striking a phenomenon as it would present if these organs were phosphorescent in a small degree would be observed by ichthyologists in the field, or by fishermen, but diligent inquiry reveals no such evidence. "Notwithstanding the fact that _Porichthys_ has been observed to voluntarily exhibit only the trace of phosphorescence mentioned above, still the organs which it possesses in such numbers are beyond doubt true phosphorescent organs, as the following observations will demonstrate. A live fish put into an aquarium of sea-water made alkaline with ammonia water exhibited a most brilliant glow along the location of the well-developed organs. Not only did the lines of organs shine forth, but the individual organs themselves were distinguishable. The glow appeared after about five minutes, remained prominent for a few minutes, and then for twenty minutes gradually became weaker until it was scarcely perceptible. Rubbing the hand over the organs was followed always by a distinct increase in the phosphorescence. Pieces of the fish containing the organs taken five and six hours after the death of the animal became luminous upon treatment with ammonia water. "Electrical stimulation of the live fish was also tried with good success. The interrupted current from an induction coil was used, one electrode being fixed on the head over the brain or on the exposed spinal cord near the brain, and the other moved around on different parts of the body. No results followed relatively weak stimulation of the fish, although such currents produced violent contractions of the muscular system of the body. But when a current strong enough to be quite painful to the hands while handling the electrodes was used then stimulation of the fish called forth a brilliant glow of light apparently from every well-developed photophore. All the lines on the ventral and lateral surfaces of the body glowed with a beautiful light, and continued to do so while the stimulation lasted. The single well-developed organ just back of and below the eye was especially prominent. No luminosity was observed in the region of the dorsal organs previously described as rudimentary in structure. I was also able to produce the same effect by galvanic stimulation, rapidly making and breaking the current by hand. [Illustration: FIG. 146.--Luminous organs and lateral line of Midshipman, _Porichthys notatus_ Girard. Family _Batrachoididæ_. Monterey, California. (After Greene.)] "The light produced in _Porichthys_ was, as near as could be determined by direct observation, a white light. When produced by electric stimulation it did not suddenly reach its maximal intensity, but came in quite gradually and disappeared in the same way when the stimulation ceased. The light was not a strong one, only strong enough to enable one to quite easily distinguish the apparatus used in the experiment. "An important fact brought out by the above experiment is that an electrical stimulation strong enough to most violently stimulate the nervous system, as shown by the violent contractions of the muscular system, may still be too weak to produce phosphorescence. This fact gives a physiological confirmation of the morphological result stated above that no specific nerves are distributed to the phosphorescent organs. "I can explain the action of the electrical current in these experiments only on the supposition that it produces its effect by direct action on the gland. [Illustration: FIG. 147.--Cross-section of a ventral phosphorescent organ of the Midshipman, _Porichthys notatus_ Girard. _l_, lens; _gl_, gland; _r_, reflector; _bl_, blood; _p_, pigment. (After Greene.)] "The experiments just related were all tried on specimens of the fish taken from under the rocks where they were guarding the young brood. Two specimens, however, taken by hooks from the deeper water of Monterey Bay, could not be made to show phosphorescence either by electrical stimulation or by treatment with ammonia. These specimens did net have the high development of the system of mucous cells of the skin exhibited by the nesting fish. My observations were, however, not numerous enough to more than suggest the possibility of a seasonal high development of the phosphorescent organs. [Illustration: FIG. 148.--Section of the deeper portion of phosphorescent organ of _Porichthys notatus_, highly magnified. (After Greene.)] "Two of the most important parts of the organ have to do with the physical manipulation of light--the reflector and the lens, respectively. The property of the reflector needs no discussion other than to call attention to its enormous development. The lens cells are composed of a highly refractive substance, and the part as a whole gives every evidence of light refraction and condensation. The form of the lens gives a theoretical condensation of light at a very short focus. That such is in reality the case, I have proved conclusively by examination of fresh material. If the fresh fish be exposed to direct sunlight, there is a reflected spot of intense light from each phosphorescent organ. This spot is constant in position with reference to the sun in whatever position the fish be turned and is lost if the lens be dissected away and only the reflector left. With needles and a simple microscope it is comparatively easy to free the lens from the surrounding tissue and to examine it directly. When thus freed and examined in normal saline, I have found by rough estimates that it condenses sunlight to a bright point a distance back of the lens of from one-fourth to one-half its diameter. I regret that I have been unable to make precise physical developments. "The literature on the histological structure of known phosphorescent organs of fishes is rather meager and unsatisfactory. Von Lendenfeld describes twelve classes of phosphorescent organs from deep-sea fishes collected by the _Challenger_ expedition. All of these, however, are greater or less modifications of one type. This type includes, according to von Lendenfeld's views, three essential parts, _i.e._, a gland, phosphorescent cells, and a local ganglion. These parts may have added a reflector, a pigment layer, or both; and all these may be simple or compounded in various ways, giving rise to the twelve classes. Blood-vessels and nerves are distributed to the glandular portion. Of the twelve classes direct ocular proof is given for one, i.e., ocellar organs of _Myctophum_ which were observed by Willemoes-Suhm at night to shine 'like a star in the net.' Von Lendenfeld says that the gland produces a secretion, and he supposes the light or phosphorescence to be produced either by the 'burning or consuming' of this secretion by the phosphorescent cells, or else by some substance produced by the phosphorescent cells. Furthermore, he says that the phosphorescent cells act at the 'will of the fish' and are excited to action by the local ganglion. "Some of these statements and conclusions seem insufficiently grounded, as, for example, the supposed action of the phosphorescent cells, and especially the control of the ganglion over them. In the first place, the relation between the ganglion and the central nervous system in the forms described by von Lendenfeld is very obscure, and the structure described as a ganglion, to judge from the figures and the text descriptions, may be wrongly identified. At least it is scarcely safe to ascribe ganglionic function to a group of adult cells so poorly preserved that only nuclei are to be distinguished. In the second place, no structural character is shown to belong to the 'phosphorescent cells' by which they may take part in the process ascribed to them.[20] "The action of the organs described by him may be explained on other grounds, and entirely independent of the so-called 'ganglion cells' and of the 'phosphorescent cells.' "Phosphorescence as applied to the production of light by a living animal is, according to our present ideas, a chemical action, _an oxidation process_. The necessary conditions for producing it are two--an oxidizable substance that is luminous on oxidation, i.e., a photogenic substance on the one hand, and the presence of free oxygen on the other. Every phosphorescent organ must have a mechanism for producing these two conditions; all other factors are only secondary and accessory. If the gland of a firefly can produce a substance that is oxidizable and luminous on oxidation, as shown as far back as 1828 by Faraday and confirmed and extended recently by Watasé, it is conceivable, indeed probable, that phosphorescence in _Myctophum_ and other deep-sea forms is produced in the same direct way, that is, by direct oxidation of the secretion of the gland found in each of at least ten of the twelve groups of organs described by von Lendenfeld. Free oxygen may be supplied directly from the blood in the capillaries distributed to the gland which he describes. The possibility of the regulation of the supply of blood carrying oxygen is analogous to what takes place in the firefly and is wholly adequate to account for any 'flashes of light' 'at the will of the fish.' "In the phosphorescent organs of _Porichthys_ the only part the function of which cannot be explained on physical grounds is the group of cells called the gland. If the large granular cells of this portion of the structure produce a secretion, as seems probable from the character of the cells and their behavior toward reagents, and this substance be oxidizable and luminous in the presence of free oxygen, i.e., photogenic, then we have the conditions necessary for a light-producing organ. The numerous capillaries distributed to the gland will supply free oxygen sufficient to meet the needs of the case. Light produced in the gland is ultimately all projected to the exterior, either directly from the luminous points in the gland or reflected outward by the reflector, the lens condensing all the rays into a definite pencil or slightly diverging cone. This explanation of the light-producing process rests on the assumption of a secretion product with certain specific characters. But comparing the organ with structures known to produce such a substance, i.e., the glands of the firefly or the photospheres of Euphausia, it seems to me the assumption is not less certain than the assumption that twelve structures resembling each other in certain particulars have a common function to that proved for one only of the twelve. "I am inclined to the belief that whatever regulation of the action of the phosphorescent organ occurs is controlled by the regulation of the supply of free oxygen by the blood-stream flowing through the organ; but, however this may be, the essential fact remains that the organs in _Porichthys_ are true phosphorescent organs." (GREENE.) Other species of _Porichthys_ with similar photophores occur in Texas, Guiana, Panama, and Chile. The name midshipman alludes to these shining spots, compared to buttons. [Illustration: FIG. 149.--Sucking-fish, or Pegador, _Leptecheneis naucrates_ (Linnæus). Virginia.] =Globefishes.=--The globefishes (_Tetraodon_, etc.) and the porcupine-fishes have the surface defended by spines. These fishes have an additional safeguard through the instinct to swallow air. When one of these fishes is seriously disturbed it rises to the surface, gulps air into a capacious sac, and then floats belly upward on the surface. It is thus protected from other fishes, although easily taken by man. The same habit appears in some of the frog-fishes (_Antennarius_) and in the Swell sharks (_Cephaloscyllium_). The writer once hauled out a netful of globefishes (_Tetraodon hispidus_) from a Hawaiian lagoon. As they lay on the bank a dog came up and sniffed at them. As his nose touched them they swelled themselves up with air, becoming visibly two or three times as large as before. It is not often that the lower animals show surprise at natural phenomena, but the attitude of the dog left no question as to his feeling. =Remoras.=--The different species of Remora, or shark-suckers, fasten themselves to the surface of sharks or other fishes and are carried about by them often to great distances. These fishes attach themselves by a large sucking-disk on the top of the head, which is a modified spinous dorsal fin. They do not harm the shark, except possibly to retard its motion. If the shark is caught and drawn out of the water, these fishes often instantly let go and plunge into the sea, swimming away with great celerity. =Sucking-disks of Clingfishes.=--Other fishes have sucking-disks differently made, by which they cling to rocks. In the gobies the united ventrals have some adhesive power. The blind goby (_Typhlogobius californiensis_) is said to adhere to rocks in dark holes by the ventral fins. In most gobies the adhesive power is slight. In the sea-snails (_Liparididæ_) and lumpfishes (_Cyclopteridæ_) the united ventral fins are modified into an elaborate circular sucking-disk. In the clingfishes (_Gobiesocidæ_) the sucking-disk lies between the ventral fins and is made in part of modified folds of the naked skin. Some fishes creep over the bottom, exploring it with their sensitive barbels, as the gurnard, surmullet, and goatfish. The suckers (_Catostomus_) test the bottom with their thick, sensitive lips, either puckered or papillose, feeding by suction. [Illustration: FIG. 150.--Clingfish, _Caularchus mæandricus_ (Girard). Monterey, California.] =Lampreys and Hagfishes.=--The lampreys suck the blood of other fishes to which they fasten themselves by their disk-like mouth armed with rasping teeth. The hagfishes (_Myxine_, _Eptatretus_) alone among fishes are truly parasitic. These fishes, worm-like in form, have round mouths, armed with strong hooked teeth. They fasten themselves at the throats of large fishes, work their way into the muscle without tearing the skin, and finally once inside devour all the muscles of the fish, leaving the skin unbroken and the viscera undisturbed. These fishes become living hulks before they die. If lifted out of the water, the slimy hagfish at once slips out and swims quickly away. In gill-nets in Monterey Bay great mischief is done by hagfish (_Polistotrema stouti_). It is a curious fact that large numbers of hagfish eggs are taken from the stomachs of the male hagfish, which seems to be almost the only enemy of his own species, keeping the numbers in check. [Illustration: FIG. 151.--Hagfish, _Polistotrema stouti_ (Lockington).] =The Swordfishes.=--In the swordfish and its relatives, the sailfish and the spearfish, the bones of the anterior part of the head are grown together, making an efficient organ of attack. The sword of the swordfish, the most powerful of these fishes, has been known to pierce the long planks of boats, and it is supposed that the animal sometimes attacks the whale. But stories of this sort lack verification. =The Paddle-fishes.=--In the paddle-fishes (_Polyodon spatula_ and _Psephurus gladius_) the snout is spread out forming a broad paddle or spatula. This the animal uses to stir up the mud on the bottoms of rivers, the small organisms contained in mud constituting food. Similar paddle-like projections are developed in certain deep-water Chimæras (_Harriottia_, _Rhinochimæra_), and in the deep-sea shark, _Mitsukurina_. [Illustration: FIG. 152.--Indian Sawfish, _Pristis zysron_ Latham. River mouths of Hindustan. (After Day.)] =The Sawfishes.=--A certain genus of rays (_Pristis_, the sawfish) and a genus of sharks (_Pristiophorus_, the saw-shark), possess a similar spatula-shaped snout. But in these fishes the snout is provided on either side with enamelled teeth set in sockets and standing at right angles with the snout. The animal swims through schools of sardines and anchovies, strikes right and left with this saw, destroying the small fishes, who thus become an easy prey. These fishes live in estuaries and river mouths, _Pristis_ in tropical America and Guinea, _Pristiophorus_ in Japan and Australia. In the mythology of science, the sawfish attacks the whale, but in fact the two animals never come within miles of each other, and the sawfish is an object of danger only to the tender fishes, the small fry of the sea. [Illustration: FIG. 153.--Saw-shark, _Pristiophorus japonicus_ Günther. Specimen from Nagasaki.] =Peculiarities of Jaws and Teeth.=--The jaws of fishes are subject to a great variety of modifications. In some the bones are joined by distensible ligaments and the fish can swallow other fishes larger than itself. In other cases the jaws are excessively small and toothless, at the end of a long tube, so ineffective in appearance that it is a marvel that the fish can swallow anything at all. In the thread-eels (_Nemichthys_) the jaws are so recurved that they cannot possibly meet, and in their great length seem worse than useless. In some species the knife-like canines of the lower jaw pierce through the substance of the upper. In four different and wholly unrelated groups of fishes the teeth are grown fast together, forming a horny beak like that of the parrot. These are the Chimæras, the globefishes (_Tetraodon_), and their relatives, the parrot-fishes (_Scarus_, etc.), and the stone-wall perch (_Oplegnathus_). The structure of the beak varies considerably in these four cases, in accord with the difference in the origin of its structures. In the globefishes the jaw-bones are fused together, and in the Chimæras they are solidly joined to the cranium itself. =The Angler-fishes.=--In the large group of angler-fishes the first spine of the dorsal fin is modified into a sort of bait to attract smaller fishes into the capacious mouth below. This structure is typical in the fishing-frog (_Lophius_), where the fleshy tip of this spine hangs over the great mouth, the huge fish lying on the bottom apparently inanimate as a stone. In other related fishes this spine has different forms, being often reduced to a vestige, of little value as a lure, but retained in accordance with the law of heredity. In a deep-sea angler the bait is enlarged, provided with fleshy streamers and a luminous body which serves to attract small fishes in the depths. The forms and uses of this spine in this group constitute a very suggestive chapter in the study of specialization and ultimate degradation, when the special function is not needed or becomes ineffective. Similar phases of excessive development and final degradation may be found in almost every group in which abnormal stress has been laid on a particular organ. Thus the ventral fins, made into a large sucking-disk in _Liparis_, are lost altogether in _Paraliparis_. The very large poisoned spines of _Pterois_ become very short in _Aploactis_, the high dorsal spines of _Citula_ are lost in _Alectis_, and sometimes a very large organ dwindles to a very small one within the limits of the same genus. An example of this is seen in the poisoned pectoral spines of _Schilbeodes_. =Relation of Number of Vertebræ to Temperature and the Struggle for Existence.=--One of the most remarkable modifications of the skeleton of fishes is the progressive increase of the number of vertebræ as the forms become less specialized, and that this particular form of specialization is greatest at the equator.[21] It has been known for some years that in several groups of fishes (wrasse-fishes, flounders, and "rock-cod," for example) those species which inhabit northern waters have more vertebræ than those living in the tropics. Certain arctic flounders, for example, have sixty vertebræ; tropical flounders have, on the average, thirty. The significance of this fact is the problem at issue. In science it is assumed that all facts have significance, else they would not exist. It becomes necessary, then, to find out first just what the facts are in this regard. [Illustration: FIG. 154.--Skeleton of Pike, _Esox lucius_ Linnæus, a river fish with many vertebræ.] Going through the various groups of non-migratory marine fishes we find that such relations are common. In almost every group the number of vertebræ grows smaller as we approach the equator, and grows larger again as we pass into southern latitudes. Taking an average netful of fishes of different kinds at different places along the coast, the variation would be evident. At Point Barrow or Cape Farewell or North Cape a seineful of fishes would perhaps average eighty vertebræ each, the body lengthened to make room for them; at Sitka or St. Johns or Bergen, perhaps sixty vertebræ; at San Francisco or New York or St. Malo, thirty-five; at Mazatlan or Pensacola or Naples, twenty-eight; and at Panama or Havana or Sierra Leone, twenty-five. Under the equator the usual number of vertebræ in shore fishes is twenty-four. Outside tropical and semi-tropical waters this number is the exception. North of Cape Cod it is virtually unknown. =Number of Vertebræ.=--The numbers of vertebræ in different groups may be summarized as follows: _Lancelets._--Among the lancelets the numbers of segments range from 50 to 80, there being no vertebræ. _Lampreys._--In this group the number of segments ranges from 100 to 150. _Elasmobranchs._--Among sharks and skates the usual number of segments is from 100 to 150 and upwards. In the extinct species as far as known the numbers are not materially different. The Carboniferous genus, _Pleuracanthus_, has about 115 vertebræ. The _Chimæras_ have similar numbers; _Chimæra monstrosa_ has about 100 in the body and more than as many more in the filamentous tail. _Cycliæ._--_Palæospondylus_ has about 85 vertebræ. _Arthrodires._--There are about 100 vertebræ in _Coccosteus_. _Dipnoans._--In Protopterus there are upwards of 100 vertebræ, the last much reduced in size. Figures of _Neoceratodus_ show about 80. _Crossopterygians._--_Polypterus_ has 67 vertebræ; _Erpetichthys_, 110; _Undina_, about 85. _Ganoids._--In this group the numbers are also large--95 in _Amia_, about 55 in the short-bodied _Microdon_. The Sturgeons all have more than 100 vertebræ. =Soft-rayed Fishes.=--Among the _Teleostei_, or bony fishes, those which first appear in geological history are the _Isospondyli_, the allies of the salmon and herring. These have all numerous vertebræ, small in size, and none of them in any notable degree modified or specialized. They abound in the depths of the ocean, but there are comparatively few of them in the tropics. The _Salmonidæ_ which inhabit the rivers and lakes of the northern zones have from 60 to 65 vertebræ. The _Myctophidæ, Stomiatidæ_, and other deep-sea forms have from 40 upwards in the few species in which the number has been counted. The group of _Clupeidæ_ is nearer the primitive stock of _Isospondyli_ than the salmon are. This group is essentially northern in its distribution, but a considerable number of its members are found within the tropics. The common herring (_Clupea harangus_) ranges farther into the arctic regions than any other. Its vertebræ are 56 in number. In the shad (_Alosa sapidissima_), a northern species which ascends the rivers, the same number is recorded. The sprat (_Clupea sprattus_) and sardine (_Sardinia pilchardus_), ranging farther south, have from 48 to 50, while in certain small herrings (_Sardinella_) which are strictly confined to tropical shores the number is but 40. Allied to the herring are the anchovies, mostly tropical. The northernmost species, the common anchovy of Europe (_Engraulis enchrasicolus_), has 46 vertebræ. A tropical species (_Anchovia browni_) has 41. There are, however, a few soft-rayed fishes confined to the tropical seas in which the numbers of vertebræ are still large, an exception to the general rule. Among these are _Albula vulpes_, the bonefish, with 70 vertebræ, _Elops saurus_, the ten-pounder, with 72, the tarpon (_Tarpon atlanticus_), with about 50, and the milkfish, _Chanos chanos_, with 72. In a fossil Eocene herring from the Green River shales (_Diplomystus_) I count 40 vertebræ; in a bass-like fish (_Mioplosus_) from the same locality 24--these being the usual numbers in the present tropical members of these groups. The great family of _Siluridæ_, or catfishes, is represented in all the fresh waters of temperate and tropical America, as well as in the warmer parts of the Old World. One division of the family, containing numerous species, abounds on the sandy shores of the tropical seas. The others are all fresh-water fishes. So far as the vertebræ in the _Siluridæ_ have been examined, no conclusions can be drawn. The vertebræ in the marine species range from 35 to 50; in the North American forms, from 37 to 45; and in the South American fresh-water species, where there is almost every imaginable variation in form and structure, the numbers range from 28 to 50 or more. The _Cyprinidæ_ (carp and minnows), confined to the fresh waters of the northern hemisphere, and their analogues, the _Characinidæ_ of the rivers of South America and Africa, have also numerous vertebræ, 36 to 50 in most cases. In general we may say of the soft-rayed fishes that very few of them are inhabitants of tropical shores. Of these few, some which are closely related to northern forms have fewer vertebræ than their cold-water analogues. In the northern species, the fresh-water species, and the species found in the deep sea the number of vertebræ is always large, but the same is true of some of the tropical species also. =The Flounders.=--In the flounders, the halibut and its relatives, arctic genera (_Hippoglossus_ and _Atheresthes_), have from 49 to 50 vertebræ. The northern genera (_Hippoglossoides, Lyopsetta_, and _Eopsetta_) have from 43 to 45; the members of a large semi-tropical genus (_Paralichthys_) of wide range have from 35 to 41; while the tropical forms have from 35 to 37. In the group of turbots and whiffs none of the species really belong to the northern fauna, and the range in numbers is from 35 to 43. The highest number, 43, is found in a deep-water species (_Monolene_), and the next, 40, in species (_Lepidorhombus, Orthopsetta_) which extend their range well toward the north. Among the plaices, which are all northern, the numbers range from 35 to 65, the higher numbers, 52, 58, 65, being found in species (_Glyptocephalus_) which inhabit considerable depths in the arctic seas. The lowest numbers (35) belong to shore species (_Pleuronichthys_) which range well toward the south. =Spiny-rayed Fishes.=--Among the spiny-rayed fishes the facts are more striking. Of these, numerous families are chiefly or wholly confined to the tropics, and in the great majority of all the species the number of vertebræ is constantly 24,--10 in the body and 14 in the tail (10+14). This is true of all or nearly all the _Berycidæ_, _Serranidæ_, _Sparidæ_, _Sciænidæ_, _Chætodontidæ_, _Hæmulidæ_, _Gerridæ_, _Gobiidæ_, _Acanthuridæ_, _Mugilidæ_, _Sphyrænidæ_, _Mullidæ_, _Pomacentridæ_, etc. In some families in which the process of reduction has gone on to an extreme degree, as in certain _Plectognath_ fishes, there has been a still further reduction, the lowest number, 14, existing in the short inflexible body of the trunkfish (_Ostracion_), in which the vertebral joints are movable only in the base of the tail. In all these forms the process of reduction of vertebræ has been accompanied by specialization in other respects. The range of distribution of these fishes is chiefly though not quite wholly confined to the tropics. Thus _Balistes_, the trigger-fish, has 17 vertebræ; _Monacanthus_ and _Alutera_, foolfishes, about 20; the trunkfish, _Ostracion_, 14; the puffers, _Tetraodon_ and _Spheroides_, 18; _Canthigaster_, 17; and the headfish, _Mola_, 17. Among the _Pediculates, Malthe_ and _Antennarius_ have 17 to 19 vertebræ, while in their near relatives, the anglers, _Lophiidæ_, the number varies with the latitude. Thus, in the northern angler, _Lophius piscatorius_, which is never found south of Cape Hatteras, there are 30 vertebræ. In a similar species, inhabiting the north of Japan (_Lophius litulon_), there are 27. In another Japanese species, ranging farther south, _Lophiomus setigerus_, the vertebræ are but 19. Yet in external appearance these two fishes are almost identical. It is, however, a notable fact that some of the deep-water _Pediculates_, or angling fishes, have the body very short and the number of vertebræ correspondingly reduced. _Dibranchus atlanticus_, from a depth of 3600 fathoms, or more than 4 miles, has but 18 vertebræ, and others of its relatives in deep waters show also small numbers. These soft-bodied fishes are simply animated mouths, with a feeble osseous structure, and they are perhaps recent offshoots from some stock which has extended its range from muddy bottom or from floating seaweed to the depths of the sea. A very few spiny-rayed families are wholly confined to the northern seas. One of the most notable of these is the family of viviparous surf-fishes (_Embiotocidæ_), of which numerous species abound on the coasts of California and Japan, but which enter neither the waters of the frigid nor of the torrid zone. The surf-fishes have from 32 to 42 vertebræ, numbers which are never found among tropical fishes of similar appearance or relationship. The facts of variation with latitude were first noticed among the _Labridæ_. In the northern genera (_Labrus_, _Tautoga_, etc.) there are 38 to 41 vertebræ; in the semi-tropical genera (_Crenilabrus_, _Bodianus_, etc.), 30 to 33; in the tropical genera (_Halichoeres_, _Xyrichthys_, _Thalassoma_, etc.), usually 24. Equally striking are the facts in the great group of _Pareioplitæ_, or mailed-cheek fishes, composed of numerous families, diverging from each other in various respects, but agreeing in certain peculiarities of the skeleton. Among these fishes the family most nearly related to ordinary fishes is that of the _Scorpænidæ_ (scorpion-fishes, etc.). This is a large family containing many species, fishes of local habits, swarming about the rocks at moderate depths in all zones. The species of the tropical genera have all 24 vertebræ. Those genera chiefly found in cooler waters, as in California, Japan, Chile, and the Cape of Good Hope, have in all their species 27 vertebræ, while in the arctic genera there are 31. Allied to the _Scorpænidæ_, but confined to the tropical or semi-tropical seas, are the _Platycephalidæ_, with 27 vertebræ, and the _Cephalacanthidæ_ (flying gurnards), with but 22. In the deeper waters of the tropics are the _Peristediidæ_, with 33 vertebræ, and extending farther north, belonging as much to the temperate as to the torrid zone, is the large family of the _Triglidæ_ (gurnards) in which the vertebræ range from 25 to 38. The family of _Agonidæ_ (sea-poachers), with 36 to 40 vertebræ, is still more decidedly northern in its distribution. Wholly confined to northern waters is the great family of the _Cottidæ_ (sculpins), in which the vertebræ ascend from 30 to 50. Entirely polar and often in deep waters are the _Liparididæ_ (sea-snails), an offshoot from the _Cottidæ_, with soft, limp bodies, and the vertebræ 35 to 65. In these northern forms there are no scales, the spines in the fins have practically disappeared, and only the anatomy shows that they belong to the group of spiny-rayed fishes. In the _Cyclopteridæ_ (lumpfishes), likewise largely arctic, the body becomes short and thick, the back-bone inflexible, and the vertebræ are again reduced to 28. In most cases, as the number of vertebræ increases, the body becomes proportionally elongate. As a result of this, the fishes of arctic waters are, for the most part, long and slender, and not a few of them approach the form of eels. In the tropics, however, while elongate fishes are common enough, most of them (always excepting the eels) have the normal number of vertebræ, the greater length being due to the elongation of their individual vertebræ and not to their increase in number. Thus the very slender goby, _Gobionellus oceanicus_, has the same number (25) of vertebræ as its thick-set relative _Gobius soporator_ or the chubby _Lophogobius cyprinoides_. In the great group of blenny-like fishes the facts are equally striking. The arctic species are very slender in form as compared with the tropical blennies, and this fact, caused by a great increase in the number of their vertebræ, has led to the separation of the group into several families. The tropical forms composing the family of _Blenniidæ_ have from 28 to 49 vertebræ, while in the arctic genera the numbers range from 75 to 100. Of the true _Blennidæ_, which are all tropical or semi-tropical, _Blennius_ has 28 to 35 vertebræ; _Salarias_, 35 to 38; Lepisoma, 34; _Clinus_, 49; _Cristiceps_, 40. A fresh-water species of _Cristiceps_ found in Australia has 46. Blennioid fishes in the arctic seas are _Anarrhichas_, with 76 vertebræ; _Anarrhichthys_, with 100 or more; _Lumpenus_, 79; _Pholis_, 85; _Lycodes_, 112; _Gymnelis_, 93. _Lycodes_ and _Gymnelis_ have lost all the dorsal spines. In the cod family (_Gadidæ_) the number of vertebræ is usually about 50. The number is 51 in the codfish (_Gadus callarias_), 58 in the Siberian cod (_Eleginus navaga_), 54 in the haddock (_Melanogrammus æglifinus_), 54 in the whiting (_Merlangus merlangus_), 54 in the coalfish (_Pollachius virens_), 52 in the Alaskan coalfish (_Theragra chalcogramma_), 51 in the hake (_Merluccius merluccius_). In the burbot (_Lota lota_), the only fresh-water codfish, 59; in the deep-water ling (_Molva molva_), 64; in the rocklings (_Gaidropsarus_), 47 to 49. Those few species found in the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico have fewer fin-rays and probably fewer vertebræ than the others, but none of the family enter warm water, the southern species living at greater depths. In the deep-sea allies of the codfishes, the grenadiers or rat-tails (_Macrouridæ_), the numbers range from 65 to 80. =Fresh-water Fishes.=--Of the families confined strictly to the fresh waters the great majority are among the soft-rayed or physostomous fishes, the allies of the salmon, pike, carp, and catfish. In all of these the vertebræ are numerous. A few fresh-water families have their affinities entirely with the more specialized forms of the tropical seas. Of these the _Centrarchidæ_ (comprising the American fresh-water sunfish and black bass) have on the average about 30 vertebræ, the pirate perch 29, and the _Percidæ_, perch and darters, etc., 35 to 45, while the _Serranidæ_ or sea-bass, the nearest marine relatives of all these, have constantly 24. The marine family of damsel-fishes (_Pomacentridæ_) have 26 vertebræ, while 30 to 40 vertebræ usually exist in their fresh-water analogues (or possibly descendants), the _Cichlidæ_, of the rivers of South America and Africa. The sticklebacks (_Gasterosteidæ_), a family of spiny fishes, confined to the rivers and seas of the north, have from 31 to 41 vertebræ. =Pelagic Fishes.=--Among the free-swimming or migratory pelagic fishes, the number of vertebræ is usually greater than among their relatives of local habits. This fact is most evident among the scombriform fishes, the allies of the mackerel and tunny. All of these belong properly to the warm seas, and the reduction of the vertebræ in certain forms has no evident relation to the temperature, though it seems to be related in some degree to the habits of the species. Perhaps the retention of many segments is connected with that strength and swiftness in the water for which the mackerels are preeminent. The variations in the number of vertebræ in this group led Dr. Günther to divide it into two families, the _Carangidæ_ and _Scombridæ_. The _Carangidæ_ or _Pampanos_ are tropical shore fishes, local or migratory to a slight degree. All these have from 24 to 26 vertebræ. In their pelagic relatives, the dolphins (_Coryphæna_), there are from 30 to 33; in the opah (_Lampris_), 45; in Brama, 42; while the great mackerel family (_Scombridæ_), all of whose members are more or less pelagic, have from 31 to 50. The mackerel (_Scomber scombrus_) has 31 vertebræ; the chub mackerel (_Scomber japonicus_), 31; the tunny (_Thunnus thynnus_), 39; the long-finned albacore (_Germo alalonga_), 40; the bonito (_Sarda sarda_), 50; the Spanish mackerel (_Scomberomorus maculatus_), 45. Other mackerel-like fishes are the cutlass-fishes (_Trichiuridæ_), which approach the eels in form and in the reduction of the fins. In these the vertebræ are correspondingly numerous, the numbers ranging from 100 to 160. _Aphanopus_ has 101 vertebræ; _Lepidopus_, 112; _Trichurus_, 159. In apparent contradiction to this rule, however, the pelagic family of swordfishes (_Xiphias_), remotely allied to the mackerels, and with even greater powers of swimming, has the vertebræ in normal number, the common swordfish having but 24. =The Eels.=--The eels constitute a peculiar group of soft-rayed ancestry, in which everything else has been subordinated to muscularity and flexibility of body. The fins, girdles, gill-arches, scales, and membrane bones are all imperfectly developed or wanting. The eel is perhaps as far from the primitive stock as the most highly "ichthyized" fishes, but its progress has been of another character. The eel would be regarded in the ordinary sense as a degenerate type, for its bony structure is greatly simplified as compared with its ancestral forms, but in its eel-like qualities it is, however, greatly specialized. All the eels have vertebræ in great numbers. As the great majority of the species are tropical, and as the vertebræ in very few of the deep-sea forms have been counted, no conclusions can be drawn as to the relation of their vertebræ to the temperature. It is evident that the two families most decidedly tropical in their distribution, the morays (_Murænidæ_) and the snake-eels (_Ophichthyidæ_), have diverged farthest from the primitive stock. They are most "degenerate," as shown by the reduction of their skeleton. At the same time they are also most decidedly "eel-like," and in some respects, as in coloration, dentition, muscular development, most highly specialized. It is evident that the presence of numerous vertebral joints is essential to the suppleness of body which is the eel's chief source of power. So far as known the numbers of vertebræ in eels range from 115 to 160, some of the deep-sea eels (_Nemichthys_, _Nettastoma_, _Gordiichthys_) having much higher numbers, in accord with their slender or whip-like forms. Among the morays, _Muræna helena_ has 140; _Gymnothorax meleagris_, 120; _G. undulatus_, 130; _G. moringa_, 145; _G. concolor_, 136; _Echidna catenata_, 116; _E. nebulosa_, 142; _E. zebra_, 135. In other families the true eel, _Anguilla anguilla_, has 115; the conger-eel, _Leptocephalus conger_, 156; and _Murænesox cinereus_, 154. =Variations in Fin-rays.=--In some families the number of rays in the dorsal and anal fins is dependent on the number of vertebræ. It is therefore subject to the same fluctuations. This relation is not strictly proportionate, for often a variable number of rays with their interspinal processes will be interposed between a pair of vertebræ. The myotomes or muscular bands on the sides are usually coincident with the number of vertebræ. As, however, these and other characters are dependent on differences in vertebral segmentation, they bear the same relations to temperature or latitude that the vertebræ themselves sustain. Thus in the _Scorpænidæ_, _Sebastes_, and _Sebastolobus_ arctic genera have the dorsal rays xv, 13, the vertebræ 12+19. The tropical genus _Scorpæna_ has the dorsal rays xii, 10, the vertebræ 10+14, while the genus _Sebastodes_ of temperate waters has the intermediate numbers of dorsal rays xii, 12, and vertebræ 12+15. =Relation of Numbers to Conditions of Life.=--Fresh-water fishes have in general more vertebræ than marine fishes of shallow waters. Pelagic fishes and deep-sea fishes have more than those which live along the shores, and more than localized or non-migratory forms. To each of these generalizations there are occasional partial exceptions, but not such as to invalidate the rule. The presence of large numbers of vertebræ is noteworthy among those fishes which swim for long distances, as, for example, many of the mackerel family. Among such there is often found a high grade of muscular power, or even of activity, associated with a large number of vertebræ, these vertebræ being individually small and little differentiated. For long-continued muscular action of a uniform kind there would be perhaps an advantage in the low development of the vertebral column. For muscular alertness, moving short distances with great speed, the action of a fish constantly on its guard against enemies or watching for its prey, the advantage would be on the side of a few vertebræ. There is often a correlation between the free-swimming habit and slenderness and suppleness of the body, which again is often dependent on an increase in numbers of the vertebral segments. These correlations appear as a disturbing element in the problem rather than as furnishing a clew to its solution. In some groups of fresh-water fishes there is a reduction in number of vertebræ, not associated with any degree of specialization of the individual bone, but correlated with simple reduction in size of body. This is apparently a phenomenon of degeneration, a survival of dwarfs, where conditions are unfavorable in full growth. All these effects should be referable to the same group of causes. They may, in fact, be combined in one statement. All other fishes now extant, as well as all fishes existing prior to Cretaceous times, have a larger number of vertebræ than the marine shore fishes of the tropics of the present period. There is good reason to believe that in most groups of spiny-rayed fishes, those with the smaller number of segments are at once the most highly organized and the most primitive. This is true among the blennies, the sculpins, the flounders, the perches, and probably the labroid fishes as well. The present writer once held the contrary view, that the forms with the higher numbers were primitive, but the evidence both from comparative anatomy and from palæontology seems to indicate that among spiny-rayed fishes the forms most ancient, most generalized, and most synthetic are those with about 24 vertebræ. The soft-rayed fishes without exception show larger numbers, and these are still more primitive. This apparent contradiction is perhaps explained by Dr. Boulenger's suggestion that the prevalence of the same number, 24, in the vertebræ of various families of spiny-rayed fishes is due to common descent, probably from Cretaceous berycoids having this number. In this theory, perches, sparoids, carangoids, chætodonts, labroids, parrot-fishes, gobies, flounders, and sculpins must be regarded as having a common origin from which all have diverged since Jurassic times. This view is not at all unlikely and is not inconsistent with the facts of palæontology. If this be the case, the members of these and related families which have larger numbers of vertebræ must have diverged from the primitive stock. The change has been one of degeneration, the individual vertebræ being reduced in size and complexity, with a vegetative increase in their number. At the same time, the body having the greater number of segments is the more flexible though the segments themselves are less specialized. The primitive forms live chiefly along tropical shores, while forms with increased numbers of vertebræ are found in all other localities. This fact must be considered in any hypothesis as to the causes producing such changes. If the development of large numbers be a phase of degeneration the causes of such degeneration must be sought in the colder seas, in the rivers, and in the oceanic abysses. What have these waters in common that the coral reefs, the lava crags, and tide-pools of the tropics have not? It is certain that the possession of fewer vertebræ indicates the higher rank, the greater specialization of parts, even though the many vertebræ be a feature less primitive. The evolution of fishes is rarely a movement of progress toward complexity. The time movement in some groups is accompanied by degradation and loss of parts, by vegetative repetition of structures, and often by a movement from the fish-form toward the eel-form. Water life is less exacting than land life, having less variation of conditions. It is, therefore, less effective in pushing forward the differentiation of parts. When vertebræ are few in number each one is relatively larger, its structure is more complicated, its appendages larger and more useful, and the fins with which it is connected are better developed. In other words, the tropical fish is more intensely and compactly a fish, with a better fish equipment, and in all ways better fitted for the business of a fish, especially for that of a fish that stays at home. [Illustration: FIG. 155.--Skeleton of Red Rockfish, _Sebastodes miniatus_ Jordan and Gilbert. California.] [Illustration: FIG. 156.--Skeleton of a spiny-rayed fish of the tropics, _Holacanthus ciliaris_ (Linnæus).] In the center of competition no species can afford to be handicapped by a weak back-bone and redundant vertebræ. Those who are thus weighted cannot hold their own. They must change or perish. The conditions most favorable to fish life are among the rocks and reefs of the tropical seas. About the coral reefs is the center of fish competition. A coral archipelago is the Paris of fishes. In such regions is found the greatest variety of surroundings, and therefore the greatest number of possible adjustments. The struggle is between fish and fish, not between fishes and hard conditions of life. No form is excluded from the competition. Cold, darkness, and foul water do not shut out competitors, nor does any evil influence sap the strength. The heat of the tropics does not make the sea-water hot. It is never sultry or laden with malaria. [Illustration: FIG. 157.--Skeleton of the Cowfish, _Lactophrys tricornis_ (Linnæus).] From conditions otherwise favorable in arctic regions the majority of competitors are excluded by their inability to bear the cold. River life is life in isolation. To aquatic animals river life has the same limitations that island life has to the animals of the land. The oceanic islands are far behind the continents in the process of evolution in so far as evolution implies specialization of parts. In a like manner the rivers are ages behind the seas, so far as progress is concerned, though through lack of competition the animals in isolation may be farthest from the original stock. Therefore the influences which serve as a whole to intensify fish life, to keep it up to its highest effectiveness, and which tend to rid the fish of every character or structure it cannot "use in its business," are most effective along the shores of the tropics. One phase of this is the retention of low numbers of vertebræ, or, more accurately, the increase of stress on each individual bone. Conversely, as the causes of these changes are still in operation, we should find that in cold waters, deep waters, dark waters, fresh waters, and inclosed waters the strain would be less, the relapses to less complex organization more frequent, the numbers of vertebræ would be larger, while the individual vertebræ would become smaller, less complete, and less perfectly ossified. This in a general way is precisely what we do find in examining the skeletons of a large variety of fishes. The cause of the increased numbers of vertebræ in cold waters or extratropical waters is as yet unknown. Several guesses have been made, but these can scarcely rise to the level of theories. To ascribe it to natural selection, as the present writer has done, is to do little more than to restate the problem. As a possible tentative hypothesis we may say that the retention of the higher primitive traits in the tropics is due to continuous selection, the testing of individuals by the greater variety of external conditions. The degeneration of extratropical fishes may be due to isolation and cessation or reversal of selection. Thus fresh waters, the arctic waters, the oceanic abysses are the "back woods" of fish life, localities favorable to the retention of primitive simplicity, equally favorable to subsequent degeneration. Practically all deep-sea fishes are degenerate descendants of shore fishes of various groups. Monotony and isolation permit or encourage degeneration of type. Where the struggle for existence is most intense the higher structures will be retained or developed. Among such facts as these derived from natural selection the cause of the relation of temperature to number of vertebræ must be sought. How the Cretaceous berycoids first acquired their few vertebræ and the high degree of individual specialization of these structures we may not know. The character came with the thoracic ventrals with reduced number of rays, the ctenoid scales, the toothless maxillary, and other characters which have long persisted in their subsequent descendants. An exception to the general rule in regard to the number of vertebræ is found in the case of the eel. Eels inhabit nearly all seas, and everywhere they have many vertebræ. The eels of the tropics are at once more specialized and more degraded. They are better eels than those of northern regions, but, as the eel is a degraded type, they have gone farther in the loss of structures in which this degradation consists. It is not well to push this analogy too far, but perhaps we can find in the comparison of the tropics and the cities some suggestion as to the development of the eel. In the city there is always a class which follows in no degree the general line of development. Its members are specialized in a wholly different way. By this means they take to themselves a field which others have neglected, making up in low cunning what they lack in humanity or intelligence. Thus, among fishes, we have in the regions of closest competition this degenerate and non-fish-like type, lurking in holes among the rocks, or creeping in the sand; thieves and scavengers among fishes. The eels thus fill a place otherwise left unfilled. In their way they are perfectly adapted to the lives they lead. A multiplicity of vertebral joints is useless to the tropical fish, but to the eel strength and suppleness are everything. No armature of fin or scale or bone is so desirable as its power of escaping through the smallest opening. With the elongation of the body and its increase in flexibility there is a tendency toward the loss of the paired fins, the ventrals going first, and afterwards the pectorals. This tendency may be seen in many groups. Among recent fishes, the blennies, the eel-pouts, and the sea-snails furnish illustrative examples. =Degeneration of Structures.=--In the lancelet, which is a primitively simple organism, the various structures of the body are formed of simple tissues and in a very simple fashion. It is probable from the structure of each of these that it has never been very much more complex. As the individual develops in the process of growth each organ goes as it were straight to its final form and structure without metamorphosis or especial alterations by the way. When this type of development occurs, the organism belongs to a type which is primitively simple. But there are other forms which in their adult state appear feeble or simple, in which are found elements of organs of high complexity. Thus in the sea-snail (_Liparis_), small, weak, with feeble fins and flabby skin, we find the essential anatomy of the sculpin or the rosefish. The organs of the latter are there, but each one is reduced or degenerate, the bones as soft as membranes, the spines obsolete or buried in the skin. Such a type is said to be degenerate. It is very different from one primitively simple, and it is likely in its earlier stages of development to be more complex than when it is fully grown. [Illustration: FIG. 158.--Liparid, _Crystallias matsushimæ_ (Jordan and Snyder). Family _Liparididæ_. Matsushima Bay, Japan.] [Illustration: FIG. 159.--Yellow-backed Rockfish, _Sebastichthys maliger_ Jordan and Gilbert. Sitka, Alaska.] In the evolution of groups of fishes it is a common feature that some one organ will be the center of a special stress, in view of some temporary importance of its function. By the process of natural selection it will become highly developed and highly specialized. Some later changes in conditions will render this specialization useless or even harmful for at least a part of the species possessing it. The structure then undergoes degeneration, and in many cases it is brought to a lower estate than before the original changes. An example of this may be taken from the loricate or mailed-cheek fishes. One of the primitive members of this group is the rockfish known as priestfish (_Sebastodes mystinus_). In this fish the head is weakly armed, covered with ordinary scales. A slight suggestion of cranial ridges and a slight prolongation of the third suborbital constitute the chief suggestions of its close affinity with the mailed-cheek fishes. In other rockfishes the cranial ridges grow higher and sharper. The third suborbital extends itself farther and wider. It becomes itself spinous in still others. Finally it covers the whole cheek in a coat of mail. The head above becomes rough and horny and at last the whole body also is enclosed in a bony box. But while this specialization reaches an extraordinary degree in forms like _Agonus_ and _Peristedion_, it begins to abate with _Cottus_, and thence through _Cottunculus_, _Psychrolutes_, _Liparis_, and the like, and the mailed cheek finds its final degradation in _Parliparis_. In this type no spines are present anywhere, no hard bone, no trace of scales, of first dorsal, or of ventral fins, and in the soft, limp structure covered with a fragile, scarf-like skin we find little suggestion of affinity with the strong rockfish or the rough-mailed _Agonus_. Yet a study of the skeleton shows that all these loricate forms constitute a continuous divergent series. The forms figured constitute only a few of the stages of specialization and degradation which the members of this group represent. [Illustration: FIG. 160.--European Sculpin, _Myoxocephalus scorpius_ (Linnæus). Cumberland Gulf, Arctic America] [Illustration: FIG. 161.--Sea-raven, _Hemitripterus americanus_ (Gmelin). Halifax, Nova Scotia.] Some of the features of the habits and development of certain fresh-water fishes are mentioned in the following chapter. [Illustration: FIG. 162.--Lumpfish, _Cyclopterus lumpus_ (Linnæus). Eastport, Maine.] The degeneration of the eye of the blind fishes of the caves of the Mississippi Valley, _Amblyopsis_, _Typhlichthys_, and _Troglichthys_, have been very fully studied by Dr. Carl H. Eigenmann. According to his observations "The history of the eye of _Amblyopsis spelæus_ may be divided into four periods: [Illustration: FIG. 163.--Sleek Sculpin, _Psychrolutes paradoxus_ (Günther). Puget Sound.] "(_a_) The first extends from the appearance of the eye till the embryo is 4-5 mm. long. This period is characterized by a normal palingenic development, except that the cell division is retarded and there is very little growth. [Illustration: FIG. 164.--Agonoid-fish, _Pallasina barbata_ (Steindachner). Port Mulgrave, Alaska.] "(_b_) The second period extends till the fish is 10 mm. long. It is characterized by the direct development of the eye from the normal embryonic stage reached in the first period to the highest stage reached by the _Amblyopsis_ eye. [Illustration: FIG. 165.--Blindfish of the Mammoth Cave, _Amblyopsis spelæus_ (De Kay). Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.] "(_c_) The third, from 10 mm. to about 80 or 100 mm. It is characterized by a number of changes which are positive as contrasted with degenerative. There are also distinct degenerative processes taking place during this period. "(_d_) The fourth, 80-100 mm. to death. It is characterized by degenerative processes only. "The eye of _Amblyopsis_ appears at the same stage of growth as in normal fishes developing normal eyes. The eye grows but little after its appearance. "All the developmental processes are retarded and some of them give out prematurely. The most important, if the last, is the cell division and the accompanying growth that provide material for the eye. "The lens appears at the normal time and in the normal way, but its cells never divide and never lose their embryonic character. "The lens is first to show degenerative steps and disappears entirely before the fish is 10 mm. long. [Illustration: FIG. 166.--Blind Brotula, _Lucifuga subterranea_ (Poey), showing viviparous habit. Joignan Cave, Pinar del Rio, Cuba. Photographed by Dr. Eigenmann.] "The optic nerve appears shortly before the fish reaches 5 mm. It does not increase in size with the growth of the fish and disappears in old age. "The scleral cartilages appear when the fish is 10 mm. long; they grow very slowly, possibly till old age. "There is no constant ratio between the extent and degree of ontogenic and phylogenic degeneration. "The eye is approaching the vanishing point through the route indicated by the eye of _Troglichthys rosæ_. "There being no causes operative or inhibitive, either within the fish or in the environment, that are not also operative or inhibitive in _Chologaster agassizii_, which lives in caves and develops well-formed eyes, it is evident that the causes controlling the development are hereditarily established in the egg by an accumulation of such degenerative changes as are still notable in the later history of the eye of the adult. "The foundations of the eye are normally laid, but the superstructure, instead of continuing the plan with additional material, completes it out of the material provided for the foundations. The development of the foundation of the eye is phylogenic; the stages beyond the foundations are direct." =Conditions of Evolution among Fishes.=--Dr. Bashford Dean ("Fishes, Living and Fossil") has the following observations on the processes of adaptation among fishes: "The evolution of groups of fishes must accordingly have taken place during only the longest periods of time. Their aquatic life has evidently been unfavorable to deep-seated structural changes, or at least has not permitted these to be perpetuated. Recent fishes have diverged in but minor regards from their ancestors of the Coal Measures. Within the same duration of time, on the other hand, terrestrial vertebrates have not only arisen, but have been widely differentiated. Among land-living forms the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals have been evolved, and have given rise to more than sixty orders. "The evolution of fishes has been confined to a noteworthy degree within rigid and unshifting bounds; their living medium, with its mechanical effects upon fish-like forms and structures, has for ages been almost constant in its conditions; its changes of temperature and density and currents have rarely been more than of local importance, and have influenced but little the survival of genera and species widely distributed; its changes, moreover, in the normal supply of food organisms cannot be looked upon as noteworthy. Aquatic life has built few of the direct barriers to survival, within which the terrestrial forms appear to have been evolved by the keenest competition. "It is not, accordingly, remarkable that in their descent fishes are known to have retained their tribal features, and to have varied from each other only in details of structure. Their evolution is to be traced in diverging characters that prove rarely more than of family value; one form, as an example, may have become adapted for an active and predatory life, evolving stronger organs of progression, stouter armoring, and more trenchant teeth; another, closely akin in general structures, may have acquired more sluggish habits, largely or greatly diminished size, and degenerate characters in its dermal investiture, teeth and organs of sense or progression. The flowering out of a series of fish families seems to have characterized every geological age, leaving its clearest imprint on the forms which were then most abundant. The variety that to-day maintains among the families of bony fishes is thus known to be paralleled among the carboniferous sharks, the Mesozoic Chimæroids, and the Palæozoic lung-fishes and Teleostomes. Their environment has retained their general characters, while modelling them anew into forms armored or scaleless, predatory or defenseless, great, small, heavy, stout, sluggish, light, slender, blunt, tapering, depressed. "When members of any group of fishes became extinct, those appear to have been the first to perish which were the possessors of the greatest number of widely modified or _specialized_ structures. Those, for example, whose teeth were adapted for a particular kind of food, or whose motions were hampered by ponderous size or weighty armoring, were the first to perish in the struggle for existence; on the other hand, the forms that most nearly retained the ancestral or tribal characters--that is, those whose structures were in every way least extreme--were naturally the best fitted to survive. Thus _generalized_ fishes should be considered those of medium size, medium defenses, medium powers of progression, omnivorous feeding habits, and wide distribution, and these might be regarded as having provided the staples of survival in every branch of descent. "Aquatic living has not demanded wide divergence from the ancestral stem, and the divergent forms which may culminate in a profusion of families, genera, and species do not appear to be again productive of more generalized groups. In all lines of descent specialized forms do not appear to regain by regression or degeneration the potential characters of their ancestral condition. A generalized form is like potter's clay, plastic in the hands of nature, readily to be converted into a needed kind of cup or vase; but when thus specialized may never resume unaltered its ancestral condition: the clay survives; the cup perishes." (DEAN.) FOOTNOTES: [19] Günther, Introd. to the Study of Fishes, p. 192. [20] The cells which von Lendenfeld designates 'phosphorescent cells' have as their peculiar characteristic a large, oval, highly refracting body imbedded in the protoplasm of the larger end of the clavate cells. These cells have nothing in common with the structure of the cells of the firefly known to be phosphorescent in nature. In fact the true phosphorescent cells are more probably the 'gland-cells' found in ten of the twelve classes of organs which he describes. [21] See a more technical paper on this subject entitled "Relations of Temperature to Vertebræ among Fishes," published in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum for 1891, pp. 107-120. Still fuller details are given in a paper contained in the Wilder Quarter-Century Book, 1893. The substance is also included in Chapter VIII of foot-notes to Evolution: D. Appleton & Co. CHAPTER XIII THE COLORS OF FISHES =Pigmentation.=--The colors of fishes are in general produced by oil sacs or pigment cells beneath the epidermis or in some cases beneath the scales. Certain metallic shades, silvery blue or iridescent, are produced, not by actual pigment, but, as among insects, by the deflection of light from the polished skin or the striated surfaces of the scales. Certain fine striations give an iridescent appearance through the interference of light. The pigmentary colors may be divided into two general classes, ground coloration and ornamentation or markings. Of these the ground color is most subject to individual or local variation, although usually within narrow limits, while the markings are more subject to change with age or sex. On the other hand, they are more distinctive of the species itself. =Protective Coloration.=--The ground coloration most usual among fishes is protective in its nature. In a majority of fishes the back is olivaceous or gray, either plain or mottled, and the belly white. To birds looking down into the water, the back is colored like the water itself or like the bottom below it. To fishes in search of prey from below, the belly is colored like the surface of the water or the atmosphere above it. In any case the darker colored upper surface casts its shadow over the paler lower parts. In shallow waters or in rivers the bottom is not uniformly colored. The fish, especially if it be one which swims close to the bottom, is better protected if the olivaceous surface is marked by darker cross streaks and blotches. These give the fish a color resemblance to the weeds about it or to the sand and stones on which it lies. As a rule, no fish which lies on the bottom is ever quite uniformly colored. [Illustration: FIG. 167.--Garibaldi (scarlet in color), _Hypsypops rubicunda_ (Girard). La Jolla, San Diego, California.] In the open seas, where the water seems very blue, blue colors, and especially metallic shades, take the place of olivaceous gray or green. As we descend into deep water, especially in the warm seas, red pigment takes the place of olive. At a moderate depth a large percentage of the fishes are of various shades of red. Several of the large groupers of the West Indies are represented by two color forms, a shore form in which the prevailing shade is olive-green, and a deeper-water form which is crimson. In several cases an intermediate-color form also exists which is lemon-yellow. On the coast of California is a band-shaped blenny (_Apodichthys flavidus_) which appears in three colors, according to its surroundings, blood-red, grass-green, and olive-yellow. The red coloration is also essentially protective, for the region inhabited by such forms is the zone of the rose-red algæ. In the arctic waters, and in lakes where rose-red algæ are not found, the red-ground coloration is almost unknown, although red may appear in markings or in nuptial colors. It is possible that the red, both of fishes and algæ, in deeper water is related to the effect of water on the waves of light, but whether this should make fishes red or violet has never been clearly understood. It is true also that where the red in fishes ceases violet-black begins. In the greater depths, from 500 to 4000 fathoms, the ground color in most fishes becomes deep black or violet-black, sometimes with silvery luster reflected from the scales, but more usually dull and lusterless. This shade may be also protective. In these depths the sun's rays scarcely penetrate, and the fish and the water are of the same apparent shade, for black coloration is here the mere absence of light. In general, the markings of various sorts grow less distinct with the increase of depth. Bright-red fishes of the depths are usually uniform red. The violet-black fishes of the oceanic abysses show no markings whatever (luminous glands excepted), and in deep waters there are no nuptial or sexual differences in color. Ground colors other than olive-green, gray, brown, or silvery rarely appear among fresh-water fishes. Marine fishes in the tropics sometimes show as ground color bright blue, grass-green, crimson, orange-yellow, or black; but these showy colors are almost confined to fishes of the coral reefs, where they are often associated with elaborate systems of markings. =Protective Markings.=--The markings of fishes are of almost every conceivable character. They may be roughly grouped as protective coloration, sexual coloration, nuptial coloration, recognition colors, and ornamentation, if we may use the latter term for brilliant hues which serve no obvious purpose to the fish itself. Examples of protective markings may be seen everywhere. The flounder which lies on the sand has its upper surface covered with sand-like blotches, and these again will vary according to the kind of sand it imitates. It may be true sand or crushed coral or the detritus of lava, in any case perfectly imitated. Equally closely will the markings on a fish correspond with rock surroundings. With granite rocks we find an elaborate series of granitic markings, with coral rocks another series of shades, and if red corals be present, red shades of like appearance are found on the fish. Still another kind of mark indicates rock pools lined with the red calcareous algæ called corallina. Black species are found in lava masses, grass-green ones among the fronds of ulva, and olive-green among Sargassum or fucus, the markings and often the form corresponding to the nature of the algæ in which the species makes its home. [Illustration: FIG. 168.--Gofu, or Poison Fish, _Synanceia verrucosa_ (Linnæus). Family _Scorpænidæ_. Specimen from Apia, Samoa, showing resemblance to coral masses, in the clefts of which it lives.] =Sexual Coloration.=--In many groups of fishes the sexes are differently colored. In some cases bright-red, blue, or black markings characterize the male, the female having similar marks, but less distinct, and the bright colors replaced by olive, brown, or gray. In a few cases, however, the female has marks of a totally different nature, and scarcely less bright than those of the male. [Illustration: FIG. 169.--Lizard-skipper, _Alticus saliens_ (Forster). A blenny which lies out of water on lava-rocks, leaping from one to another with great agility. From nature; specimen from Point Distress, Tutuila Island, Samoa. (About one-half size.)] =Nuptial Coloration.=--Nuptial colors are those which appear on the male in the breeding season only, the pigment afterwards vanishing, leaving the sexes essentially alike. Such colors are found on most of the minnows and dace (_Cyprinidæ_) of the rivers and to a less degree in some other fresh-water fishes, as the darters (_Etheostominæ_) and the trout. In the minnows of many species the male in spring has the skin charged with bright pigment, red, black, or bright silvery, for the most part, the black most often on the head, the red on the head and body, and the silvery on the tips of the fins. At the same time other markings are intensified, and in many species the head and sometimes the body and fins are covered with warty excrescences. These shades are most distinct on the most vigorous males, and disappear with the warty excrescences after the fertilization of the eggs. [Illustration: FIG. 170.--Blue-breasted Darter, _Etheostoma camurum_ (Cope), the most brilliantly colored of American river-fishes. Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.] Nuptial colors do not often appear among marine fishes, and in but few families are the sexes distinguishable by differences in coloration. =Recognition-marks.=--Under the head of "recognition-marks" may be grouped a great variety of special markings, which may be conceived to aid the representatives of a given species to recognize each other. That they actually serve this purpose is a matter of theory, but the theory is plausible, and these markings have much in common with the white tail feathers, scarlet crests, colored wing patches, and other markings regarded as recognition-marks among birds. Among these are ocelli, black- or blue-ringed with white or yellow, on various parts of the body; black spots on the dorsal fin; black spots below or behind the eye; black, red, blue, or yellow spots variously placed; cross-bars of red or black or green, with or without pale edges; a blood-red fin or a fin of shining blue among pale ones; a white edge to the tail; a yellow, blue, or red streamer to the dorsal fin, a black tip to the pectoral or ventral; a hidden spot of emerald in the mouth or in the axil; an almost endless variety of sharply defined markings, not directly protective, which serve as recognition-marks, if not to the fish itself, certainly to the naturalist who studies it. These marks shade off into an equally great variety for which we can devise no better name than "ornamentation." Some fishes are simply covered with brilliant spots or bars or reticulations, their nature and variety baffling description, while no useful purpose seems to be served by them, unless we stretch still more widely the convenient theory of recognition-marks. In many cases the markings change with age, certain bands, stripes, or ocelli being characteristic of the young and gradually disappearing. In such cases the same marks will be found permanent in some related species of less differentiated coloration. In such cases it is safe to regard them as ancestral. In case of markings on the fins and of elaborate ornamentation in general, it is best defined in the oldest and most vigorous individuals, becoming intensified by degrees. The most brilliantly colored fishes are found about the coral reefs. Here may be found species of which the ground color is the most intense blue, others are crimson, grass-green, lemon-yellow, jet-black, and each with a great variety of contrasted markings. The frontispiece of this volume shows a series of such fishes drawn from nature from specimens taken in pools of the great coral reef of Apia in Samoa. These colors are not protective. The coral masses are mostly plain gray, and the fishes which lie on the bottom are plain gray also. Nothing could be more brilliant or varied than the hues of the free-swimming fishes. What their cause or purpose may be, it is impossible to say. It is certain that their intense activity and the ease with which they can seek shelter in the coral masses enable them to defy their enemies. Nature seems to riot in bright colors where her creatures are not destroyed by their presence. =Intensity of Coloration.=--In general, coloration is most intense and varied in certain families of the tropical shores, and especially about coral reefs. But in brilliancy of individual markings some fresh-water fishes are scarcely less notable, especially the darters (_Etheostominæ_) and sunfishes (_Centrarchidæ_) of the streams of eastern North America. The bright hues of these fresh-water fishes are, however, more or less concealed in the water by the olivaceous markings and dark blotches of the upper parts. [Illustration: FIG. 171.--Snake-eels, _Liuranus semicinctus_ (Lay and Bennett), and _Chlevastes colubrinus_ (Boddaert), from Riu Kiu Islands, Japan.] [Illustration: FIG. 172.--Coral Reef at Apia.] =Coral-reef Fishes.=--The brilliantly colored fishes of the tropical reefs seem, as already stated, to have no need of protective coloration. They save themselves from their enemies in most cases by excessive alertness and activity (_Chætodon_, _Pomacentrus_), or else by busying themselves in coral sand (_Julis gaimard_), a habit more frequent than has been suspected. Every large mass of branching coral is full of lurking fishes, some of them often most brilliantly colored. =Fading of Pigments in Spirits.=--In the preservation of specimens most red and blue pigments fade to whitish, and it requires considerable care to interpret the traces which may be left of red bands or blue markings. Yet some blue pigments are absolutely permanent, and occasionally blood-red pigments persist through all conditions. Black pigment seldom changes in spirits, and olivaceous markings simply fade a little without material alteration. It is an important part of the work of the systematic ichthyologist to learn to interpret the traces of the faded pigment left on specimens he may have occasion to examine. In such cases it is more important to trace the markings than to restore the ground color, as the ground color is at once more variable with individuals and more constant in large groups. =Variation in Pattern.=--Occasionally, however, a species is found in which, other characters being constant, both ground color and markings are subject to a remarkable range of variation. In such cases the actual unity of the species is open to serious question. The most remarkable case of such variation known is found in a West Indian fish, the vaca, which bears the incongruous name of _Hypoplectrus unicolor_. In the typical vaca the body is orange with black marks and blue lines, the fins checkered with orange and blue. In a second form the body is violet, barred with black, the head with blue spots and bands. In another form the blue on the head is wanting. In still another the body is yellow and black, with blue on the head only. In others the fins are plain orange, without checks, and the body yellow, with or without blue stripes and spots, and sometimes with spots of black or violet. In still others the body may be pink or brown, or violet-black, the fins all yellow, part black or all black. Finally, there are forms deep indigo-blue in color everywhere, with cross bands of indigo-black, and these again may have bars of deeper blue on the head or may lack these altogether. I find, no difference among these fishes except in color, and no way of accounting for the differences in this regard. Certain species of puffer (_Tetraodon setosus_, of Panama, and _Tetraodon nigropunctatus_, of Polynesia) show similar remarkable variations, being dark gray with white spots, but varying to indigo-blue, lemon-yellow, or sometimes having coarse blotches of either. Lemon-yellow varieties of several species are known, and these may be due to a failure of pigment, a sort of semi-albinism. True albinos, individuals wholly without pigment, are rare among fishes. In some cases the markings, commonly black, will be replaced by a deep crimson which does not fade in alcohol. This change happens most frequently among the _Scorpænidæ_. An example of this is shown in the frontispiece of Volume II of this work. The Japanese okose or poison-fish (_Inimicus_) is black and gray about lava-rocks. In deeper water among red algæ it is bright crimson, the color not fading in spirits, the markings remaining the same. In still deeper water it is lemon-yellow. CHAPTER XIV THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES =Zoogeography.=--Under the head of distribution we consider the facts of the actual location of species of organisms on the surface of the earth and the laws by which their location is governed. This constitutes the subject-matter of the science of zoogeography. In physical geography we may prepare maps of the earth or of any part of it, these bringing to prominence the physical features of its surface. Such maps show here a sea, there a plateau, here a mountain chain, there a desert, a prairie, a peninsula, or an island. In political geography the maps show their physical features of the earth as related to the people who inhabit them and the states or powers which receive or claim their allegiance. In zoogeography the realms of the earth are considered in relation to the species or tribes of animals which inhabit them. Thus series of maps could be drawn representing those parts of North America in which catfishes or trout or sunfishes are found in the streams. In like manner the distribution of any particular fish as the muskallonge or the yellow perch could be shown on the map. The details of such a map are very instructive, and their consideration at once raises a series of questions as to the cause behind each fact. In science it must be supposed that no fact is arbitrary or meaningless. In the case of fishes the details of the method of diffusion of species afford matters of deep interest. These are considered in a subsequent chapter. The dispersion of animals may be described as a matter of space and time, the movement being continuous but modified by barriers and other conditions of environment. The tendency of recent studies in zoogeography has been to consider the facts of present distribution as the result of conditions in the past, thus correlating our present knowledge with the past relations of land and water as shown through paleontology. Dr. A. E. Ortmann well observes that "Any division of the earth's surface into zoogeographical regions which starts exclusively from the present distribution of animals without considering its origin must always be unsatisfactory." We must therefore consider the coast-lines and barriers of Tertiary and earlier times as well as those of to-day to understand the present distribution of fishes. =General Laws of Distribution.=--The general laws governing the distribution of all animals are reducible to three very simple propositions. Each species of animal is found in every part of the earth having conditions suitable for its maintenance, unless (_a_) Its individuals have been unable to reach this region through barriers of some sort; or, (_b_) Having reached it, the species is unable to maintain itself, through lack of capacity for adaptation, through severity of competition with other forms, or through destructive conditions of environment; or else, (_c_) Having entered and maintained itself, it has become so altered in the process of adaptation as to become a species distinct from the original type. =Species Absent through Barriers.=--The absence from the Japanese fauna of most European or American species comes under the first head. The pike has never reached the Japanese lakes, though the shade of the-lotus leaf in the many clear ponds would suit its habits exactly. The grunt[22] and porgies[23] of our West Indian waters have failed to cross the ocean and therefore have no descendants in Europe or Asia. =Species Absent through Failure to Maintain Foothold.=--Of species under (_b_), those who have crossed the seas and not found lodgement, we have, in the nature of things, no record. Of the existence of multitudes of estrays we have abundant evidence. In the Gulf Stream off Cape Cod are every year taken many young fishes belonging to species at home in the Bahamas and which find no permanent place in the New England fauna. In like fashion, young fishes from the tropics drift northward in the Kuro Shiwo to the coasts of Japan, but never finding a permanent breeding-place and never joining the ranks of the Japanese fishes. But to this there have been, and will be, occasional exceptions. Now and then one among thousands finds permanent lodgement, and by such means a species from another region will be added to the fauna. The rest disappear and leave no trace. A knowledge of these currents and their influence is eventual to any detailed study of the dispersion of fishes. The occurrence of the young of many shore fishes of the Hawaiian Islands as drifting plankton at a considerable distance from the shores has been lately discovered by Dr. Gilbert. Each island is, in a sense, a "sphere of influence," affecting the fauna of neighboring regions. =Species Changed through Natural Selection.=--In the third class, that of species changed in the process of adaptation, most insular forms belong. As a matter of fact, at some time or another almost every species must be in this category, for isolation is a source of the most potent elements in the initiation and intensification of the minor differences which separate related species. It is not the preservation of the most useful features, but of those which actually existed in the ancestral individuals, which distinguish such species. Natural selection must include not only the process of the survival of the fittest, but also the results of the survival of the existing. This means the preservation through heredity of the traits not of the species alone, but those of the actual individuals set apart to be the first in the line of descent in a new environment. In hosts of cases the persistence of characters rests not on any special usefulness or fitness, but on the fact that individuals possessing these characters have, at one time or another, invaded a certain area and populated it. The principle of utility explains survivals among competing structures. It rarely accounts for qualities associated with geographical distribution. =Extinction of Species.=--The extinction of species may be noted here in connection with their extension of range. Prof. Herbert Osborn has recognized five different types of elimination. 1. That extinction which comes from modification or progressive evolution, a relegation to the past as the result of a transmutation into more advanced forms. 2. Extinction from changes of physical environment which outrun the powers of adaptation. 3. The extinction which results from competition. 4. The extinction from extreme specialization and limitation to special conditions the loss of which means extinction. 5. Extinction as a result of exhaustion. As an illustration of No. 1, we may take almost any species which has a cognate species on the further side of some barrier or in the tertiary seas. Thus the trout of the Twin Lakes in Colorado has acquired its present characters in the place of those brought into the lake by its actual ancestors. No. 2 is illustrated by the disappearance of East Indian types (_Zanclus_, _Platax_, _Toxotes_, etc.) in Italy at the end of the Eocene, perhaps for climatic reasons. Extinction through competition is shown in the gradual disappearance of the Sacramento perch (_Archoplitis interruptus_) after the invasion of the river by catfish and carp. From extreme specialization certain forms have doubtless disappeared, but no certain case of this kind has been pointed out among fishes, unless this be the cause of the disappearance of the Devonian mailed _Ostracophores_ and _Arthrodires_. It is not likely that any group of fishes has perished through exhaustion of the stock of vigor. =Barriers Checking Movement of Marine Fishes.=--The limits of the distribution of individual species or genera must be found in some sort of barrier, past or present. The chief barriers which limit marine fishes are the presence of land, the presence of great oceans, the differences of temperature arising from differences in latitude, the nature of the sea bottom, and the direction of oceanic currents. That which is a barrier to one species may be an agent in distribution to another. The common shore fishes would perish in deep waters almost as surely as on land, while the open Pacific is a broad highway to the albacore or the swordfish. Again, that which is a barrier to rapid distribution may become an agent in the slow extension of the range of a species. The great continent of Asia is undoubtedly one of the greatest of barriers to the wide movement of species of fish, yet its long shore-line enables species to creep, as it were, from bay to bay, or from rock to rock, till, in many cases, the same species is found in the Red Sea and in the tide-pools or sand-reaches of Japan. In the North Pacific, the presence of a range of half-submerged volcanoes, known as the Aleutian and the Kurile Islands, has greatly aided the slow movement of the fishes of the tide-pools and the kelp. To a school of mackerel or of flying-fishes these rough islands with their narrow channels might form an insuperable barrier. [Illustration: FIG. 173.--Japanese filefish, _Rudarius ercodes_ Jordan and Snyder. Wakanoura, Japan. Family _Monacanthidæ_.] =Temperature the Central Fact in Distribution.=--It has long been recognized that the matter of temperature is the central fact in all problems of geographical distribution. Few species in any group freely cross the frost-line, and except as borne by oceanic currents, not many extend their range far into waters colder than those in which the species is distinctively at home. Knowing the average temperature of the water in a given region we know in general the types of fishes which must inhabit it. It is the similarity in temperature and physical conditions which chiefly explains the resemblance of the Japanese fauna to that of the Mediterranean or the Antilles. This fact alone must explain the resemblance of the Arctic and Antarctic faunæ, there being in no case a barrier in the sea that may not some time be crossed. Like forms lodge in like places. =Agency of Ocean Currents.=--We may consider again for a moment the movements of the great currents in the Pacific as agencies in the distribution of species. A great current sets to the eastward, crossing the ocean just south of the equator. It extends past Samoa and passes on nearly to the coast of Mexico, touching the Galapagos Islands, Clipperton Island, and especially the Revillagigedos. This may account for the number of Polynesian species found on these islands, about which they are freely mixed with immigrants from the mainland of Mexico. From the Revillagigedos[24] the current moves northward and westward, passing the Hawaiian Islands and thence onward to the Ladrones. The absence in Hawaii of most of the characteristic fishes of Polynesia and Micronesia may be in part due to the long detour made by these currents, as the conditions of life in these groups of islands are not very different. Northeast of Hawaii is a great spiral current, moving with the hands of the watch, forming what is called Fleurieu's Whirlpool. This does not reach the coast of California. This fact may help to account for the almost complete distinction in the shore fishes of Hawaii and California.[25] No other group of islands in the tropics has a fish fauna so isolated as that of Hawaii. The genera are largely the ordinary tropical types. The species are largely peculiar to these islands. The westward current from Hawaii reaches Luzon and Formosa. It is deflected to the northward and, joining a northward current from Celebes, it forms the Kuro Shiwo or Black Stream of Japan, which strews its tropical species in the rock pools along the Japanese promontories as far as Tokio. Then, turning into the open sea, it passes northward to the Aleutian Islands, across to Sitka. Thence it moves southward as a cold current, bearing Ochotsk-Alaskan types southward as far as the Santa Barbara Islands, to which region it is accompanied by species of Aleutian origin. A cold return current seems to extend southward in Japan, along the east shore perhaps as far as Matsushima. A similar current in the sea to the west of Japan extends still further to the southward, to Noto, or beyond. It is, of course, not necessary that the movements of a species in an oceanic current should coincide with the direction of the current. Young fishes, or fresh-water fishes, would be borne along with the water. Those that dwell within floating bodies of seaweed would go whither the waters carry the drifting mass. But free-swimming fishes, as the mackerel or flying-fishes, might as readily choose the reverse direction. To a free-swimming fish the temperature of the water would be the only consideration. It is thus evident that a current which to certain forms would prove a barrier to distribution, to others would be a mere convenience in movement. In comparing the Japanese fauna with that of Australia, we find some trace of both these conditions. Certain forms are perhaps excluded by cross-currents, while certain others seem to have been influenced only by the warmth of the water. A few Australian types on the coast of Chile seem to have been carried over by the cross-currents of the South Atlantic. It is fair to say that the part taken by oceanic currents in the distribution of shore fishes is far from completely demonstrated. The evidence that they assist in such distribution is, in brief, as follows: 1. The young of shore fishes often swim at the surface. 2. The young of very many tropical fishes drift northward in the Gulf Stream and the Japanese Kuro Shiwo. 3. The faunal isolation of Hawaii may be correlated with the direction of the oceanic currents. =Centers of Distribution.=--We may assume, in regard to any species, that it has had its origin in or near that region in which it is most abundant and characteristic. Such an assumption must involve a very large percentage of error or of doubt, but in considering the mass of species, it may represent essential truth. In the same fashion we may regard a genus as being autochthonous or first developed in the region where it shows the greatest range or variety of species. Those regions where the greatest number of genera are thus autochthonous may be regarded as centers of distribution. So far as the marine fishes are concerned, the most important of these supposed centers are found in the Pacific Ocean. First of these in importance is the East-Indian Archipelago, with the neighboring shores of India. Next would come the Arctic Pacific and its bounding islands, from Japan to British Columbia. Third in importance in this regard is Australia. Important centers are found in temperate Japan, in California, the Panama region, and in New Zealand, Chili, and Patagonia. The fauna of Polynesia is almost entirely derived from the Indies; and the shore fauna of the Red Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and Madagascar, so far as genera are concerned, seems to be not really separable from the Indian fauna generally. [Illustration: FIG. 174.--Globefish, _Tetraodon setosus_ Rosa Smith. Clarion Island, Mexico.] I know of but six genera which may be regarded as autochthonous in the Red Sea, and nearly all of these are of doubtful value or of uncertain relation. The many peculiar genera described by Dr. Alcock, from the dredgings of the _Investigator_ in the Bay of Bengal, belong to the bathybial or deep-water series, and will all, doubtless, prove to be forms of wide distribution. In the Atlantic, the chief center of distribution is the West Indies; the second is the Mediterranean. On the shores to the northward or southward of these regions occasional genera have found their origin. This is true especially of the New England region, the North Sea, the Gulf of Guinea, and the coast of Argentina. The fish fauna of the North Atlantic is derived mainly from the North Pacific, the differences lying mainly in the relative paucity of the North Atlantic. But in certain groups common to the two regions the migration must have been in the opposite direction, exceptions that prove the rule. =Distribution of Marine Fishes.=--The distribution of marine fishes must be indicated in a different way from that of the fresh-water forms. The barriers which limit their range furnish also their means of dispersion. In some cases proximity overbalances the influence of temperature; with most forms questions of temperature are all-important. =Pelagic Fishes.=--Before consideration of the coast-lines we may glance at the differences in vertical distribution. Many species, especially those in groups allied to the mackerel family, are pelagic--that is, inhabiting the open sea and ranging widely within limits of temperature. In this series some species are practically cosmopolitan. In other cases the genera are so. Each school or group of individuals has its breeding place, and from the isolation of breeding districts new species may be conceived to arise. The pelagic types have reached a species of equilibrium in distribution. Each type may be found where suitable conditions exist, and the distribution of species throws little light on questions of distribution of shore fishes. Yet among these species are all degrees of localization. The pelagic fishes shade into the shore fishes on the one hand and into the deep-sea fishes on the other. =Bassalian Fishes.=--The vast group of bassalian or deep-sea fishes includes those forms which live below the line of adequate light. These too are localized in their distribution, and to a much greater extent than was formerly supposed. Yet as they dwell below the influence of the sun's rays, zones and surface temperatures are nearly alike to them, and the same forms may be found in the Arctic or under the equator. Their differences in distribution are largely vertical, some living at greater depths than others, and they shade off by degrees from bathybial into semi-bathybial, and finally into ordinary pelagic and ordinary shore types. Apparently all of the bassalian fishes are derived from littoral types, the changes in structure being due to degeneration of the osseous and muscular systems and of structures not needed in deep-sea life. [Illustration: FIG. 175.--Sting-ray, _Dasyatis sabina_ Le Sueur. Galveston.] The fishes of the great depths are soft in substance, some of them blind, some of them with very large eyes, all black in color, and very many are provided with luminous spots or areas. A large body of species of fishes are semi-bathybial, inhabiting depths of 20 to 100 fathoms, showing many of the characters of shore fishes, but far more widely distributed. Many of the remarkable cases of wide distribution of type belong to this class. In moderate depths red colors are very common, corresponding to the zone of red algæ, and the colors in both cases are perhaps determined from the fact that the red rays of light are the least refrangible. A certain number of species are both marine and fresh water, inhabiting estuaries and brackish waters, while some more strictly marine ascend the rivers to spawn. In none of these cases can any hard and fast line be drawn, and some groups which are shore fishes in one region will be represented by semi-bathybial or fluviatile forms in another.[26] =Littoral Fishes.=--The shore fishes are in general the most highly specialized in their respective groups, because exposed to the greatest variety of selecting conditions and of competition. Their distribution in space is more definite than that of the pelagic and bassalian types, and they may be more definitely assigned to geographical areas. =Distribution of Littoral Fishes by Coast-lines.=--Their distribution is best indicated, not by realms or areas, but as forming four parallel series corresponding to the four great north and south continental outlines. Each of these series may be represented as beginning at the north in the Arctic fauna, practically identical in each of the four series, actually identical in the two Pacific series. Passing southward, forms are arranged according to temperature. One by one in each series, the Arctic types disappear; subarctic, temperate, and semi-tropical types take their places, giving way in turn to south-temperate and Antarctic forms. The distribution of these is modified by barriers and by currents, yet though genera and species may be different, each isotherm is represented in each series by certain general types of fishes. [Illustration: FIG. 176.--Green-sided Darter, _Diplesion blennioides_ Rafinesque. Clinch River. Family _Percidæ_.] Passing southward the two American series, the East Atlantic and the East Pacific, pass on gradually through temperate to Antarctic types. These are analogous to those of the Arctic, and in a few cases they are generally identical. The West Pacific (East Asian) series is not a continuous line on account of the presence of Australia, the East Indies, and Polynesia. The irregularities of these regions make a number of subseries, which break up the simplicity expressed in the idea of four parallel series. Yet the fauna of Polynesia is strictly East Indian, modified by the omission or alteration of species, and that of Australia is Indian at the north, and changes to the southward much as that of Africa does. In its marine fishes, it does not constitute a distinct "realm." The East Atlantic (Europe-African) series follows the same general lines of change as that of the West Atlantic. It extends, however, only to the South Temperate Zone, developing no Antarctic elements. The relative shortness of Africa explains in large degree, as already shown, the similarity between the tropical elements in the two Old-World series, as the similarity in tropical elements in the two American series must be due to a former depression of the connecting Isthmus. The practical unity of the Arctic marine fauna needs no explanation in view of the present shore lines of the Arctic Ocean. =Minor Faunal Areas.=--The minor faunal areas of shore fishes may be grouped as follows: East Atlantic. Icelandic, British, Mediterranean, Guinean, Cape. West Atlantic. Greenlandic, New England, Virginian, Austroriparian, Floridian, Antillæan, Caribbean, Brazilian, Argentinan, Patagonian. East Pacific. Arctic, Aleutian, Sitkan, Californian, San Diegan, Sinaloan, Panamanian, Peruvian, Revillagigedan, Galapagan, Chilian, Patagonian. West Pacific. Arctic, Aleutian, Kurile, Hokkaido, Nippon, Chinese, East Indian, Polynesian, Hawaiian, Indian, Arabian, Madagascarian, Cape, North Australian, Tasmanian, New Zealand, Antarctic. =Equatorial Fishes Most Specialized.=--In general, the different types are most highly specialized in equatorial waters. The processes of specific change, through natural selection or other causes, if other causes exist, take place most rapidly there and produce most far-reaching modification. As elsewhere stated, the coral reefs of the tropics are the centers of fish-life, the cities in fish economy. The fresh waters, the arctic waters, the deep sea and the open sea represent forms of ichthyic backwoods, regions where change goes on more slowly, and in them we find survivals of archaic or generalized types. For this reason the study in detail of the distribution of marine fishes of equatorial regions is in the highest degree instructive. =Realms of Distribution of Fresh-water Fishes.=--If we consider the fresh-water fishes alone we may divide the land areas of the earth into districts and zones not differing fundamentally with those marked out for mammals and birds. The river basin, bounded by its shores and the sea at its mouth, shows many resemblances, from the point of view of a fish, to an island considered as the home of an animal. It is evident that with fishes the differences in latitude outweigh those of continental areas, and a primary division into Old World and New World would not be tenable. The chief areas of distribution of fresh-water fishes we may indicate as follows, following essentially the grouping proposed by Dr. Günther:[27] =Northern Zone.=--With Dr. Günther we may recognize first the _Northern Zone_, characterized familiarly by the presence of sturgeon, salmon, trout, whitefish, pike, lamprey, stickleback, and other species of which the genera and often the species are identical in Europe, Siberia, Canada, Alaska, and most of the United States, Japan, and China. This is subject to cross-division into two great districts, the first Europe-Asiatic, the second North American. These two agree very closely to the northward, but diverge widely to the southward, developing a variety of specialized genera and species, and both of them passing finally by degrees into the Equatorial Zone. Still another line of division is made by the Ural Mountains in the Old World and by the Rocky Mountains in the New. In both cases the Eastern region is vastly richer in genera and species, as well as in autochthonous forms, than the Western. The reason for this lies in the vastly greater extent of the river basins of China and the Eastern United States, as compared with those of Europe or the Californian region. [Illustration: FIG. 177.--Japanese Sea-horse, _Hippocampus mohnikei_ Bleeker. Misaki, Japan.] Minor divisions are those which separate the Great Lake region from the streams tributary to the Gulf of Mexico; and in Asia, those which separate China from tributaries of the Caspian, the Black, and the Mediterranean. =Equatorial Zone.=--The Equatorial Zone is roughly indicated by the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Its essential feature is that of the temperature, and the peculiarities of its divisions are caused by barriers of sea or mountains. Dr. Günther finds the best line of separation into two divisions to lie in the presence or absence of the great group of dace or minnows,[28] to which nearly half of the species of fresh-water fishes the world over belong. The entire group, now spread everywhere except in the Arctic, South America, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific, seems to have had its origin in India, from which region its genera have radiated in every direction. The Cyprinoid division of the Equatorial Zone forms two districts, the Indian and the African. The Acyprinoid division includes South America, south of Mexico, and all the islands of the tropical Pacific lying to the east of Wallace's line. This line, separating Borneo from Celebes and Bali from Lompoe, marks in the Pacific the western limit of Cyprinoid fishes, as well as that of monkeys and other important groups of land animals. This line, recognized as very important in the distribution of land animals, coincides in general with the ocean current between Celebes and Papua, which is one of the sources of the Kuro Shiwo. In Australia, Hawaii, and Polynesia generally, the fresh-water fishes are derived from marine types by modification of one sort or another. In no case, so far as I know, in any island to the eastward of Borneo, is found any species derived from fresh-water families of either the Eastern or the Western Continent. Of course, minor subdivisions in these districts are formed by the contour lines of river basins. The fishes of the Nile differ from those of the Niger or the Congo, or of the streams of Madagascar or Cape Colony, but in all these regions the essential character of the fish fauna remains the same. =Southern Zone.=--The third great region, the Southern Zone, is scantily supplied with fresh-water fishes, and the few it possesses are chiefly derived from modifications of the marine fauna or from the Equatorial Zone to the north. Three districts are recognized--Tasmania, New Zealand, and Patagonia. =Origin of the New Zealand Fauna.=--The fact that certain peculiar groups are common to these three regions has attracted the notice of naturalists. In a critical study of the fish fauna of New Zealand,[29] Dr. Gill discusses the origin of the four genera and seven species of fresh-water fishes found in these islands, the principal of these genera (_Galaxias_) being represented by nearly related species in South Australia, in Patagonia,[30] the Falkland Islands, and in South Africa. According to Dr. Gill, we can account for this anomaly of distribution only by supposing, on the one hand, that their ancestors were carried for long distances in some unnatural manner, as (_a_) having been carried across entombed in ice, or (_b_) being swept by ocean currents, surviving their long stay in salt water, or else that they were derived (_c_) from some widely distributed marine type now extinct, its descendants restricted to fresh water. On the other hand, Dr. Gill suggests that as "community of type must be the expression of community of origin," the presence of fishes of long-established fresh-water types must imply continuity or at least contiguity of land. The objections raised by geologists to the supposed land connection of New Zealand and Tasmania do not appear to Dr. Gill insuperable. It is well known, he says, "that the highest mountain chains are of comparatively recent geological age. It remains, then, to consider which is the more probable, (1) that the types now common in distant regions were distributed in some unnatural manner by the means referred to, or (2) that they are descendants of forms once wide-ranging over lands now submerged." After considering questions as to change of type in other groups, Dr. Gill is inclined to postulate, from the occurrence of species of the trout-like genus _Galaxias_, in New Zealand, South Australia, and South America, that "there existed some terrestrial passage-way between the several regions at a time as late as the close of the Mesozoic period. The evidence of such a connection afforded by congeneric fishes is fortified by analogous representatives among insects, mollusca, and even amphibians. The separation of the several areas must have occurred little later than the late Tertiary, inasmuch as the salt-water fishes of corresponding isotherms found along the coast of the now widely separated lands are to such a large extent specifically different. In general, change seems to have taken place more rapidly among marine animals than fresh-water representatives of the same class." In this case, when one guess is set against another, it seems to me that the hypothesis first suggested, rather than the other, lies in the line of least logical resistance. I think it better to adopt provisionally some theory not involving the existence of a South Pacific Antarctic Continent, to account for the distribution of _Galaxias_. For this view I may give five reasons: 1. There are many other cases of the sort equally remarkable and equally hard to explain. Among these is the presence of species of paddle-fish and shovel-nosed sturgeon,[31] types characteristic of the Mississippi Valley, in Central Asia. The presence of one and only one of the five or six American species of pike[32] in Europe; of one of the three species of mud-minnow in Austria,[33] the others being American. Still another curious case of distribution is that of the large pike-like trout of the genus _Hucho_, one species (_Hucho hucho_) inhabiting the Danube, the other (_Hucho blackistoni_) the rivers of northern Japan. Many such cases occur in different parts of the globe and at present admit of no plausible explanation. 2. The supposed continental extension should show permanent traces in greater similarity in the present fauna, both of rivers and of sea. The other fresh-water genera of the regions in question are different, and the marine fishes are more different than they could be if we imagine an ancient shore connection. If New Zealand and Patagonia were once united other genera than _Galaxias_ would be left to show it. 3. We know nothing of the power of _Galaxias_ to survive submergence in salt water, if carried in a marine current. As already noticed, I found young and old in abundance of the commonest of Japanese fresh-water fishes in the open sea, at a distance from any river. Thus far, this species, the hakone[34] dace, has not been recorded outside of Japan, but it might well be swept to Korea or China. Two fresh-water fishes of Japanese origin now inhabit the island of Tsushima in the Straits of Korea. 4. The fresh-water fishes of Polynesia show a remarkably wide distribution and are doubtless carried alive in currents. One river-goby[35] ranges from Tahiti to the Riu Kiu Islands. Another species,[36] originally perhaps from Brazil through Mexico, shows an equally broad distribution. 5. We know that _Galaxias_ with its relatives must have been derived from a marine type. It has no affinity with any of the fresh-water families of either continent, unless it be with the Salmonidæ. The original type of this group was marine, and most of the larger species still live in the sea, ascending streams only to spawn. When the investigations of geologists show reason for believing in radical changes in the forms of continents, we may accept their conclusions. That geological evidence exists which seems to favor the existence of a former continent, Antarctica, is claimed on high authority. If this becomes well established we may well explain the distribution of _Galaxias_ with reference to it. But we cannot, on the other hand, regard the anomalous distribution of _Galaxias_ alone constituting proof of shore connection. There can be no doubt that almost every case of anomalies in the distribution of fishes admits of a possible explanation through "the slow action of existing causes." Real causes are always simple when they are once known. All anomalies in distribution cease to be such when the facts necessary to understand them are at our disposal. FOOTNOTES: [22] _Hæmulon._ [23] _Calamus._ [24] Clarion Island and Socorro Island. [25] A few Mexican shore fishes, _Chætodon humeralis_, _Galeichthys dasycephalus_, _Hypsoblennius parvipinnis_, have been wrongly accredited to Hawaii by some misplacement of labels. [26] The dragonets (_Callionymus_) are shore fishes of the shallowest waters in Europe and Asia, but inhabit considerable depths in tropical America. The sea-robins (_Prionotus_) are shore fishes in Massachusetts, semi-bathybial fishes at Panama. Often Arctic shore fishes become semi-bathybial in the Temperate Zone, living in water of a given temperature. A long period of cold weather will sometimes bring such to the surface. [27] "Introduction to the Study of Fishes." [28] Cyprinidæ. [29] "A Comparison of Antipodal Faunæ," 1887. [30] _Galaxias_, _Neochanna_, _Prototroctes_, and _Retropinna_. [31] The shovel-nosed sturgeon (_Scaphirynchus_ and _Kessleria_) and the paddle-fish (_Polyodon_ and _Psephurus_). [32] _Esox lucius._ [33] _Umrba_, the mud-minnow. [34] _Leuciscus hakuensis._ [35] _Eleotris fusca._ [36] _Awaous genivittatus._ CHAPTER XV. ISTHMUS BARRIERS SEPARATING FISH FAUNAS =The Isthmus of Suez.=--In the study of the effect of the Isthmus of Suez on the distribution of fishes we may first consider the alleged resemblance between the fauna of the Mediterranean and that of Japan. Dr. Günther claims that the actual identity of genera and species in these two regions is such as to necessitate the hypothesis that they have been in recent times joined by a continuous shore-line. This shore-line, according to Prof. A. Ortmann and others, was not across the Isthmus of Suez, but farther to the northward, probably across Siberia. =The Fish Fauna of Japan.=--For a better understanding of the problem we may give a brief analysis of the fish fauna of Japan. The group of islands which constitute the empire of Japan is remarkable for the richness of its animal life. Its variety in climatic and other conditions, its nearness to the great continent of Asia and to the chief center of marine life, the East Indian Islands, its relation to the warm Black Current or Kuro Shiwo from the south and to the cold currents from the north, all tend to give variety and richness to the fauna of its seas. Especially is this true in the group of fishes. In spite of the political isolation of the Japanese Empire, this fact has been long recognized and the characteristic types of Japanese fishes have been well known to naturalists. At present about 900 species of fishes are known from the four great islands which constitute Japan proper--Hondo, Hokkaido, Kiusiu, and Shikoku. About 200 others are known from the volcanic islands to the north and south. Of these 1100 species, about fifty belong to the fresh waters. These are all closely allied to forms found on the mainland of Asia, from which region all of them were probably derived. In general the same genera appear in China and with a larger range of species. =Fresh-water Faunas of Japan.=--Two faunal areas of fresh waters may be fairly distinguished, although broadly overlapping. The northern region includes the island of Hokkaido and the middle and northern part of the great island of Hondo. In a rough way, its southern boundary may be defined by Fuji Yama, and the Bay of Matsushima. It is characterized by the presence of salmon, trout, and sculpins, and northward by sturgeon and brook lampreys. The southern area loses by degrees the trout and other northern fishes, while in its clear waters abound various minnows, gobies, and the famous ayu, or Japanese dwarf salmon, one of the most delicate of food fishes. Sculpins and lampreys give place to minnows, loaches, and chubs. Two genera, a sculpin[37] and a perch,[38] besides certain minnows and catfishes, are confined to this region and seem to have originated in it, but, like the other species, from Chinese stock. =Origin of Japanese Fresh-water Fishes.=--The question of the origin of the Japanese river fauna seems very simple. All the types are Asiatic. While most of the Japanese species are distinct, their ancestors must have been estrays from the mainland. To what extent river fishes may be carried from place to place by currents of salt water has never been ascertained. One of the most widely distributed of Japanese river fishes is the large hakone dace or chub.[39] This has been repeatedly taken by us in the sea at a distance from any stream. It would evidently survive a long journey in salt water. An allied species[40] is found in the midway island of Tsushima, between Korea and Japan. =Faunal Areas of Marine Fishes in Japan.=--The distribution of the marine fishes of Japan is mainly controlled by the temperature of the waters and the motion of the ocean currents. Five faunal areas may be more or less clearly recognized, and these may receive names indicating their scope--Kurile, Hokkaido, Nippon, Kiusiu, Kuro Shiwo, and Riu Kiu. The first or Kurile district is frankly subarctic, containing species characteristic of the Ochotsk Sea on the one hand, and of Alaska on the other. The second or Hokkaido[41] district includes this northern island and that part of the shore of the main island of Hondo[42] which lies to the north of Matsushima and Noto. Here the cold northern currents favor the development of a northern fauna. The herring and the salmon occupy here the same economic relation as in Norway, Scotland, Newfoundland, and British Columbia. Sculpins, blennies, rockfish, and flounders abound of the rocky shores and are seen in all the markets. South of Matsushima Bay and through the Island Sea as far as Kobe, the Nippon fauna is distinctly one of the temperate zone. Most of the types characteristically Japanese belong here, abounding in the sandy bays and about the rocky islands. About the islands of Kiusiu and Shikoku, the semi-tropical elements increase in number and the Kiusiu fauna is less characteristically Japanese, having much in common with the neighboring shores of China, while some of the species range northward from India and Java. But these faunal districts have no sharp barriers. Northern fishes[43] unquestionably of Alaskan origin range as far south as Nagasaki, while certain semi-tropical[44] types extend their range northward to Hakodate and Volcano Bay. The Inland Sea, which in a sense bounds the southern fauna, serves at the same time as a means of its extension. While each species has a fairly definite northern or southern limit, the boundaries of a faunal district as a whole must be stated in the most general terms. The well-known boundary called Blackiston's Line, which passes through the Straits of Tsugaru, between the two great islands of Hondo and Hokkaido, marks the northern boundary of monkeys, pheasants, and most tropical and semi-tropical birds and mammals of Japan. But as to the fishes, either marine or fresh water, this line has no significance. The northern fresh-water species probably readily cross it; the southern rarely reach it. We may define as a fourth faunal area that of the Kuro Shiwo district itself, which is distinctly tropical and contrasts strongly with that of the inshore bays behind it. This warm "Black Current," analogous to our Gulf Stream, has its origin in part from a return current from the east which passes westward through Hawaii, in part from a current which passes between Celebes and New Guinea. It moves northward by way of Luzon and Formosa, touching the east shores of the Japanese islands Kiusiu and Shikoku, to the main island of Hondo, flooding the bays of Kagoshima and Kochi, of Waka, Suruga, and Sagami. The projecting headlands reach out into it and the fauna of their rock-pools is distinctly tropical as far to the northward as Tokio. [Illustration: FIG. 178.--Sacramento Perch, _Archoplites interruptus_ Girard. Family _Centrarchidæ_. Sacramento River.] These promontories of Hondo, Waka, Ise, Izu, Misaki, and Awa have essentially the same types of fishes as are found on the reefs of tropical Polynesia. The warmth of the off-shore currents gives the fauna of Misaki its astonishing richness, and the wealth of life is by no means confined to the fishes. Corals, crustaceans, worms, and mollusks show the same generous profusion of species. A fifth faunal area, closely related to that of the Black Current, is formed by the volcanic and coral reefs of the Riu Kiu Archipelago. This fauna, so far as known, is essentially East Indian, the genera and most of the species being entirely identical with those of the islands about Java and Celebes. =Resemblance of the Japanese and Mediterranean Fish Faunas.=--It has been noted by Dr. Günther that the fish fauna of Japan bears a marked resemblance to that of the Mediterranean. This likeness is shown in the actual identity of genera and species, and in their relation to each other. This resemblance he proposes to explain by the hypothesis that at some recent period the two regions, Japan and the Mediterranean, have been united by a continuous shore-line. The far-reaching character of this hypothesis demands a careful examination of the data on which it rests. The resemblance of the two faunal areas, so far as fishes are concerned, may be stated as follows: There are certain genera[45] of shore fishes, tropical or semi-tropical, common to the Mediterranean and Japan, and wanting to California, Panama, and the West Indies, and in most cases to Polynesia also. Besides these, certain others found in deeper water (100 to 200 fathoms) are common to the two areas,[46] and have been rarely taken elsewhere. =Significance of Resemblance.=--The significance of these facts can be shown only by a fuller analysis of the fauna in question, and those of other tropical and semi-tropical waters. If the resemblances are merely casual, or if the resemblances are shown by other regions, the hypothesis of shore continuity would be unnecessary or untenable. It is tenable if the resemblances are so great as to be accounted for in no other way. Of the genera regarded as common, only two[47] or three are represented in the two regions by identical species, and these have a very wide distribution in the warm seas. Of the others, nearly all range to India, to the Cape of Good Hope, to Australia, or to Brazil. They may have ranged farther in the past; they may even range farther at present. Not one is confined to the two districts in question. As equally great resemblances exist between Japan and Australia or Japan and the West Indies, the case is not self-evident without fuller comparison. I shall therefore undertake a somewhat fuller analysis of the evidence bearing on this and similar problems with a view to the conclusions which may be legitimately drawn from the facts of fish distribution. =Differences between Japanese and Mediterranean Fish Faunas.=--We may first, after admitting the alleged resemblances and others, note that differences are equally marked. In each region are a certain number of genera which we may consider as autochthonous. These genera are represented by many species or by many individuals in the region of their supposed origin, but are more scantily developed elsewhere. Such genera in Mediterranean waters are _Crenilabrus_, _Labrus_, _Spicara_, _Pagellus_, _Mullus_, _Boops_, _Spondyliosoma_, _Oblata_. None of these occurs in Japan, nor have they any near relatives there. Japanese autochthonous types, as _Pseudoblennius_, _Vellitor_, _Duymæria_, _Anoplus_, _Histiopterus_, _Monocentrus_, _Oplegnathus_, _Plecoglossus_, range southward to the Indies or to Australia, but all of them are totally unknown to the Mediterranean. The multifarious genera of Gobies of Japan show very little resemblance to the Mediterranean fishes of this family, while blennies, labroids, scaroids, and scorpænoids are equally diverse in their forms and alliances. To the same extent that likeness in faunas is produced by continuity of means of dispersion is it true that unlikeness is due to breaks in continuity. Such a break in continuity of coast-line, in the present case, is the Isthmus of Suez, and the unlikeness in the faunas is about what we might conceive that such a barrier should produce. =Sources of Faunal Resemblances.=--There are two main sources of faunal resemblances: first, the absence of any barriers permitting the actual mingling of the species; second, the likeness of temperature and shore configuration on either side of an imperfect barrier. Absolute barriers do not exist and apparently never have existed in the sea. If the fish faunas of different regions have mingled in recent times, the fact would be shown by the presence of the same species in each region. If the union were of a remote date, the species would be changed, but the genera might remain identical. In case of close physical resemblances in different regions, as in the East Indies and West Indies, like conditions would favor the final lodgement of like types, but the resemblance would be general, the genera and species being unlike. Without doubt part of the resemblance between Japan and the Mediterranean is due to similarity of temperature and shores. Is that which remains sufficient to demand the hypothesis of a former shore-line connection? =Effects of Direction of Shore-line.=--We may first note that a continuous shore-line produces a mingling of fish faunas only when not interrupted by barriers due to climate. A north and south coast-line, like that of the East Pacific, however unbroken, permits great faunal differences. It is crossed by the different zones of temperature. An east and west shore-line lies in the same temperature. In all cases of the kind which now exist on the earth (the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, the shores of India), even species will extend their range as far as the shore-line goes. The obvious reason is because such a shore-line rarely offers any important barrier to distribution, checking dispersion of species. We may, therefore, consider the age and nature of the Isthmus of Suez and the character of the faunas it separates. =Numbers of Genera in Different Faunas.=--For our purposes the genera must be rigidly defined, a separate name being used in case of each definable difference in structure. The wide-ranging genera of the earlier systematists were practically cosmopolitan, and their geographical distribution teaches us little. On the other hand, when we come to the study of geological distribution, the broad definition of the genus is the only one usually available. The fossil specimens are always defective. Minor characters may be lost past even the possibility of a guess, and only along broad lines can we achieve the classification of the individual fossil. Using the modern definition of genus, we find in Japan 483 genera of marine fishes; in the Red Sea, 225; in the Mediterranean, 231. In New Zealand 150 are recorded; in Hawaii, 171; 357 from the West Indies, 187 from the Pacific coast of tropical America, 300 from India, 450 from the East-Indian islands, and 227 from Australia. Of the 483 genera ascribed to Japan, 156 are common to the Mediterranean also, 188 to the West Indies and Japan, 169 to the Pacific coast of the United States and Mexico. With Hawaii Japan shares 90 genera, with New Zealand 62; 204 are common to Japan and India, 148 to Japan and the Red Sea, most of these being found in India also. Two hundred genera are common to Japan and Australia. From this it is evident that Japan and the Mediterranean have much in common, but apparently not more than Japan shares with other tropical regions. Japan naturally shows most likeness to India, and next to this to the Red Sea. Proportionately less is the resemblance to Australia, and the likeness to the Mediterranean seems much the same as that to the West Indies or to the Pacific coast of America. But, to make these comparisons just and effective, we should consider not the fish fauna as a whole; we should limit our discussion solely to the forms of equatorial origin. From the fauna of Japan we may eliminate all the genera of Alaskan-Aleutian origin, as these could not be found in the other regions under comparison. We should eliminate all pelagic and all deep-sea forms, for the laws which govern the distribution of these are very different from those controlling the shore fishes, and most of the genera have reached a kind of equilibrium over the world. =Significance of Rare Forms.=--We may note also, as a source of confusion in our investigation, that numerous forms found in Japan and elsewhere are very rarely taken, and their real distribution is unknown. Some of these will be found to have, in some unexpected quarter, their real center of dispersion. In fact, since these pages were written, I have taken in Hawaii representatives of three[48] genera which I had enumerated as belonging chiefly to Japan and the West Indies. Numerous other genera common to the two regions have since been obtained by Dr. Gilbert. Such species may inhabit oceanic plateaus, and find many halting places in their circuit of the tropical oceans. We have already discovered that Madeira, St. Helena, Ascension, and other volcanic islands constitute such halting places. We shall find many more such, when the deeper shore regions are explored, the region between market-fishing and the deep-sea dredgings of the _Challenger_ and the _Albatross_. In some cases, no doubt, these forms are verging on extinction and a former wide distribution has given place to isolated colonies. The following table shows the contents, so far as genera are concerned, of those equatorial areas in which trustworthy catalogues of species are accessible. It includes only those fishes of stationary habit living in less than 200 fathoms. It goes without saying that considerable latitude must be given to these figures, to allow for errors, omissions, uncertainties, and differences of opinion. =Distribution of Shore Fishes.=-- _A. Japan and the Mediterranean._ Genera[49] chiefly confined to these regions 2 Genera of wide distribution 77 ---- Total of common genera 79 Total in both regions 399 Genera above included, found in all equatorial regions 55 Genera[50] found in most equatorial regions 11 Genera more or less restricted 13 ---- 79 _B. Japan and the Red Sea._ Genera[51] chiefly confined to these two regions 2 Genera of wide distribution 109 ---- Total genera common 111 Total in both regions 424 _C. Japan and Hawaii._ Genera chiefly confined to these regions 3 Genera of wide distribution 79 ---- Total genera common 82 Total in both regions 396 _D. Japan and Australia._ Genera chiefly confined to these regions 13 Genera of wide distribution (chiefly East Indian) 122 ---- Total genera common 135 Total in both regions 533 _E. Japan and Panama._ Genera chiefly confined to these regions 2 Genera of wide distribution 89 ---- Total genera common 91 Total in both regions 499 _F. Japan and the West Indies._ Genera chiefly confined to these regions 5 Genera of wide distribution 108 ---- Total genera common 113 Total in both regions 520 _G. The Mediterranean and the Red Sea._ Genera confined to the Suez region 0 Genera of wide distribution (chiefly Indian) 40 ---- Total genera common 40 Total in both regions 295 _H. West Indies and the Mediterranean._ Genera chiefly confined to the equatorial Atlantic 11 Genera of wide distribution 59 ---- Total 70 Total in both regions 373 _I. West Indies and Panama._ Genera chiefly confined to equatorial America 68 Genera of wide distribution 101 ---- Total genera common 169 Total in equatorial America 376 _J. Hawaii and Panama._ Genera chiefly confined to the regions in question 3 Genera of wide distribution 74 ---- Total genera common 77 Total in both regions 323 _K. Hawaii and the East Indies._ Genera chiefly confined to Hawaii 4 Genera of wide distribution in the equatorial Pacific 123 Genera confined to Hawaii and the West Indies 1 _Summary._ Genera (shore fishes only) in the Mediterranean Sea. 144 Genera in the Red Sea 191 Genera in India 280 Genera in Japan (exclusive of northern forms) 334 Genera in Australia 344 Genera in New Zealand 108 Genera in Hawaii 144 Genera about Panama 256 Genera in West Indies 299 =Extension of Indian Fauna.=--From the above tables it is evident that the warm-water fauna of Japan, as well as that of Hawaii, is derived from the great body of the fauna of the East Indies and Hindostan; that the fauna of the Red Sea is derived in the same way; that the fauna of the Mediterranean bears no especial resemblance to that of Japan, rather than to other elements of the East Asiatic fauna in similar conditions of temperature, and no greater than is borne by either to the West Indies; that the faunas of the sides of the Isthmus of Suez have relatively little in common, while those of the two sides of the Isthmus of Panama show large identity of genera, although few species are common to the two sides. Of the 255 genera recorded from the Panama region, 179, or over 70 per cent., are also in the West Indies, while 68, or more than 30 per cent. of the number, are limited to the two regions in question. =The Isthmus of Suez as a Barrier to Distribution.=--With the aid of the above table we may examine further the relation of the fauna of Japan to that of the Mediterranean. If a continuity of shore-line once existed, it would involve the obliteration of the Isthmus. With free connection across this isthmus the fauna of the Red Sea must have been once practically the same as that of the Mediterranean. The present differences must be due to later immigrations to one or the other region, or to the extinction of species in one locality or the other, through some kind of unfitness. In neither region is there evidence of extensive immigration from the outside. The present conditions of water and temperature differ a little, but not enough to explain the difference in faunæ. The Red Sea is frankly tropical and its fauna is essentially Indian, much the same, so far as genera are concerned, as that of southern Japan. The Mediterranean is at most not more than semi-tropical and its fishes are characteristically European. Its tropical forms belong rather to Guinea than to the East Indies. With the Red Sea the Mediterranean has very little in common, not so much, for example, as has Hawaii. Forty genera of shore fishes (and only fifty of all fishes) are identical in the two regions, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Of those, every one is a genus of wide distribution, found in nearly all warm seas. Of shore fishes, only one genus in seven is common to the two regions. Apparently, therefore, we cannot assume a passage across the Isthmus of Suez within the lifetime of the present genera. Not one of the types alleged to be peculiar to Japan and the Mediterranean is thus far known in the Red Sea. Not one of the characteristically abundant Mediterranean types[52] crosses the Isthmus of Suez, and the distinctive Red Sea and Indian types[53] are equally wanting in the Mediterranean. The only genera which could have crossed the Isthmus are certain shallow-water or brackish-water forms, sting-rays, torpedoes, sardines, eels, and mullets, widely diffused through the East Indies and found also in the Mediterranean. The former channel, if one ever existed, had, therefore, much the same value in distribution of species as the present Suez Canal. =Geological Evidence of Submergence of the Isthmus of Suez.=--Yet, from geological data, there is strong evidence that the Isthmus of Suez was submerged in relatively recent times. The recognized geological maps of the Isthmus show that a broad area of post-Pliocene or Pliocene deposits constitutes the Isthmus and separates the nummulitic hills of Suez from their fellows about thirty miles to the eastward. The northern part of the Isthmus is alluvium from the Nile, and its western part is covered with drifting sands. The Red Sea once extended farther north than now and the Mediterranean farther to the southeast. Assuming the maps to be correct, the Isthmus must have been open water in the late Pliocene or post-Pliocene times. Admitting this as a fact, the difference in the fish fauna would seem to show that the waters over the submerged area were so shallow that the rock-loving forms did not and could not cross it. Moreover, the region was very likely overspread with silt-bearing fresh waters from the Nile. To such fishes as _Chætodon_, _Holocentrus_, _Thalassoma_ of the Red Sea, or to _Crenilabrus_, _Boops_, and _Zeus_ of the Mediterranean, such waters would form a barrier as effective as the sand-dunes of to-day. =Conclusions as to the Isthmus of Suez.=--We are led, therefore, to these conclusions: 1. There is no evidence derivable from the fishes of the recent submergence of the Isthmus of Suez. 2. If the Isthmus was submerged in Pliocene or post-Pliocene times, the resultant channel was shallow and muddy, so that ordinary marine fishes or fishes of rock bottoms or of deep waters did not cross it. 3. It formed an open water to brackish-water fishes only. 4. The types common to Japan and the Mediterranean did not enter either region from the other by way of the Red Sea. 5. As most of these are found also in India or Australia or both, their dispersion was probably around the south coast of Africa or by the Cape of Good Hope. 6. In view of the fact that numerous East Indian genera, as _Zanclus_, _Enoplosus_, _Toxotes_, _Ephippus_, _Platax_, _Teuthis_, _Acanthurus_ (_Monoceros_), _Myripristis_ occur in the Eocene rocks of Tuscany, Syria, and Switzerland, we may well suppose that an open waterway across Africa then existed. Perhaps these forms were destroyed in European waters by a wave of glacial cold, perhaps after the Miocene. As our knowledge of the Miocene fish faunæ of Europe is still imperfect, we cannot locate accurately the period of their disappearance. About half the species found in the Eocene of Italy belong to existing genera, and these genera are almost all now represented in the Indian fauna, and those named above with others are confined to it. The study of fishes alone furnishes no adequate basis for mapping the continental masses of Tertiary times. The known facts in regard to their distribution agree fairly with the provisional maps lately published by Dr. Ortmann (Bull. Philos. Soc., XLI). In the Eocene map (Fig. 179) the Mediterranean extends to the northward of Arabia, across to the mouth of the Ganges. This extension would account for the tropical, Eocene, and Miocene fish fauna of Southern Europe. =The Cape of Good Hope as a Barrier to Fishes.=--The fishes of the Cape of Good Hope are not well enough known for close comparison with those of other regions. Enough is known of the Cape fauna to show its general relation to those of India and Australia. The Cape of Good Hope lies in the South Temperate Zone. It offers no absolutely impassable barrier to the tropical fishes from either side. It bears a closer relation to either the Red Sea or the Mediterranean than they bear to each other. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the transfer of tropical shore fishes of the Old World between the Atlantic and Pacific, in recent times, has taken place mainly around the southern point of Africa. To pelagic and deep-sea fishes the Cape of Good Hope has offered no barrier whatever. To ordinary fishes it is an obstacle, but not an impassable one. This the fauna itself shows. It has, however, not been passed by many tropical species, and by these only as the result of thousands of years of struggle and point-to-point migration. =Relations of Japan to Mediterranean Explainable by Present Conditions.=--We may conclude that the resemblance of the Mediterranean fish fauna to that of Japan or India is no more than might be expected, even had the present contour of the continents been permanent for the period of duration of the present genera and species. An open channel in recent times would have produced much greater resemblances than actually exist. =The Isthmus of Panama as a Barrier to Distribution.=--Conditions in some regards parallel with those of the Isthmus of Suez exist in but one other region--the Isthmus of Panama. Here the first observers were very strongly impressed by the resemblance of forms. Nearly half the genera found on the two sides of this isthmus are common to both sides. Taking those of the Pacific shore for first consideration, we find that three-fourths of the genera of the Panama fauna occur in the West Indies as well. This identity is many times greater than that existing at the Isthmus of Suez. Moreover, while the Cape of Good Hope offers no impassable barrier to distribution, the same is not true of the southern part of South America. The subarctic climate of Cape Horn has doubtless formed a complete check to the movements of tropical fishes for a vast period of geologic time. =Unlikeness of Species on the Shores of the Isthmus of Panama.=--But, curiously enough, this marked resemblance is confined chiefly to the genera and does not extend to the species on the two shores. Of 1400 species of fishes recorded from tropical America north of the Equator, only about 70 are common to the two coasts. The number of shore fishes common is still less. In this 70 are included a certain number of cosmopolitan types which might have reached either shore from the Old World. [Illustration: FIG. 179.--Map of the Continents, Eocene time. (After Ortmann.)] A few others invade brackish or fresh waters and may possibly have found their way, in one way or another, across the Isthmus of Nicaragua. Of fishes strictly marine, strictly littoral, and not known from Asia or Polynesia, scarcely any species are left as common to the two sides. This seems to show that no waterway has existed across the Isthmus within the lifetime, whatever that may be, of the existing species. The close resemblance of genera shows apparently with almost equal certainty that such a waterway has existed, and within the period of existence of the groups called genera. How long a species of fish may endure unchanged no one knows, but we know that in this regard great differences must exist in different groups. Assuming that different species crossed the Isthmus of Panama in Miocene times, we should not be surprised to find that a few remain to all appearances unchanged; that a much larger number have become "representative" species, closely related forms retaining relations to the environment to those of the parent form, and, finally, that a few species have been radically altered. This is exactly what has taken place at the Isthmus of Panama with the marine shore fishes. Curiously enough, the movement of genera seems to have been chiefly from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Certain characteristic genera[54] of the Panama region have not passed over to the Pacific. On the other hand, most of the common genera[55] show a much larger number of species on the Atlantic side. This may be held to show their Atlantic origin. Of the relatively small number of genera which Panama has received from Polynesia[56] few have crossed the Isthmus to appear in the West Indian fauna. =Views of Earlier Writers on the Fishes of the Isthmus of Panama.=--The elements of the problem at Panama may be better understood by a glance at the results of previous investigations. In 1869 Dr. Günther, after enumerating the species examined by him from Panama, reaches the conclusion that nearly one-third of the marine fishes on the two shores of tropical America will be found to be identical. He enumerates 193 such species as found on the two coasts; 59 of these, or 31 per cent. of the total, being actually identical. From this he infers that there must have been, at a comparatively recent date, a depression of the Isthmus and intermingling of the two faunas.[57] =Catalogue of Fishes of Panama.=--In an enumeration of the fishes of the Pacific coast in 1885,[58] the present writer showed that Dr. Günther's conclusions were based on inadequate data. In my list 407 species were recorded from the Pacific coast of tropical America--twice the number enumerated by Dr. Günther. Of these 71 species, or 17-1/2 per cent., were found also in the Atlantic. About 800 species are known from the Caribbean and adjacent shores, so that out of the total number of 1,136 species but 71, or 6 per cent. of the whole, are common to the two coasts. This number does not greatly exceed that of the species common to the West Indies and the Mediterranean, or even the West Indies and Japan. It is to be noted also that the number 71 is not very definitely ascertained, as there must be considerable difference of opinion as to the boundaries of species, and the actual identity in several cases is open to doubt. This discrepancy arises from the comparatively limited representation of the two faunas at the disposal of Dr. Günther. He enumerates 193 marine or brackish-water species as found on the two coasts, 59 of which are regarded by him as specifically identical, this being 31 per cent. of the whole. But in 30 of these 59 cases I regard the assumption of complete identity as erroneous, so that taking the number 193 as given I would reduce the percentage to 15. But these 193 species form but a fragment of the total fauna, and any conclusion based on such narrow data is certain to be misleading. Of the 71 identical species admitted in our list, several (_e.g._, _Mola_, _Thunnus_) are pelagic fishes common to most warm seas. Still others (_e.g._, _Trachurus_, _Carangus_, _Diodon_ sp.) are cosmopolitan in the tropical waters. Most of the others (_e.g._, _Gobius_, _Gerres_, _Centropomus_, _Galeichthys_ sp., etc.) often ascend the rivers of the tropics, and we may account for their diffusion, perhaps, as we account for the dispersion of fresh-water fishes on the Isthmus, on the supposition that they may have crossed from marsh to marsh at some time in the rainy season. In very few cases are representatives of any species from opposite sides of the Isthmus exactly alike in all respects. These differences in some cases seem worthy of specific value, giving us "representative species" on the two sides. In other cases the distinctions are very trivial, but in most cases they are appreciable, especially in fresh specimens. Further, I expressed the belief that "fuller investigation will not increase the proportion of common species. If it does not, the two faunas show no greater resemblance than the similarity of physical conditions on the two sides would lead us to expect." This similarity causes the same types of fishes to persist on either side of the Isthmus while through isolation or otherwise these have become different as species. This conclusion must hold so far as species are concerned, but the resemblance of the genera on the sides has a significance of its own. In 1880[59] Dr Günther expressed his views in still stronger language, claiming a still larger proportion of the fishes of tropical America to be identical on the two sides of the continent. He concluded that "with scarcely any exceptions the genera are identical, and of the species found on the Pacific side, nearly one-half have proved to be the same as those of the Atlantic. The explanation of this fact has been found in the existence of communications between the two oceans by channels and straits which must have been open till within a recent period. The isthmus of Central America was then partially submerged, and appeared as a chain of islands similar to that of the Antilles; but as the reef-building corals flourished chiefly north and east of these islands and were absent south and west of them, reef fishes were excluded from the Pacific shores when the communications were destroyed by the upheaval of land." =Conclusions of Evermann and Jenkins.=--This remark led to a further discussion of the subject on the part of Dr. B. W. Evermann and Dr. O. P. Jenkins. From their paper on the fishes of Guaymas[60] I make the following quotations: "The explorations since 1885 have resulted (1) in an addition of about 100 species to one or other of the two faunas; (2) in showing that at least two species that were regarded as identical on the two shores[61] are probably distinct; and (3) in the addition of but two species to those common to both coasts.[62] "All this reduces still further the percentage of common species. "Of the 110 species obtained by us, 24, or less than 21 per cent., appear to be common to both coasts. Of these 24 species, at least 16, from their wide distribution, would need no hypothesis of a former waterway through the Isthmus to account for their presence on both sides. They are species fully able to arrive at the Pacific shores of the Americas from the warm seas west. It thus appears that not more than eight species, less than 8 per cent. of our collection, all of which are marine species, require any such hypothesis to account for their occurrence on both coasts of America. This gives us, then, 1,307 species that should properly be taken into account when considering this question, not more than 72 of which, or 5.5 per cent., seem to be identical on the two coasts. This is very different from the figures given by Dr. Günther in his 'Study of Fishes.' "Now, if from these 72 species, admitted to be common to both coasts, we subtract the 16 species of wide distribution--so wide as to keep them from being a factor in this problem--we have left but 56 species common to the two coasts that bear very closely upon the waterway hypothesis. _This is less than 4.3 per cent. of the whole number._ "But the evidence obtained from a study of other marine life of that region points to the same conclusion. "In 1881, Dr. Paul Fischer discussed the same question in his 'Manual de Conchyliologie,' pp. 168, 169, in a section on the Molluscan Fauna of the Panamic Province, and reached the same general conclusions. He says: 'Les naturalistes Américians se sont beaucoup preéoccupés des espèces de Panama qui paraissent identiques avec celles des Antilles, ou qui sont représentatives. P. Carpenter estime qu'il en existe 35. Dans la plupart des cas, l'identite absolue n'a pu être constantée et on a trouvé quelques caractères distinctifs, ce qui n'a rien d'ètonnant, puisque dans l'hypothèse d'une origine commune, les deux races pacifique et atlantique sont séparée depuis la periode Miocène. Voici un liste de ces espèces représentatives ou identiques.' Here follows a list of 20 species. 'Mais ces formes semblables,' he says, 'constituent un infime minorité (3 per cent.).' "These facts have a very important bearing upon certain geological questions, particularly upon the one concerning the cold of the Glacial period. "In Dr. G. Frederick Wright's recent book, 'The Ice Age in North America,' eight different theories as to the cause of the cold are discussed. The particular theory which seems to him quite reasonable is that one which attributes the cold as due to a change of different parts of the country, and a depression of the Isthmus of Panama is one of the important changes he considers. He says: 'Should a portion of the Gulf Stream be driven through a depression across the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific, and an equal portion be diverted from the Atlantic coast of the United States by an elevation of the sea-bottom between Florida and Cuba, the consequences would necessarily be incalculably great, so that the mere existence of such a possible cause for great changes in the distribution of moisture over the northern hemisphere is sufficient to make one hesitate before committing himself unreservedly to any other theory; at any rate, to one which has not for itself independent and adequate proof.' "In the appendix to the same volume Mr. Warren Upham, in discussing the probable causes of glaciation, says: 'The quaternary uplifts of the Andes and Rocky Mountains and of the West Indies make it nearly certain that the Isthmus of Panama has been similarly elevated during the recent epoch.... It may be true, therefore, that the submergence of this isthmus was one of the causes of the Glacial period, the continuation of the equatorial oceanic currents westward into the Pacific having greatly diminished or wholly diverted the Gulf Stream, which carries warmth from the tropics to the northern Atlantic and northwestern Europe.' [Illustration: FIG. 180.--_Caulophryne jordani_ Goode and Bean, a deep-sea fish of the Gulf Stream. Family _Ceratiidæ_.] [Illustration: FIG. 181.--_Exerpes asper_ Jenkins and Evermann, a fish of the rock-pools, Guaymas, Mexico. Family _Blenniidæ_.] "Any _very_ recent means by which the fishes could have passed readily from one side to the other would have resulted in making the fish faunas of the two shores practically identical; but the time that has elapsed since such a waterway could have existed has been long enough to allow the fishes of the two sides to become _practically distinct_. That the mollusks of the two shores are almost wholly distinct, as shown by Dr. Fischer, is even stronger evidence of the remoteness of the time when the means of communication between the two oceans could have existed, for 'species' among the mollusks are probably more persistent than among fishes. "Our present knowledge, therefore, of the fishes of tropical America justifies us in regarding the fish faunas of the two coasts as being essentially distinct, and believing that there has not been, at any comparatively recent time, any waterway through the Isthmus of Panama." It is thus shown, I think, conclusively, that the Isthmus of Panama could not have been depressed for any great length of time in a recent geological period. =Conclusions of Dr. Hill.=--These writers have not, however, considered the question of generic identity. To this we may find a clue in the geological investigations of Dr. Robert T. Hill. In a study of "The Geological History of the Isthmus of Panama and Portions of Costa Rica," Dr. Hill uses the following language: "By elimination we have concluded that the only period of time since the Mesozoic within which communication between the seas could have taken place is the Tertiary period, and this must be restricted to the Eocene and Oligocene epochs of that period. The paleontologic evidence upon which such an opening can be surmised at this period is the occurrence of a few California Eocene types in the Atlantic sides of the tropical American barrier, within the ranges of latitude between Galveston (Texas) and Colon, which are similar to others found in California. There are no known structural data upon which to locate the site of this passage, but we must bear in mind, however, that this structure has not been completely explored. "Even though it was granted that the coincidence of the occurrence of a few identical forms on both sides of the tropical American region, out of the thousands which are not common, indicates a connection between the two seas, there is still an absence of any reason for placing this connection at the Isthmus of Panama, and we could just as well maintain that the locus thereof might have been at some other point in the Central American region. "The reported fossil and living species common to both oceans are littoral forms, which indicate that if a passage existed it must have been of a shallow and ephemeral character. "There is no evidence from either a geologic or a biologic standpoint for believing that the oceans have ever communicated across the Isthmian regions since Tertiary time. In other words, there is no evidence for these later passages which have been established upon hypothetical data, especially those of Pleistocene time. "The numerous assertions, so frequently found in literature, that the two oceans have been frequently and recently connected across the Isthmus, and that the low passes indicative of this connection still exist, may be dismissed at once and forever and relegated to the domain of the apocryphal. A few species common to the waters of both oceans in a predominantly Caribbean fauna of the age of the Claiborne epoch of the Eocene Tertiary is the only paleontologic evidence in any time upon which such a connection may be hypothesized. "There has been a tendency in literature to underestimate the true altitude of the isthmian passes, which, while probably not intentional, has given encouragement to those who think that this Pleistocene passage may have existed. Maack has erroneously given the pass at 186 feet. Dr. J. W. Gregory states 'that the summit of the Isthmus at one locality is 154 feet and in another 287 feet in height.' The lowest isthmian pass, which is not a summit, but a drainage col, is 287-295 feet above the ocean. "If we could lower the isthmian region 300 feet at present, the waters of the two oceans would certainly commingle through the narrow Culebra Pass. But the Culebra Pass is clearly the headwater col of two streams, the Obispo flowing into the Chagres, and the Rio Grande flowing into the Pacific, and has been cut by fluviatile action, and not by marine erosion, out of a land mass which has existed since Miocene time. Those who attempt to establish Pleistocene interoceanic channels through this pass on account of its present low altitude must not omit from their calculations the restoration of former rock masses which have been removed by the general levelling of the surface by erosion." [Illustration: FIG. 182.--_Xenocys jessiæ_ Jordan and Bollman. Galapagos Islands. Family _Lutianidæ_.] In conclusion, Dr. Hill asserts that "there is considerable evidence that a land barrier in the tropical region separated the two oceans as far back in geologic history as Jurassic time, and that that barrier continued throughout the Cretaceous period. The geological structure of the Isthmus and Central American regions, so far as investigated, when considered aside from the paleontology, presents no evidence by which the former existence of a free communication of oceanic waters across the present tropical land barriers can be established. The paleontologic evidence indicates the ephemeral existence of a passage at the close of the Eocene period. All lines of inquiry--geologic, paleontologic, and biologic--give evidence that no connection has existed between the two oceans since the close of the Oligocene. This structural geology is decidedly opposed to any hypothesis by which the waters of the two oceans could have been connected across the regions in Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, or recent times." =Final Hypothesis as to Panama.=--If we assume the correctness of Dr. Hill's conclusions, they may accord in a remarkable degree with the actual facts of the distribution of the fishes about the Isthmus. To account for the remarkable identity of genera and divergence of species I may suggest the following hypothesis: During the lifetime of most of the present species, the Isthmus has not been depressed. It was depressed in or before Miocene time, during the lifetime of most of the present genera. We learn from other sources that few of the extant species of fishes are older than the Pliocene. Relatively few genera go back to the Eocene, and most of the modern families appear to begin in the Eocene or later Cretaceous. In general the Miocene may be taken as the date of the origin of modern genera. The channel formed across the Isthmus was relatively shallow, excluding forms inhabiting rocky bottoms at considerable depths. It was wide enough to permit the infiltration from the Caribbean Sea of numerous species, especially of shore fishes of sandy bays, tide pools, and brackish estuaries. The currents set chiefly to the westward, favoring the transfer of Atlantic rather than Pacific types. [Illustration: FIG. 183.--Channel Catfish, _Ictalurus punctatus_ (Rafinesque). Illinois River. Family _Siluridæ_.] Since the date of the closing of this channel the species left on the two sides have been altered in varying degrees by the processes of natural selection and isolation. The cases of actual specific identity are few, and the date of the establishment as species, of the existing forms, is subsequent to the date of the last depression of the Isthmus. We may be certain that none of the common genera ever found their way around Cape Horn. Most of them disappear to the southward, along the coasts of Brazil and Peru. While local oscillations, involving changes in coast-lines, have doubtless frequently taken place and are still going on, the past and present distribution of fishes does not alone give adequate data for their investigation. Further, it goes without saying that we have no knowledge of the period of time necessary to work specific changes in a body of species isolated in an alien sea. Nor have we any data as to the effect on a given fish fauna of the infiltration of many species and genera belonging to another. All such forces and results must be matters of inference. The present writer does not wish to deny that great changes have taken place in the outlines of continents in relatively recent times. He would, however, insist that the theory of such changes must be confirmed by geological evidence, and evidence from groups other than fishes, and that likeness in separated fish faunas may not be conclusive. [Illustration: FIG. 184.--Drawing the net on the beach of Hilo, Hawaii. Photograph by Henry W. Henshaw.] FOOTNOTES: [37] _Rheopresbe._ [38] _Bryttosus._ [39] _Leuciscus hakuensis_ Günther. [40] _Leuciscus jouyi._ [41] Formerly, but no longer, called Yeso in Japan. [42] Called Nippon on foreign maps, but not so in Japan, where Nippon means the whole empire. [43] _Pleuronichthys cornutus_, _Hexogrammos otakii_, etc. [44] As _Halichoeres_, _Tetrapturus_, _Callionymus_, _Ariscopus_, etc. [45] Of these, the principal ones are _Oxystomus_, _Myrus_, _Pagrus_, _Sparus_, _Macrorhamphosus_, _Cepola_, _Callionymus_, _Zeus_, _Uranoscopus_, _Lepidotrigla_, _Chelidonichthys_. [46] Among these are _Beryx_, _Helicolenus_, _Lotella_, _Nettastoma_, _Centrolophus_, _Hoplostethus_, _Aulopus_, _Chlorophthalmus_, _Lophotes_. [47] _Beryx_, _Hoplostethus_. [48] _Antigonia_, _Etelis_, _Emmelichthys_. [49] _Lepadogaster_, _Myrus_; _Lophotes_, thus far recorded from Japan, the Mediterranean, and the Cape of Good Hope, is bassalian and of unknown range. _Beryx_, _Trachichthys_, _Hoplostethus_, etc., are virtually cosmopolitan as well as semi-bassalian. [50] In this group we must place _Cepola_, _Callionymus_, _Pagrus_, _Sparus_, _Beryx_, _Zeus_, all of which have a very wide range in Indian waters. [51] _Cryptocentrus_, _Asterropteryx_. The range of neither of these genera of small shore fishes is yet well known. [52] As _Crenilabrus_, _Labrus_, _Symphodus_, _Pagellus_, _Spondyliosoma_, _Sparisoma_. [53] As _Chætodon_, _Lethrinus_, _Monotaxis_, _Glyphisodon_, etc. [54] _Hoplopagrus_, _Xenichthys_, _Xenistius_, _Xenocys_, _Microdesmus_, _Cerdale_, _Cratinus_, _Azevia_, _Microlepidotus_, _Orthostoechus_, _Isaciella_, etc. [55] _Hæmulon_, _Anisotremus_, _Gerres_, _Centropomus_, _Galeichthys_, _Hypoplectrus_, _Mycteroperca_, _Ulæma_, _Stellifer_, _Micropogon_, _Bodianus_, _Microspathodon_. [56] Among these are perhaps _Teuthis_ (_Acanthurus_), _Ilisha_, _Salarias_, _Myripristis_, _Thalassoma_. Some such which have not crossed the Isthmus are _Cirrhitus_, _Sectator_, _Sebastopsis_, and _Lophiomus_. [57] "Fishes of Central America," 1869, 397. [58] _Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1885, 393. [59] Introduction to the "Study of Fishes," 1880, p. 280. [60] _Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus._, 1891, pp. 124-126. [61] _Citharichthys spilopterus_ and _C. gilberti_. [62] _Hæmulon steindachneri_ and _Gymnothorax castaneus_ of the west coast probably being identical with _H. schranki_ and _Gymnothorax funebris_ of the east coast. CHAPTER XVI DISPERSION OF FRESH-WATER FISHES[63] =Dispersion of Fishes.=--The methods of dispersion of fishes may be considered apart from the broader topic of distribution or the final results of such dispersion. In this discussion we are mainly concerned with the fresh-water fishes, as the methods of distribution of marine fishes through marine currents and by continuity of shore and water ways are all relatively simple. =The Problem of Oatka Creek.=--When I was a boy and went fishing in the brooks of western New York, I noticed that the different streams did not always have the same kinds of fishes in them. Two streams in particular in Wyoming County, not far from my father's farm, engaged in this respect my special attention. Their sources are not far apart, and they flow in opposite directions, on opposite sides of a low ridge--an old glacial moraine, something more than a mile across. The Oatka Creek flows northward from this ridge, while the East Coy runs toward the southeast on the other side of it, both flowing ultimately into the same river, the Genesee. It does not require a very careful observer to see that in these two streams the fishes are not quite the same. The streams themselves are similar enough. In each the waters are clear and fed by springs. Each flows over gravel and clay, through alluvial meadows, in many windings, and with elms and alders "in all its elbows." In both streams we were sure of finding trout,[64] and in one of them the trout are still abundant. In both we used to catch the brook chub,[65] or, as we called it, the "horned dace"; and in both were large schools of shiners[66] and of suckers.[67] But in every deep hole, and especially in the millponds along the East Coy Creek, the horned pout[68] swarmed on the mucky bottoms. In every eddy, or in the deep hole worn out at the root of the elm-trees, could be seen the sunfish,[69] strutting in green and scarlet, with spread fins keeping intruders away from its nest. But in the Oatka Creek were found neither horned pout nor sunfish, nor have I ever heard that either has been taken there. Then besides these nobler fishes, worthy of a place on every schoolboy's string, we knew by sight, if not by name, numerous smaller fishes, darters[70] and minnows,[71] which crept about in the gravel on the bottom of the East Coy, but which we never recognized in the Oatka. There must be a reason for differences like these, in the streams themselves or in the nature of the fishes. The sunfish and the horned pout are home-loving fishes to a greater extent than the others which I have mentioned; still, where no obstacles prevent, they are sure to move about. There must be, then, in the Oatka some sort of barrier, or strainer, which keeping these species back permits others more adventurous to pass; and a wider knowledge of the geography of the region showed that such is the case. Farther down in its course, the Oatka falls over a ledge of rock, forming a considerable waterfall at Rock Glen. Still lower down its waters disappear in the ground, sinking into some limestone cavern or gravel-bed, from which they reappear, after some six miles, in the large springs at Caledonia. Either of these barriers might well discourage a quiet-loving fish; while the trout and its active associates have some time passed them, else we should not find them in the upper waters in which they alone form the fish fauna. This problem is a simple one; a boy could work it out, and the obvious solution seems to be satisfactory. =Generalizations as to Dispersion.=--Since those days I have been a fisherman in many waters,--not an angler exactly, but one who fishes for fish, and to whose net nothing large or small ever comes amiss; and wherever I go I find cases like this. We do not know all the fishes of America yet, nor all those well that we know by sight; still this knowledge will come with time and patience, and to procure it is a comparatively easy task. It is also easy to ascertain the more common inhabitants of any given stream. It is difficult, however, to obtain negative results which are really results. You cannot often say that a species does not live in a certain stream. You can only affirm that you have not yet found it there, and you can rarely fish in any stream so long that you can find nothing that you have not taken before. Still more difficult is it to gather the results of scattered observations into general statements regarding the distribution of fishes. The facts may be so few as to be misleading, or so numerous as to be confusing, and the few writers who have taken up this subject in detail have found both these difficulties to be serious. Whatever general propositions we may maintain must be stated with the modifying clause of "other things being equal"; and other things are never quite equal. The saying that "Nature abhors a generalization" is especially applicable to all discussions of the relations of species to environment. Still less satisfactory is our attempt to investigate the causes on which our partial generalizations depend,--to attempt to break to pieces the "other things being equal" which baffle us in our search for general laws. The same problems, of course, come up on each of the other continents and in all groups of animals or plants; but most that I shall say will be confined to the question of the dispersion of fishes in the fresh waters of North America. The broader questions of the boundaries of faunæ and of faunal areas I shall bring up only incidentally. =Questions Raised by Agassiz.=--Some of the problems to be solved were first noticed by Prof. Agassiz in 1850, in his work on Lake Superior. Later (1854), in a paper on the fishes of the Tennessee River,[72] he makes the following statement: "The study of these features [of distribution] is of the greatest importance, inasmuch as it may eventually lead to a better understanding of the intentions implied in this seemingly arbitrary disposition of animal life.... "There is still another very interesting problem respecting the geographical distribution of our fresh-water animals which may be solved by the further investigation of the fishes of the Tennessee River. The water-course, taking the Powell, Clinch, and Holston Rivers as its head waters, arises from the mountains of Virginia in latitude 37°; it then flows S.W. to latitude 34° 25', when it turns W. and N.W., and finally empties into the Ohio, under the same latitude as its source in 37°. [Illustration: FIG. 185.--Horned Dace, _Semotilus atromaculatus_ (Mitchill). Aux Plaines River, Ills. Family _Cyprinidæ_.] "The question now is this: Are the fishes of this water system the same throughout its extent? In which case we should infer that water communication is the chief condition of geographical distribution of our fresh-water fishes. Or do they differ in different stations along its course? And if so, are the differences mainly controlled by the elevation of the river above the level of the sea, or determined by climatic differences corresponding to differences of latitude? We should assume that the first alternative was true if the fishes of the upper course of the river differed from those of the middle and lower courses in the same manner as in the Danube, from its source to Pesth, where this stream flows nearly for its whole length under the same parallel. We would, on the contrary, suppose the second alternative to be well founded if marked differences were observed between the fish of such tracts of the river as do not materially differ in their evolution above the sea, but flow under different latitudes. Now, a few collections from different stations along this river, like that sent me by Dr. Newman from the vicinity of Huntsville, would settle at once this question, not for the Tennessee River alone, but for most rivers flowing under similar circumstances upon the surface of the globe. Nothing, however, short of such collections, compared closely with one another, will furnish a reliable answer.... Whoever will accomplish this survey will have made a highly valuable contribution to our knowledge." =Conclusions of Cope.=--Certain conclusions were also suggested by Prof. Cope in his excellent memoir on the fishes of the Alleghany region[73] in 1868. From this paper I make the following quotations: "The distribution of fresh-water fishes is of special importance to the questions of the origin and existence of species in connection with the physical conditions of the waters and of the land. This is, of course, owing to the restricted nature of their habitat and the impossibility of their making extended migrations. With the submergence of land beneath the sea, fresh-water fish are destroyed in proportion to the extent of the invasion of salt water, while terrestrial vertebrates can retreat before it. Hence every inland fish fauna dates from the last total submergence of the country. "Prior to the elevation of a given mountain chain, the courses of the rivers may generally have been entirely different from their later ones. Subsequent to this period, they can only have undergone partial modifications. As subsequent submergences can rarely have extended to the highlands where such streams originate, the fishes of such rivers can only have been destroyed so far as they were unable to reach those elevated regions, and preserve themselves from destruction from salt water by sheltering themselves in mountain streams. On the other hand, a period of greater elevation of the land, and of consequent greater cold, would congeal the waters and cover their courses with glaciers. The fishes would be driven to the neighborhood of the coast, though no doubt in more southern latitudes a sufficient extent of uncongealed fresh waters would flow by a short course into the ocean, to preserve from destruction many forms of fresh-water fishes. Thus, through many vicissitudes, the fauna of a given system of rivers has had opportunity of uninterrupted descent, from the time of the elevation of the mountain range, in which it has its sources.... "As regards the distinction of species in the disconnected basins of different rivers, which have been separated from an early geologic period, if species occur which are common to any two or more of them, the supporter of the theory of distinct creations must suppose that such species have been twice created, once for each hydrographic basin, or that waters flowing into the one basin have been transferred to another. The developmentalist, on the other hand, will accept the last proposition, or else suppose that time has seen an identical process and similar result of modification in these distinct regions. [Illustration: FIG. 186.--Chub of the Great Basin, _Leuciscus lineatus_ (Girard). Heart Lake, Yellowstone Park. Family _Cyprinidæ_.] "Facts of distribution in the eastern district of North America are these. Several species of fresh-water fishes occur at the same time in many Atlantic basins from the Merrimac or from the Hudson to the James, and throughout the Mississippi Valley, and in the tributaries of the Great Lakes. On the other hand, the species of each river may be regarded as pertaining to four classes, whose distribution has direct reference to the character of the water and the food it offers: first, those of the tide-waters, of the river channels, bayous, and sluggish waters near them, or in the flat lands near the coast; second, those of the river channels of its upper course, where the currents are more distinct; third, those of the creeks of the hill country; fourth, those of the elevated mountain streams which are subject to falls and rapids." In the same paper Prof. Cope reaches two important general conclusions, thus stated by him: "I. That species not generally distributed exist in waters on different sides of the great watershed. "II. That the distribution of the species is not governed by the outlet of the rivers, streams having similar discharges (Holston and Kanawha, Roanoke and Susquehanna) having less in common than others having different outlets (Kanawha, or Susquehanna and James). [Illustration: FIG. 187.--Butterfly-sculpin, _Melletes papilio_ Bean, a fish of the rock-pools. St. Paul, Pribilof Islands.] "In view of the first proposition, and the question of the origin of species, the possibility of an original or subsequent mingling of the fresh waters suggests itself as more probable than that of distinct origin in the different basins." =Questions Raised by Cope.=--Two questions in this connection are raised by Prof. Cope. The first question is this: "Has any destruction of the river faunæ taken place since the first elevation of the Alleghanies, when the same species were thrown into waters flowing in opposite directions?" Of such destruction by submergence or otherwise, Prof. Cope finds no evidence. The second question is, "Has any means of communication existed, at any time, but especially since the last submergence, by which the transfer of species might occur?" Some evidence of such transfer exists in the wide distribution of certain species, especially those which seek the highest streamlets in the mountains; but except to call attention to the cavernous character of the Subcarboniferous and Devonian limestones, Prof. Cope has made little attempt to account for it. Prof. Cope finally concludes with this important generalization: "It would appear, from the previous considerations, that the distribution of fresh-water fishes is governed by laws similar to those controlling terrestrial vertebrates and other animals, in spite of the seemingly confined nature of their habitat." =Views of Günther.=--Dr. Günther[74] has well summarized some of the known facts in regard to the manner of dispersion of fishes: "The ways in which the dispersal of fresh-water fishes has been affected were various. They are probably all still in operation, but most work so slowly and imperceptibly as to escape direct observation; perhaps they will be more conspicuous after science and scientific inquiry shall have reached a somewhat greater age. From the great number of fresh-water forms which we see at this present day acclimatized in, gradually acclimatizing themselves in, or periodically or sporadically migrating into, the sea, we must conclude that under certain circumstances salt water may cease to be a barrier at some period of the existence of fresh-water species, and that many of them have passed from one river through salt water into another. Secondly, the headwaters of some of the grandest rivers, the mouths of which are at opposite ends of the continents which they drain, are sometimes distant from each other a few miles only. The intervening space may have been easily bridged over for the passage of fishes by a slight geological change affecting the level of the watershed or even by temporary floods; and a communication of this kind, if existing for a limited period only, would afford the ready means of an exchange of a number of species previously peculiar to one or the other of these river or lake systems. Some fishes provided with gill-openings so narrow that the water moistening the gills cannot readily evaporate, and endowed, besides, with an extraordinary degree of vitality, like many Siluroids (_Chlarias_, _Callichthys_), eels, etc., are enabled to wander for some distance over land, and may thus reach a water-course leading them thousands of miles from their original home. Finally, fishes or their ova may be accidentally carried by water-spouts, by aquatic birds or insects, to considerable distances." =Fresh-water Fishes of North America.=--We now recognize about six hundred species[75] of fishes as found in the fresh waters of North America, north of the Tropic of Cancer, these representing thirty-four of the natural families. As to their habits, we can divide these species rather roughly into the four categories proposed by Prof. Cope, or, as we may call them, (1) Lowland fishes; as the bowfin,[76] pirate-perch,[77] large-mouthed black bass,[78] sunfishes, and some catfishes. (2) Channel-fishes; as the channel catfish,[79] the mooneye,[80] garpike,[81] buffalo-fishes,[82] and drum.[83] (3) Upland fishes; as many of the darters, shiners, and suckers, and the small-mouthed black bass.[84] (4) Mountain-fishes; as the brook trout and many of the darters and minnows. To these we may add the more or less distinct classes of (5) lake fishes, inhabiting only waters which are deep, clear, and cold, as the various species of whitefish[85] and the Great Lake trout;[86] (6) anadromous fishes, or those which run up from the sea to spawn in fresh waters, as the salmon,[87] sturgeon,[88] shad,[89] and striped bass;[90] (7) catadromous fishes, like the eel,[91] which pass down to spawn in the sea; and (8) brackish-water fishes, which thrive best in the debatable waters of the river-mouths, as most of the sticklebacks and the killifishes. As regards the range of species, we have every possible gradation from those which seem to be confined to a single river, and are rare even in their restricted habitat, to those which are in a measure cosmopolitan,[92] ranging everywhere in suitable waters. =Characters of Species.=--Still, again, we have all degrees of constancy and inconstancy in what we regard as the characters of a species. Those found only in a single river-basin are usually uniform enough; but the species having a wide range usually vary much in different localities. Such variations have at different times been taken to be the indications of as many different species. Continued explorations bring to light, from year to year, new species; but the number of new forms now discovered each year is usually less than the number of recognized species which are yearly proved to be untenable. Four complete lists of the fresh-water fishes of the United States (north of the Mexican boundary) have been published by the present writer. That of Jordan and Copeland,[93] published in 1876, enumerates 670 species. That of Jordan[94] in 1878 contains 665 species, and that of Jordan and Gilbert[95] in 1883, 587 species. That of Jordan and Evermann[96] in 1898 contains 585 species, although upwards of 130 new species were detected in the twenty-two years which elapsed between the first and the last list. Additional specimens from intervening localities are often found to form connecting links among the nominal species, and thus several supposed species become in time merged in one. Thus the common channel catfish[97] of our rivers has been described as a new species not less than twenty-five times, on account of differences real or imaginary, but comparatively trifling in value. Where species can readily migrate, their uniformity is preserved; but whenever a form becomes localized its representatives assume some characters not shared by the species as a whole. When we can trace, as we often can, the disappearance by degrees of these characters, such forms no longer represent to us distinct species. In cases where the connecting forms are extinct, or at least not represented in collections, each form which is apparently different must be regarded as a distinct species. The variations in any type become, in general, more marked as we approach the tropics. The genera are represented, on the whole, by more species there, and it would appear that the processes of specific change go on more rapidly under the easier conditions of life in the Torrid Zone. We recognize now in North America twenty-five distinct species of fresh-water catfishes,[98] although nearly a hundred (93) nominal species of these fishes have been from time to time described. But these twenty-five species are among themselves very closely related, and all of them are subject to a variety of minor changes. It requires no strong effort of the imagination to see in them all the modified descendants of some one species of catfish, not unlike our common "bullhead,"[99] an immigrant probably from Asia, and which has now adjusted itself to its surroundings in each of our myriad of catfish-breeding streams. =Meaning of Species.=--The word "species," then, is simply a term of convenience, including such members of a group similar to each other as are tangibly different from others, and are not known to be connected with these by intermediate forms. Such connecting links we may suppose to have existed in all cases. We are only sure that they do not now exist in our collections, so far as these have been carefully studied. When two or more species of any genus now inhabit the same waters, they are usually species whose differentiation is of long standing,--species, therefore, which can be readily distinguished from one another. When, on the other hand, we have "representative species,"--closely related forms, neither of which is found within the geographical range of the other,--we can with some confidence look for intermediate forms where the territory occupied by the one bounds that inhabited by the other. In very many such cases the intermediate forms have been found; and such forms are considered as subspecies of one species, the one being regarded as the parent stock, the other as an offshoot due to the influences of different environment. Then, besides these "species" and "subspecies," groups more or less readily recognizable, there are varieties and variations of every grade, often too ill-defined to receive any sort of name, but still not without significance to the student of the origin of species. Comparing a dozen fresh specimens of almost any kind of fish from any body of water with an equal number from somewhere else, one will rarely fail to find some sort of differences,--in size, in form, in color. These differences are obviously the reflex of differences in the environment, and the collector of fishes seldom fails to recognize them as such; often it is not difficult to refer the effect to the conditions. Thus fishes from grassy bottoms are darker than those taken from over sand, and those from a bottom of muck are darker still, the shade of color being, in some way not well understood, dependent on the color of the surroundings. Fishes in large bodies of water reach a larger size than the same species in smaller streams or ponds. Fishes from foul or sediment-laden waters are paler in color and slenderer in form than those from waters which are clear and pure. Again, it is often true that specimens from northern waters are less slender in body than those from farther south; and so on. Other things being equal, the more remote the localities from each other, the greater are these differences. [Illustration: FIG. 188.--_Scartichthys enosimæ_ Jordan and Snyder, a fish of the rock-pools of the sacred island of Enoshima, Japan. Family _Blenniidæ_.] In our fresh-water fishes each species on an average has been described as new from three to four times, on account of minor variations, real or supposed. In Europe, where the fishes have been studied longer and by more different men, upwards of six or eight nominal species have been described for each one that is now considered distinct. =Special Creation Impossible.=--It is evident, from these and other facts, that the idea of a separate creation for each species of fishes in each river-basin, as entertained by Agassiz, is wholly incompatible with our present knowledge of the specific distinctions or of the geographical distribution of fishes. This is an unbroken gradation in the variations from the least to the greatest,--from the peculiarities of the individual, through local varieties, geographical subspecies, species, sub-genera, genera, families, super-families, and so on, until all fish-like vertebrates are included in a single bond of union. =Origin of American Species of Fishes.=--It is, however, evident that not all American types of fishes had their origin in America, or even first assumed in America their present forms. Some of these are perhaps immigrants from northern Asia, where they still have their nearest relatives. Still others are evidently modified importations from the sea; and of these some are very recent immigrants, land-locked species which have changed very little from the parent stock. The problems of analogous variation or parallelism without homology are very often met with among fishes. In shallow, swift brooks in all lands there are found small fishes which hug the bottom--large-finned, swift of movement, with speckled coloration, and with the air-bladder reduced in size. In the eastern United States these fishes are darters, dwarf perches; in northern India they are catfishes; in Japan, gobies or loaches; in Canada, sculpins; in South America, characins. Members of various groups may be modified to meet the same conditions of life. Being modified to look alike, the thought of mutual affinity is naturally suggested, but in such cases the likeness is chiefly external. The internal organs show little trace of such modifications. The inside of an animal tells what it really is, the outside where it has been. In other words, it is the external characters which are most readily affected by the environment. Throughout all groups of animals and plants, there are large branches similarly affected by peculiarities of conditions. This is the basis of the law of "Adaptive Radiation." Prof. H. F. Osborn thus states this law: "It is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate, and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. Branches will spring off in all directions to take advantage of every possible opportunity of securing food. The modifications which animals undergo in this adaptive radiation are largely of mechanical nature; they are limited in number and kind by hereditary stirp or germinal influences, and thus result in the independent evolution of similar types in widely separated regions under the law of parallelism or homoplasy." FOOTNOTES: [63] This chapter and the next are in substance reprinted from an essay published by the present writer in a volume called Science Sketches. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. [64] _Salvelinus fontinalis_ Mitchill. [65] _Semotilus atromaculatus_ Mitchill. [66] _Notropis cornutus_ Rafinesque. [67] _Catostomus commersoni_ (Lacépède). [68] _Ameiurus melas_ Rafinesque. [69] _Eupomotis gibbosus_ Linnæus. [70] _Etheostoma flabellare_ Rafinesque. [71] _Rhinichthys atronasus_ Mitchill. [72] On Fishes from Tennessee River, Alabama. American Journal of Science and Arts, xvii., 2d series, 1854, p. 26. [73] On the Distribution of Fresh-water Fishes in the Alleghany Region of Southwestern Virginia. Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1868, pp. 207-247. [74] Introduction to the Study of Fishes, 1880, p. 211. [75] The table below shows approximately the composition of the fresh-water fish fauna of Europe, as compared with that of North America north of the Tropic of Cancer. Families. Europe. N. America. Lamprey _Petromyzonidæ_ 3 species. 8 species. Paddle-fish _Polyodontidæ_ -- " 1 " Sturgeon _Acipenseridæ_ 10 " 6 " Garpike _Lepisosteidæ_ -- " 3 " Bowfin _Amiidæ_ -- " 1 " Mooneye _Hiodontidæ_ -- " 3 " Herring _Clupeidæ_ 2 " 5 " Gizzard-shad _Dorosomidæ_ -- " 1 " Salmon _Salmonidæ_ 12 " 28 " Characin _Characinidæ_ -- " 1 " Carp _Cyprinidæ_ 61 " 230 " Loach _Cobiridæ_ 3 " -- " Sucker _Catostomidæ_ -- " 51 " Catfish _Siluridæ_ 1 " 25 " Trout-perch _Percopsidæ_ -- " 2 " Blindfish _Amblyopsidæ_ -- " 6 " Killifish _Cyprinodontidæ_ 3 " 52 " Mud-minnow _Umbridæ_ 1 " 2 " Pike _Esocidæ_ 1 " 5 " Alaska blackfish _Dalliidæ_ -- " 1 " Eel _Anguillidæ_ 2 " 1 " Stickleback _Gasterosteidæ_ 3 " 7 " Silverside _Atherinidæ_ 2 " 2 " Pirate perch _Aphredoderidæ_ -- " 1 " Elassoma _Elassomidæ_ -- " 2 " Sunfish _Centrarchidæ_ -- " 37 " Perch _Percidæ_ 11 " 72 " Bass _Serranidæ_ 1 " 4 " Drum _Sciænidæ_ -- " 1 " Surf-fish _Embiotocidæ_ -- " 1 " Cichlid _Cichlidæ_ -- " 2 " Goby _Gobiidæ_ 2 " 6 " Sculpin _Cottidæ_ 2 " 21 " Blenny _Blenniidæ_ 3 " -- " Cod _Gadidæ_ 1 " 1 " Flounder _Pleuronectidæ_ 1 " -- " Sole _Soleidæ_ 1 " 1 " Total: Europe, 21 families; 126 species. North America, 34 families; 590 species. A few new species have been added since this enumeration was made. According to Dr. Günther (Guide to the Study of Fishes, p. 243), the total number of species now known from the temperate regions of Asia and Europe is about 360. The fauna of India, south of the Himalayas, is much more extensive, numbering 625 species. This latter fauna bears little resemblance to that of North America, being wholly tropical in its character. [76] _Amia calva_ Linnæus. [77] _Aphredoderus sayanus_ Gilliams. [78] _Micropterus salmoides_ Lacépède. [79] _Ictalurus punctatus_ Rafinesque. [80] _Hiodon tergisus_ Le Sueur. [81] _Lepisosteus osseus_ Linnæus. [82] _Ictiobus bubalus_, _cyprinella_, etc. [83] _Aplodinotus grunniens_ Rafinesque. [84] _Micropterus dolomieu_ Lacépède. [85] _Coregonus clupeiformis_, _Argyrosomus artedi_, etc. [86] _Cristivomer namaycush_ Walbaum. [87] _Salmo salar_ Linnæus. [88] _Acipenser sturio_ and other species. [89] _Alosa sapidissima_ Wilson. [90] _Roccus lineatus_ Bloch. [91] _Anguilla chrysypa_ Raf. [92] Thus the chub-sucker (_Erimyzon sucetta_) in some of its varieties ranges everywhere from Maine to Dakota, Florida, and Texas; while a number of other species are scarcely less widely distributed. [93] Check List of the Fishes of the Fresh Waters of North America, by David S. Jordan and Herbert E. Copeland. Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural History, 1876, pp. 133-164. [94] A Catalogue of the Fishes of the Fresh Waters of North America. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, 1878, pp. 407-442. [95] A Catalogue of the Fishes Known to Inhabit the Waters of North America North of the Tropic of Cancer. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1884 and 1885. [96] Check List of the Fishes of North and Middle America. Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1895. [97] _Ictalurus punctatus_ Rafinesque. [98] _Siluridæ._ [99] _Ameiurus nebulosus._ CHAPTER XVII BARRIERS TO DISPERSION OF RIVER FISHES =The Process of Natural Selection.=--We can say, in general, that in all waters not absolutely uninhabitable there are fishes. The processes of natural selection have given to each kind of river or lake species of fishes adapted to the conditions of life which obtain there. There is no condition of water, of bottom, of depth, of speed of current, but finds some species with characters adjusted to it. These adjustments are, for the most part, of long standing; and the fauna of any single stream has as a rule been produced by immigration from other regions or from other streams. Each species has an ascertainable range of distribution, and within this range we may be reasonably certain to find it in any suitable waters. [Illustration: FIG. 189.--Slippery-dick or Doncella, _Halichoeres bivittatus_ Bloch, a fish of the coral reefs, Key West. Family _Labridæ_.] But every species has beyond question some sort of limit to its distribution, some sort of barrier which it has never passed in all the years of its existence. That this is true becomes evident when we compare the fish fauna of widely separated rivers. Thus the Sacramento, Connecticut, Rio Grande, and St. John's Rivers have not a single species in common; and with one or two exceptions, not a species is common to any two of them. None of these[100] has any species peculiar to itself, and each shares a large part of its fish fauna with the water-basin next to it. It is probably true that the faunas of no two distinct hydrographic basins are wholly identical, while on the other hand there are very few species confined to a single one. The supposed cases of this character, some twenty in number, occur chiefly in the streams of the South Atlantic States and of Arizona. All of these need, however, the confirmation of further exploration. It is certain that in no case has an entire river fauna[101] originated independently from the divergence into separate species of the descendants of a single type. The existence of boundaries to the range of species implies, therefore, the existence of barriers to their diffusion. We may now consider these barriers and in the same connection the degree to which they may be overcome. =Local Barriers.=--Least important to these are the barriers which may exist within the limits of any single basin, and which tend to prevent a free diffusion through its waters of species inhabiting any portion of it. In streams flowing southward, or across different parallels of latitude, the difference in climate becomes a matter of importance. The distribution of species is governed very largely by the temperature of the water. Each species has its range in this respect,--the free-swimming fishes, notably the trout, being most affected by it; the mud-loving or bottom fishes, like the catfishes, least. The latter can reach the cool bottoms in hot weather, or the warm bottoms in cold weather, thus keeping their own temperature more even than that of the surface of the water. Although water communication is perfectly free for most of the length of the Mississippi, there is a material difference between the faunæ of the stream in Minnesota and in Louisiana. This difference is caused chiefly by the difference in temperature occupying the difference in latitude. That a similar difference in longitude, with free water communication, has no appreciable importance, is shown by the almost absolute identity of the fish faunæ of Lake Winnebago and Lake Champlain. While many large fishes range freely up and down the Mississippi, a majority of the species do not do so, and the fauna of the upper Mississippi has more in common with that of the tributaries of Lake Michigan than it has with that of the Red River or the Arkansas. The influence of climate is again shown in the paucity of the fauna of the cold waters of Lake Superior, as compared with that of Lake Michigan. The majority of our species cannot endure the cold. In general, therefore, cold or Northern waters contain fewer species than Southern waters do, though the number of individuals of any one kind may be greater. This is shown in all waters, fresh or salt. The fisheries of the Northern seas are more extensive than those of the tropics. There are more fishes there, but are far less varied in kind. The writer once caught seventy-five species of fishes in a single haul of the seine at Key West, while on Cape Cod he obtained with the same net but forty-five species in the course of a week's work. Thus it comes that the angler, contented with many fishes of few kinds, goes to Northern streams to fish, while the naturalist goes to the South. [Illustration: FIG. 190.--_Peristedion miniatum_ Goode and Bean, a deep-red colored fish of the depths of the Gulf Stream.] But in most streams the difference in latitude is insignificant, and the chief differences in temperature come from differences in elevation, or from the distance of the waters from the colder source. Often the lowland waters are so different in character as to produce a marked change in the quality of their fauna. These lowland waters may form a barrier to the free movements of upland fishes; but that this barrier is not impassable is shown by the identity of the fishes in the streams[102] of the uplands of middle Tennessee with those of the Holston and French Broad. Again, streams of the Ozark Mountains, similar in character to the rivers of East Tennessee, have an essentially similar fish fauna, although between the Ozarks and the Cumberland range lies an area of lowland bayous, into which such fishes are never known to penetrate. We can, however, imagine that these upland fishes may be sometimes swept down from one side or the other into the Mississippi, from which they might ascend on the other side. But such transfers certainly do not often happen. This is apparent from the fact that the two faunas[103] are not quite identical, and in some cases the same species are represented by perceptibly different varieties on one side and the other. The time of the commingling of these faunæ is perhaps now past, and it may have occurred only when the climate of the intervening regions was colder than at present. The effect of waterfalls and cascades as a barrier to the diffusion of most species is self-evident; but the importance of such obstacles is less, in the course of time, than might be expected. In one way or another very many species have passed these barriers. The falls of the Cumberland limit the range of most of the larger fishes of the river, but the streams above it have their quota of darters and minnows. It is evident that the past history of the stream must enter as a factor into this discussion, but this past history it is not always possible to trace. Dams or artificial waterfalls now check the free movement of many species, especially those of migratory habits; while conversely, numerous other species have extended their range through the agency of canals.[104] Every year fishes are swept down the rivers by the winter's floods; and in the spring, as the spawning season approaches, almost every species is found working its way up the stream. In some cases, notably the Quinnat salmon[105] and the blue-back salmon,[106] the length of these migrations is surprisingly great. To some species rapids and shallows have proved a sufficient barrier, and other kinds have been kept back by unfavorable conditions of various sorts. Streams whose waters are always charged with silt or sediment, as the Missouri, Arkansas, or Brazos, do not invite fishes; and even the occasional floods of red mud such as disfigure otherwise clear streams, like the Red River or the Colorado (of Texas), are unfavorable. Extremely unfavorable also is the condition which obtains in many rivers of the Southwest, as, for example, the Red River, the Sabine, and the Trinity, which are full from bank to bank in winter and spring, and which dwindle to mere rivulets in the autumn droughts. =Favorable Waters have Most Species.=--In general, those streams which have conditions most favorable to fish life will be found to contain the greatest number of species. Such streams invite immigration; and in them the struggle for existence is individual against individual, species against species, and not a mere struggle with hard conditions of life. Some of the conditions most favorable to the existence in any stream of a large number of species of fishes are the following, the most important of which is the one mentioned first: Connection with a large hydrographic basin; a warm climate; clear water; a moderate current; a bottom of gravel (preferably covered by a growth of weeds); little fluctuation during the year in the volume of the stream or in the character of the water. Limestone streams usually yield more species than streams flowing over sandstone, and either more than the streams of regions having metamorphic rocks. Sandy bottoms usually are not favorable to fishes. In general, glacial drift makes a suitable river bottom, but the higher temperature usual in regions beyond the limits of the drift gives to certain Southern streams conditions still more favorable. These conditions are all well realized in the Washita River in Arkansas, and in various tributaries of the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio; and in these, among American streams, the greatest number of species has been recorded. The isolation and the low temperature of the rivers of New England have given to them a very scanty fish fauna as compared with the rivers of the South and West. This fact has been noticed by Professor Agassiz, who has called New England a "zoological island."[107] In spite of the fact that barriers of every sort are sometimes crossed by fresh-water fishes, we must still regard the matter of freedom of water communication as the essential one in determining the range of most species. The larger the river basin, the greater the variety of conditions likely to be offered in it, and the greater the number of its species. In case of the divergence of new forms by the processes called "natural selection," the greater the number of such forms which may have spread through its waters; the more extended any river basin, the greater are the chances that any given species may sometimes find its way into it; hence the greater the number of species that actually occur in it, and, freedom of movement being assumed, the greater the number of species to be found in any one of its affluents. Of the six hundred species of fishes found in the rivers of the United States, about two hundred have been recorded from the basin of the Mississippi. From fifty to one hundred of these species can be found in any one of the tributary streams of the size, say, of the Housatonic River or the Charles. In the Connecticut River there are but about eighteen species permanently resident; and the number found in the streams of Texas is not much larger, the best known of these, the Rio Colorado, having yielded but twenty-four species. The waters of the Great Basin are not rich in fishes, the [Illustration: FIG. 191.--Ancient Outlet of Lake Bonneville, Great Salt Lake, in Idaho. (Photograph by Prof. J. M. Aldrich.)] species now found being evidently an overflow from the Snake River when in late glacial times it drained Lake Bonneville. This postglacial lake once filled the present basin of the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, its outlet flowing northwest from Ogden into Snake River. The same fishes are now found in the upper Snake River and the basins of Utah Lake and of Sevier Lake. In the same fashion Lake Lahontan once occupied the basin of Nevada, the Humboldt and Carson sinks, with Pyramid Lake. Its drainage fell also into the Snake River, and its former limits are shown in the present range of species. These have almost nothing in common with the group of species inhabiting the former drainage of Lake Bonneville. Another postglacial body of water, Lake Idaho, once united the lakes of Southeastern Oregon. The fauna of Lake Idaho, and of the lakes Malheur, Warner, Goose, etc., which have replaced it, is also isolated and distinctive. The number of species now known from this region of these ancient lobes is about 125. This list is composed almost entirely of a few genera of suckers,[108] minnows,[109] and trout.[110] None of the catfishes, perch, darters, or sunfishes, moon-eyes, pike, killifishes, and none of the ordinary Eastern types of minnows[111] have passed the barrier of the Rocky Mountains. West of the Sierra Nevada the fauna is still more scanty, only about seventy species being enumerated. This fauna, except for certain immigrants[112] from the sea, is of the same general character as that of the Great Basin, though most of the species are different. This latter fact would indicate a considerable change, or "evolution," since the contents of the two faunæ were last mingled. There is a considerable difference between the fauna of the Columbia and that of the Sacramento. The species which these two basins have in common are chiefly those which at times pass out into the sea. The rivers of Alaska contain but few species, barely a dozen in all, most of these being found also in Siberia and Kamchatka. In the scantiness of its faunal list, the Yukon agrees with the Mackenzie River, and with Arctic rivers generally. There can be no doubt that the general tendency is for each species to extend its range more and more widely until all localities suitable for its growth are included. The various agencies of dispersal which have existed in the past are still in operation. There is apparently no limit to their action. It is probable that new "colonies" of one species or another may be planted each year in waters not heretofore inhabited by such species. But such colonies become permanent only where the conditions are so favorable that the species can hold its own in the struggle for food and subsistence. That the various modifications in the habitat of certain species have been caused by human agencies is of course too well known to need discussion here. =Watersheds.=--We may next consider the question of watersheds, or barriers which separate one river basin from another. Of such barriers in the United States, the most important and most effective is unquestionably that of the main chain of the Rocky Mountains. This is due in part to its great height, still more to its great breadth, and most of all, perhaps, to the fact that it is nowhere broken by the passage of a river. But two species--the red-throated or Rocky Mountain trout[113] and the Rocky Mountain whitefish[114]--are found on both sides of it, at least within the limits of the United States; while many genera, and even several families, find in it either an eastern or a western limit to their range. In a few instances representative species, probably modifications or separated branches of the same stock, occur on opposite sides of the range, but there are not many cases of correspondence even thus close. The two faunas are practically distinct. Even the widely distributed red-spotted or "dolly varden" trout[115] of the Columbia River and its affluents does not cross to the east side of the mountains, nor does the Montana grayling[116] ever make its way to the West. In Northern Mexico, however, numerous Eastern river fishes have crossed the main chain of the Sierra Madre. =How Fishes Cross Watersheds.=--It is easy to account for this separation of the faunæ; but how shall we explain the almost universal diffusion of the whitefish and the trout in suitable waters on both sides of the dividing ridge? We may notice that these two are the species which ascend highest in the mountains, the whitefish inhabiting the mountain pools and lakes, the trout ascending all brooks and rapids in search of their fountainheads. In many cases the ultimate dividing ridge is not very broad, and we may imagine that at some time spawn or even young fishes may have been carried across by birds or other animals, or by man, or more likely by the dash of some summer whirlwind. Once carried across in favorable circumstances, the species might survive and spread. The following is an example of how such transfer of species may be accomplished, which shows that we need not be left to draw on the imagination to invent possible means of transit. =The Suletind.=--There are few watersheds in the world better defined than the mountain range which forms the "back-bone" of Norway. I lately climbed a peak in this range, the Suletind. From its summit I could look down into the valleys of the Lära and the Bägna, flowing in opposite directions to opposite sides of the peninsula. To the north of the Suletind is a large double lake called the Sletningenvand. The maps show this lake to be one of the chief sources of the westward-flowing river Lära. This lake is in August swollen by the melting of the snows, and at the time of my visit it was visibly the source of both these rivers. From its southeastern side flowed a large brook into the valley of the Bägna, and from its southwestern corner, equally distinctly, came the waters which fed the Lära. This lake, like similar mountain ponds in all northern countries, abounds in trout; and these trout certainly have for part of the year an uninterrupted line of water communication from the Sognefjord on the west of Norway to the Christianiafjord on the southeast,--from the North Sea to the Baltic. Part of the year the lake has probably but a single outlet through the Lära. A higher temperature would entirely cut off the flow into the Bägna, and a still higher one might dry up the lake altogether. This Sletningenvand, with its two outlets on the summit of a sharp watershed, may serve to show us how other lakes, permanent or temporary, may elsewhere have acted as agencies for the transfer of fishes. We can also see how it might be that certain mountain fishes should be so transferred while the fishes of the upland waters may be left behind. In some such way as this we may imagine that various species of fishes have attained their present wide range in the Rocky Mountain region; and in similar manner perhaps the Eastern brook trout[117] and some other mountain species[118] may have been carried across the Alleghanies. =The Cassiquiare.=--Professor John C. Branner calls my attention to a marshy upland which separates the valley of the La Plata from that of the Amazon, and which permits the free movement of fishes from the Paraguay River to the Tapajos. It is well known that through the Cassiquiare River the Rio Negro, another branch of the Amazon, is joined to the Orinoco River. It is thus evident that almost all the waters of eastern South America form a single basin, so far as the fishes are concerned. As to the method of transfer of the trout from the Columbia to the Missouri, we are not now left in doubt. =Two-Ocean Pass.=--To this day, as the present writer and later Evermann and Jenkins[119] have shown, the Yellowstone and Snake Rivers are connected by two streams crossing the main divide of the Rocky Mountains from the Yellowstone to the Snake across Two-Ocean Pass. Prof. Evermann has described the locality as follows: "Two-Ocean Pass is a high mountain meadow, about 8,200 feet above the sea and situated just south of the Yellowstone National Park, in longitude 110° 10' W., latitude 44° 3' N. It is surrounded on all sides by rather high mountains except where the narrow valleys of Atlantic and Pacific creeks open out from it. Running back among the mountains to the northward are two small canyons down which come two small streams. On the opposite is another canyon down which comes another small stream. The extreme length of the meadow from east to west is about a mile, while the width from north to south is not much less. The larger of the streams coming in from the north is Pacific Creek, which, after winding along the western side of the meadow, turns abruptly westward, leaving the meadow through a narrow gorge. Receiving numerous small affluents, Pacific Creek soon becomes a good-sized stream, which finally unites with Buffalo Creek a few miles above where the latter stream flows into Snake River. "Atlantic Creek was found to have two forks entering the pass. At the north end of the meadow is a small wooded canyon down which flows the North Fork. This stream hugs the border of the flat very closely. The South Fork comes down the canyon on the south side, skirting the brow of the hill a little less closely than does the North Fork. The two, coming together near the middle of the eastern border of the meadow, form Atlantic Creek, which after a course of a few miles flows into the Upper Yellowstone. But the remarkable phenomena exhibited here remain to be described. "Each fork of Atlantic Creek, just after entering the meadow, divides as if to flow around an island, but the stream toward the meadow, instead of returning to the portion from which it had parted, continues its westerly course across the meadow. Just before reaching the western border the two streams unite and then pour their combined waters into Pacific Creek; thus are Atlantic and Pacific creeks united and a continuous waterway from the Columbia via Two-Ocean Pass to the Gulf of Mexico is established. "Pacific Creek is a stream of good size long before it enters the pass, and its course through the meadow is in a definite channel, but not so with Atlantic Creek. The west bank of each fork is low and the stream is liable to break through anywhere and thus send part of its water across to Pacific Creek. It is probably true that one or two branches always connect the two creeks under ordinary conditions, and that following heavy rains or when the snows are melting, a much greater portion of the water of Atlantic Creek crosses the meadow to the other side. [Illustration: FIG. 192.--Silver Surf-fish (viviparous), _Hypocritichthys analis_ (Agassiz). Monterey.] "Besides the channels already mentioned, there are several more or less distinct ones that were dry at the time of our visit. As already stated, the pass is a nearly level meadow covered with a heavy growth of grass and many small willows one to three feet high. While it is somewhat marshy in places it has nothing of the nature of a lake about it. Of course, during wet weather the small springs at the borders of the meadow would be stronger, but the important facts are that there is no lake or even marsh there and that neither Atlantic nor Pacific Creek has its rise in the meadow. Atlantic Creek, in fact, comes into the pass as two good-sized streams from opposite directions and leaves it by at least four channels, thus making an island of a considerable portion of the meadow. And it is certain that there is, under ordinary circumstances, a continuous waterway through Two-Ocean Pass of such a character as to permit fishes to pass easily and readily from Snake River over to the Yellowstone, or in the opposite direction. Indeed, it is quite possible, barring certain falls in the Snake River, for a fish so inclined, to start at the mouth of the Columbia, travel up that great river to its principal tributary, the Snake, thence on through the long, tortuous course of that stream, and, under the shadows of the Grand Teton, enter the cold waters of Pacific Creek, by which it could journey on up to the very crest of the great continental divide,--to Two-Ocean Pass; through this pass it may have a choice of two routes to Atlantic Creek, in which the down-stream journey is begun. Soon it reaches the Yellowstone, down which it continues to Yellowstone Lake, then through the lower Yellowstone out into the turbid waters of the Missouri; for many hundred miles it may continue down this mighty river before reaching the Father of Waters, which will finally carry it to the Gulf of Mexico--a wonderful journey of nearly 6,000 miles, by far the longest possible fresh-water journey in the world. "We found trout in Pacific Creek at every point where we examined it. In Two-Ocean Pass we found trout in each of the streams and in such positions as would have permitted them to pass easily from one side of the divide to the other. We also found trout in Atlantic Creek below the pass, and in the upper Yellowstone they were abundant. Thus it is certain that there is no obstruction, even in dry weather, to prevent the passage of trout from the Snake River to Yellowstone Lake; it is quite evident that trout do pass over in this way; and it is almost certain that Yellowstone Lake was stocked with trout from the west via Two-Ocean Pass."--EVERMANN. =Mountain Chains.=--The Sierra Nevada constitutes also a very important barrier to the diffusion of species. This is, however, broken by the passage of the Columbia River, and many species thus find their way across it. That the waters to the west of it are not unfavorable for the growth of Eastern fishes is shown by the fact of the rapid spread of the common Eastern catfish,[120] or horned pout, when transported from the Schuylkill to the Sacramento. The catfish is now one of the important food fishes of the San Francisco markets, and with the Chinaman its patron, it has gone from California to Hawaii. The Chinese catfish, described by Bleeker as _Ameiurus cantonensis_, was doubtless carried home by some Chinaman returning from San Francisco. In like fashion the small-mouthed black bass is now frequent in California streams, as is also the blue-green sunfish, _Apomotis cyanellus_, introduced as food for the bass. The mountain mass of Mount Shasta is, as already stated, a considerable barrier to the range of fishes, though a number of species find their way around it through the sea. The lower and irregular ridges of the Coast Range are of small importance in this regard, as the streams of their east slope reach the sea on the west through San Francisco Bay. Yet the San Joaquin contains a few species not yet recorded from the smaller rivers of southwestern California. The main chain of the Alleghanies forms a barrier of importance separating the rich fish fauna of the Tennessee and Ohio basins from the scantier faunæ of the Atlantic streams. Yet this barrier is crossed by many more species than is the case with either the Rocky Mountains or the Sierra Nevada. It is lower, narrower, and much more broken,--as in New York, in Pennsylvania, and in Georgia there are several streams which pass through it or around it. The much greater age of the Alleghany chain, as compared with the Rocky Mountains, seems not to be an element of any importance in this connection. Of the fish which cross this chain, the most prominent is the brook trout,[121] which is found in all suitable waters from Hudson's Bay to the head of the Chattahoochee. =Upland Fishes.=--A few other species are locally found in the head waters of certain streams on opposite sides of the range. An example of this is the little red "fallfish,"[122] found only in the mountain tributaries of the Savannah and the Tennessee. We may suppose the same agencies to have assisted these species that we have imagined in the case of the Rocky Mountain trout, and such agencies were doubtless more operative in the times immediately following the glacial epoch than they are now. Prof. Cope calls attention also to the numerous caverns existing in these mountains as a sufficient medium for the transfer of many species. I doubt whether the main chains of the Blue Ridge or the Great Smoky can be crossed in that way, though such channels are not rare in the subcarboniferous limestones of the Cumberland range. In the brooks at the head waters of the Roanoke River about Alleghany Springs in Virginia, fishes of the Tennessee Basin are found, instead of those characteristic of the lower Roanoke. In this case it is likely that we have to consider the results of local erosion. Probably the divide has been so shifted that some small stream with its fishes has been cut off from the Holston and transferred to the Roanoke. The passage of species from stream to stream along the Atlantic slope deserves a moment's notice. It is under present conditions impossible for any mountain or upland fish, as the trout or the miller's thumb,[123] to cross from the Potomac River to the James, or from the Neuse to the Santee, by descending to the lower courses of the rivers, and thence passing along either through the swamps or by way of the sea. The lower courses of these streams, warm and muddy, are uninhabitable by such fishes. Such transfers are, however, possible farther north. From the rivers of Canada and from many rivers of New England the trout does descend to the sea and into the sea, and farther north the whitefish does this also. Thus these fishes readily pass from one river basin to another. As this is the case now everywhere in the North, it may have been the case farther south in the time of the glacial cold. We may, I think, imagine a condition of things in which the snow-fields of the Alleghany chain might have played some part in aiding the diffusion of cold-loving fishes. A permanent snow-field on the Blue Ridge in western North Carolina might render almost any stream in the Carolinas suitable for trout, from its source to its mouth. An increased volume of colder water might carry the trout of the head streams of the Catawba and the Savannah as far down as the sea. We can even imagine that the trout reached these streams in the first place through such agencies, though of this there is no positive evidence. For the presence of trout in the upper Chattahoochee we must account in some other way. It is noteworthy that the upland fishes are nearly the same in all these streams until we reach the southern limit of possible glacial influence. South of western North Carolina the faunæ of the different river basins appear to be more distinct from one another. Certain ripple-loving types are represented by closely related but unquestionably different species in each river basin, and it would appear that a thorough mingling of the upland species in these rivers has never taken place. The best examples of this are the following: In the Santee basin are found _Notropis pyrrhomelas_, _Notropis niveus_, and _Notropis chloristius_; in the Altamaha, _Notropis xænurus_ and _Notropis callisemus_; in the Chattahoochee, _Notropis hypselopterus_ and _Notropis eurystomus_; in the Alabama, _Notropis coeruleus_, _Notropis trichroistius_, and _Notropis callistius_. In the Alabama, Escambia, Pearl, and numerous other rivers is found _Notropis cercostigma_. This species descends to the sea in the cool streams of the pine woods. Its range is wider than that of the others, and in the rivers of Texas it reappears in the form of a scarcely distinct variety, _Notropis venustus_. In the Tennessee and Cumberland, and in the rivers of the Ozark range, is _Notropis galacturus_; and in the upper Arkansas _Notropis camurus_,--all distinct species of the same general type. Northward, in all the streams from the Potomac to the Oswego, and westward to the Des Moines and the Arkansas, occurs a single species of this type, _Notropis whipplei_, varying eastward into _Notropis analostanus_. But this species is not known from any of the streams inhabited by any of the other species mentioned, although very likely it is the parent stock of them all. =Lowland Fishes.=--With the lowland species of the Southern rivers it is different. Few of these are confined within narrow limits. The streams of the whole South Atlantic and Gulf Coast flow into shallow bays, mostly bounded by sand-spits or sand-bars which the rivers themselves have brought down. In these bays the waters are often neither fresh nor salt; or, rather, they are alternately fresh and salt, the former condition being that of the winter and spring. Many species descend into these bays, thus finding every facility for transfer from river to river. There is a continuous inland passage in fresh or brackish waters, traversable by such fishes, from Chesapeake Bay nearly to Cape Fear; and similar conditions exist on the coasts of Louisiana, Texas, and much of Florida. In Perdido Bay I have found fresh-water minnows[124] and silversides[125] living together with marine gobies[126] and salt-water eels.[127] Fresh-water alligator gars[128] and marine sharks compete for the garbage thrown over from the Pensacola wharves. In Lake Pontchartrain the fauna is a remarkable mixture of fresh-water fishes from the Mississippi and marine fishes from the Gulf. Channel-cats, sharks, sea-crabs, sunfishes, and mullets can all be found there together. It is therefore to be expected that the lowland fauna of all the rivers of the Gulf States would closely resemble that of the lower Mississippi; and this, in fact, is the case. The streams of southern Florida and those of southwestern Texas offer some peculiarities connected with their warmer climate. The Florida streams contain a few peculiar fishes;[129] while the rivers of Texas, with the same general fauna as those farther north, have also a few distinctly tropical types,[130] immigrants from the lowlands of Mexico. =Cuban Fishes.=--The fresh waters of Cuba are inhabited by fishes unlike those found in the United States. Some of these are evidently indigenous, derived in the waters they now inhabit directly from marine forms. Two of these are eyeless species,[131] inhabiting streams in the caverns. They have no relatives in the fresh waters of any other region, the blind fishes[132] of our caves being of a wholly different type. Some of the Cuban fishes are common to the fresh waters of the other West Indies. Of Northern types, only one, the alligator gar,[133] is found in Cuba, and this is evidently a filibuster immigrant from the coasts of Florida. =Swampy Watersheds.=--The low and irregular watershed which separates the tributaries of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie from those of the Ohio is of little importance in determining the range of species. Many of the distinctively Northern fishes are found in the headwaters of the Wabash and the Scioto. The considerable difference in the general fauna of the Ohio Valley as compared with that of the streams of Michigan is due to the higher temperature of the former region, rather than to any existing barriers between the river and the Great Lakes. In northern Indiana the watershed is often swampy, and in many places large ponds exist in the early spring. At times of heavy rains many species will move through considerable distances by means of temporary ponds and brooks. Fishes that have thus emigrated often reach places ordinarily inaccessible, and people finding them in such localities often imagine that they have "rained down." Once, near Indianapolis, after a heavy shower, I found in a furrow in a corn-field a small pike,[134] some half a mile from the creek in which he should belong. The fish was swimming along in a temporary brook, apparently wholly unconscious that he was not in his native stream. Migratory fishes, which ascend small streams to spawn, are especially likely to be transferred in this way. By some such means any of the watersheds in Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois may be passed. [Illustration: FIG. 193.--Creekfish or Chub-sucker, _Erimyzon sucetta_ (Lacépède). Nipisink Lake, Illinois. Family _Catostomidæ_.] It is certain that the limits of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan were once more extended than now. It is reasonably probable that some of the territory now drained by the Wabash and the Illinois was once covered by the waters of Lake Michigan. The cisco[135] of Lake Tippecanoe, Lake Geneva, and the lakes of the Oconomowoc chain is evidently a modified descendant of the so-called lake herring.[136] Its origin most likely dates from the time when these small deep lakes of Indiana and Wisconsin were connected with Lake Michigan. The changes in habits which the cisco has undergone are considerable. The changes in external characters are but trifling. The presence of the cisco in these lakes and its periodical disappearance--that is, retreat into deep water when not in the breeding season--have given rise to much nonsensical discussion as to whether any or all of these lakes are still joined to Lake Michigan by subterranean channels. Several of the larger fishes, properly characteristic of the Great Lake region,[137] are occasionally taken in the Ohio River, where they are usually recognized as rare stragglers. The difference in physical conditions is probably the sole cause of their scarcity in the Ohio basin. =The Great Basin of Utah.=--The similarity of the fishes in the different streams and lakes of the Great Basin is doubtless to be attributed to the general mingling of their waters which took place during and after the Glacial Epoch. Since that period the climate in that region has grown hotter and drier, until the overflow of the various lakes into the Columbia basin through the Snake River has long since ceased. These lakes have become isolated from each other, and many of them have become salt or alkaline and therefore uninhabitable. In some of these lakes certain species may now have become extinct which still remain in others. In some cases, perhaps, the differences in surroundings may have caused divergence into distinct species of what was once one parent stock. The suckers in Lake Tahoe[138] and those in Utah Lake are certainly now different from each other and from those in the Columbia. The trout[139] in the same waters can be regarded as more or less tangible species, while the whitefishes[140] show no differences at all. The differences in the present faunas of Lake Tahoe and Utah Lake must be chiefly due to influences which have acted since the Glacial Epoch, when the whole Utah Basin was part of the drainage of the Columbia. =Arctic Species in Lakes.=--Connected perhaps with changes due to glacial influences is the presence in the deep waters of the Great Lakes of certain marine types,[141] as shown by the explorations of Professor Sidney I. Smith and others. One of these is a genus of fishes,[142] of which the nearest allies now inhabit the Arctic Seas. In his review of the fish fauna of Finland,[143] Professor A. J. Malmgren finds a number of Arctic species in the waters of Finland which are not found either in the North Sea or in the southern portions of the Baltic. These fishes are said to "agree with their 'forefathers' in the Glacial Ocean in every point, but remain comparatively smaller, leaner, almost starved." Professor Lovén[144] also has shown that numerous small animals of marine origin are found in the deep lakes of Sweden and Finland as well as in the Gulf of Bothnia. These anomalies of distribution are explained by Lovén and Malmgren on the supposition of the former continuity of the Baltic through the Gulf of Bothnia with the Glacial Ocean. During the second half of the Glacial Period, according to Lovén, "the greater part of Finland and of the middle of Sweden was submerged, and the Baltic was a great gulf of the Glacial Ocean, and not connected with the German Ocean. By the gradual elevation of the Scandinavian Continent, the Baltic became disconnected from the Glacial Ocean and the Great Lakes separated from the Baltic. In consequence of the gradual change of the salt water into fresh, the marine fauna became gradually extinct, with the exception of the glacial forms mentioned above." It is possible that the presence of marine types in our Great Lakes is to be regarded as due to some depression of the land which would connect their waters with those of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On this point, however, our data are still incomplete. To certain species of upland or mountain fishes the depression of the Mississippi basin itself forms a barrier which cannot be passed. The black-spotted trout,[145] very closely related species of which abound in all waters of northern Asia, Europe, and western North America, has nowhere crossed the basin of the Mississippi, although one of its species finds no difficulty in passing Bering Strait. The trout and whitefish of the Rocky Mountain region are all species different from those of the Great Lakes or the streams of the Alleghany system. To the grayling, the trout, the whitefish, the pike, and to arctic and subarctic species generally, Bering Strait has evidently proved no serious obstacle to diffusion; and it is not unlikely that much of the close resemblance of the fresh-water faunæ of northern Europe, Asia, and North America is due to this fact. To attempt to decide from which side the first migration came in regard to each group of fishes might be interesting; but without a wider range of facts than is now in our possession, most such attempts, based on guesswork, would have little value. The interlocking of the fish faunas of Asia and North America presents, however, a number of interesting problems, for migrations in both directions have doubtless taken place. =Causes of Dispersion Still in Operation.=--One might go on indefinitely with the discussion of special cases, each more or less interesting or suggestive in itself, but the general conclusion is in all cases the same. The present distribution of fishes is the result of the long-continued action of forces still in operation. The species have entered our waters in many invasions from the Old World or from the sea. Each species has been subjected to the various influences implied in the term "natural selection," and under varying conditions its representatives have undergone many different modifications. Each of the six hundred fresh-water species we now know in the United States may be conceived as making every year inroads on territory occupied by other species. If these colonies are able to hold their own in the struggle for possession, they will multiply in the new conditions, and the range of the species becomes widened. If the surroundings are different, new species or varieties may be formed with time; and these new forms may again invade the territory of the parent species. Again, colony after colony of species after species may be destroyed by other species or by uncongenial surroundings. The ultimate result of centuries on centuries of the restlessness of individuals is seen in the facts of geographical distribution. Only in the most general way can the history of any species be traced; but could we know it all, it would be as long and as eventful a story as the history of the colonization and settlement of North America by immigrants from Europe. But by the fishes each river in America has been a hundred times discovered, its colonization a hundred times attempted. In these efforts there is no co-operation. Every individual is for himself, every struggle a struggle of life and death; for each fish is a cannibal, and to each species each member of every other species is an alien and a savage. FOOTNOTES: [100] Except possibly the Sacramento. [101] Unless the fauna of certain cave streams in the United States and Cuba be regarded as forming an exception. [102] For example, Elk River, Duck River, etc. [103] There are three species of darters (_Cottogaster copelandi_ Jordan, _Hadropterus evides_ Jordan and Copeland, _Hadropterus scierus_ Swain) which are now known only from the Ozark region or beyond and from the uplands of Indiana, not yet having been found at any point between Indiana and Missouri. These constitute perhaps isolated colonies, now separated from the parent stock in Arkansas by the prairie districts of Illinois, a region at present uninhabitable for these fishes. But the non-occurrence of these species over the intervening areas needs confirmation, as do most similar cases of anomalous distribution. [104] Thus, _Dorosoma cepedianum_ Le Sueur and _Pomolobus chrysochloris_ Rafinesque have found their way into Lake Michigan through canals. [105] _Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_ Walbaum. [106] _Oncorhynchus nerka_ Walbaum. [107] "In this isolated region of North America, in this zoological island of New England, as we may call it, we find neither Lepidosteus, nor Amia, nor Polyodon, nor Amblodon (_Aplodinotus_), nor Grystes (_Micropterus_), nor Centrarchus, nor Pomoxis, nor Ambloplites, nor Calliurus (_Chænobryttus_), nor Carpiodes, nor Hyodon, nor indeed any of the characteristic forms of North American fishes so common everywhere else, with the exception of two Pomotis (_Lepomis_), one Boleosoma, and a few Catostomus."--AGASSIZ, _Amer. Journ. Sci. Arts_, 1854. [108] _Catostomus_, _Pantosteus_, _Chasmistes_. [109] _Gila_, _Ptychocheilus_, etc. [110] _Salmo clarkii_ and its varieties. [111] Genera _Notropis_, _Chrosomus_, etc. [112] As the fresh-water surf-fish (_Hysterocarpus traski_) and the species of salmon. [113] _Salmo clarki_ Richardson. [114] _Coregonus williamsoni_ Girard. [115] _Salvelinus malma_ (Walbaum). [116] _Thymallus tricolor_ Cope. [117] _Salvelinus fontinalis_ Mitchill. [118] _Notropis rubricroceus_ Cope, _Rhinichthys atronasus_ Mitchill, etc. [119] Evermann, A Reconnoissance of the Streams and Lakes of Western Montana and Northwestern Wyoming, in Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm., XI, 1891, 24-28, pls. I and II; Jordan, The Story of a Strange Land, in Pop. Sci. Monthly, Feb., 1892, 447-458; Evermann, Two-Ocean Pass, in Proc. Ind. Ac. Sci., 1892, 29-34, pl. I; Evermann, Two-Ocean Pass, in Pop. Sci. Monthly, June, 1895, with plate. [120] _Ameiurus nebulosus_ Le Sueur: _Ameiurus catus_ Linnæus. [121] _Salvelinus fontinalis._ [122] _Notropis rubricroceus_ Cope. [123] _Cottus ictalops_ Rafinesque. [124] _Notropis cercostigma_, _Notropis xænocephalus_. [125] _Labidesthes sicculus._ [126] _Gobiosoma molestum._ [127] _Myrophis punctatus._ [128] _Lepisosteus tristoechus._ [129] _Jordanella_, _Rivulus_, _Heterandria_, etc. [130] _Heros_, _Tetragonopterus_. [131] _Lucifuga_ and _Stygicola_, fishes allied to the cusk, and belonging to the family of _Brotulidæ_. [132] _Amblyopsis_, _Typhlichthys_. [133] _Lepisosteus tristoechus._ [134] _Esox vermiculatus_ Le Sueur. [135] _Argyrosomus sisco_ Jordan. [136] _Argyrosomus artedi_ Le Sueur. [137] As _Lota maculosa_; _Percopsis guttata_; _Esox masquinongy_. [138] _Catostomus tahoensis_, in Lake Tahoe; _Catostomus macrocheilus_ and _discobolus_, in the Columbia; _Catostomus fecundus_; _Catostomus ardens_; _Chasmistes liorus_ and _Pantosteus generosus_, in Utah Lake. [139] _Salmo henshawi_ and _virginalis_. [140] _Coregonus williamsoni._ [141] Species of _Mysis_ and other genera of Crustaceans, similar to species described by Sars and others, in lakes of Sweden and Finland. [142] _Triglopsis thompsoni_ Girard, a near ally of the marine species _Oncocottus quadricornis_ L. [143] Kritisk Öfversigt of Finlands Fisk-Fauna, Helsingfors, 1863. [144] See Günther, Zoological Record for 1864, p. 137. [145] _Salmo fario_ L., in Europe; _Salmo labrax_ Pallas, etc., in Asia; _Salmo gairdneri_ Richardson, in streams of the Pacific Coast; _Salmo perryi_, in Japan; _Salmo clarki_ Richardson, throughout the Rocky Mountain range to the Mexican boundary and the headwaters of the Kansas, Platte, and Missouri. CHAPTER XVIII FISHES AS FOOD FOR MAN =The Flesh of Fishes.=--Among all races of men, fishes are freely eaten as food, either raw, as preferred by the Japanese and Hawaiians, or else as cooked, salted, dried, or otherwise preserved. The flesh of most fishes is white, flaky, readily digestible, and with an agreeable flavor. Some, as the salmon, are charged with oil, which aids to give an orange hue known as salmon color. Others have colorless oil which may be of various consistencies. Some have dark-red flesh, which usually contains a heavy oil which becomes acrid when stale. Some fishes, as the sharks, have tough, coarse flesh. Some have flesh which is watery and coarse. Some are watery and tasteless, some dry and tasteless. Some, otherwise excellent, have the muscular area, which constitutes the chief edible part of the fish, filled with small bones. =Relative Rank of Food-fishes.=--The writer has tested most of the noted food-fishes of the Northern Hemisphere. When properly cooked (for he is no judge of raw fish) he would place first in the ranks as a food-fish the eulachon, or candle-fish (_Thaleichthys pacificus_). [Illustration: FIG. 194.--Eulachon, or Ulchen. _Thaleichthys pretiosus_ Girard. Columbia River. Family _Argentinidæ_.] This little smelt, about a foot long, ascends the Columbia River, Frazer River, and streams of southern Alaska in the spring in great numbers for the purpose of spawning. Its flesh is white, very delicate, charged with a white and very agreeable oil, readily digested, and with a sort of fragrance peculiar to the species. [Illustration: FIG. 195.--Ayu, or Japanese Samlet, _Plecoglossus altivelis_ Schlegel. Tanagawa, Tokyo, Japan.] Next to this he is inclined to place the ayu (_Plecoglossus altivelis_), a sort of dwarf salmon which runs in similar fashion in the rivers of Japan and Formosa. The ayu is about as large as the eulachon and has similar flesh, but with little oil and no fragrance. [Illustration: FIG. 196.--Whitefish, _Coregonus clupeiformis_ Mitchill. Ecorse, Mich.] Very near the first among sea-fishes must come the pampano (_Trachinotus carolinus_) of the Gulf of Mexico, with firm, white, finely flavored flesh. The red surmullet of Europe (_Mullus barbatus_) has been long famed for its delicate flesh, and may perhaps be placed next. Two related species in Polynesia, the munu and the kumu (_Pseudupeneus bifasciatus_ and _Pseudupeneus porphyreus_), are scarcely inferior to it. [Illustration: FIG. 197.--Golden Surmullet, _Mullus auratus_ Jordan & Gilbert. Woods Hole, Mass.] [Illustration: FIG. 198.--Spanish Mackerel, _Scomberomorus maculatus_ Mitchill. Family _Scombridæ_. Key West.] Side by side with these belongs the whitefish of the Great Lakes (_Coregonus clupeiformis_). Its flesh, delicate, slightly gelatinous, moderately oily, is extremely agreeable. Sir John Richardson records the fact that one can eat the flesh of this fish longer than any other without the feeling of cloying. The salmon cannot be placed in the front ranks because, however excellent, the stomach soon becomes tired of it. The Spanish mackerel (_Scomberomorus maculatus_), with flesh at once rich and delicate, the great opah (_Lampris luna_), still richer and still more delicate, the bluefish (_Pomatomus saltatrix_) similar but a little coarser, the ulua (_Carangus sem_), the finest large food-fish of the South Seas, the dainty California poppy-fish, miscalled "Pampano" (_Palometa simillima_), and the kingfish firm and well-flavored (_Scomberomorus cavalla_), represent the best of the fishes allied to the mackerel. [Illustration: FIG. 199.--Opah, or Moonfish, _Lampris luna_ (Gmelin). Specimen in Honolulu market weighing 317-1/2 lbs. (Photograph by E. L. Berndt.)--Page 323.] [Illustration: FIG. 200.--Bluefish, _Pomatomus saltatrix_ (L.). New York.] [Illustration: FIG. 201.--Robalo, _Centropomus undecimalis_ (Bloch). Florida.] The shad (_Alosa sapidissima_), with its sweet, tender, finely oily flesh, stands also near the front among food-fishes, but it sins above all others in the matter of small bones. The weak-fish (_Cynoscion nobilis_) and numerous relatives rank first among those with tender, white, savorous flesh. Among the bass and perch-like fishes, common consent places near the first the striped bass (_Roccus lineatus_), the bass of Europe (_Dicentrarchus labrax_), the susuki of Japan (_Lateolabrax japonicus_), the red tai of Japan (_Pagrus major_ and _P. cardinalis_), the sheep's-head (_Archosargus probatocephalus_), the mutton-fish or Pargo Criollo of Cuba (_Lutianus analis_), the European porgy (_Pagrus pagrus_), the robalo (_Centropomus undecimalis_), the uku (_Aprion virescens_) of Hawaii, the spadefish (_Chætodipterus faber_), and the black bass (_Micropterus dolomieu_). [Illustration: FIG. 202.--Spadefish, _Chætodipterus faber_ (L.). Virginia.] [Illustration: FIG. 203.--Small-mouthed Black Bass, _Micropterus dolomieu_ (Lacépède). Potomac River.] [Illustration: FIG. 204.--Speckled Trout (male), _Salvelinus fontinalis_ (Mitchill). New York.] [Illustration: FIG. 205.--Rainbow Trout, _Salmo irideus_ Gibbons. Sacramento River, California.] [Illustration: FIG. 206.--Rangeley Trout, _Salvelinus oquassa_ (Girard). Lake Oquassa, Maine.] The various kinds of trout have been made famous the world over. All are attractive in form and color; all are gamey; all have the most charming of scenic surroundings, and, finally, all are excellent as food, not in the first rank perhaps, but well above the second. Notable among these are the European charr (_Salvelinus alpinus_), the American speckled trout or charr (_Salvelinus fontinalis_), the Dolly Varden or malma (_Salvelinus malma_), and the oquassa trout (_Salvelinus oquassa_). Scarcely less attractive are the true trout, the brown trout, or forelle (_Salmo fario_), in Europe, the rainbow-trout (_Salmo irideus_), the steelhead (_Salmo gairdneri_), the cut-throat trout (_Salmo clarkii_), and the Tahoe trout (_Salmo henshawi_), in America, and the yamabe (_Salmo perryi_) of Japan. Not least of all these is the flower of fishes, the grayling (_Thymallus_), of different species in different parts of the world. [Illustration: FIG. 207.--Steelhead Trout, _Salmo gairdneri_ Richardson. Columbia River.] [Illustration: FIG. 208.--Tahoe Trout, _Salmo henshawi_ Gill & Jordan. Lake Tahoe, California.] [Illustration: FIG. 209.--The Dolly Varden Trout, _Salvelinus malma_ (Walbaum). Lake Pend d'Oreille, Idaho. (After Evermann.)] [Illustration: FIG. 210.--Alaska Grayling, _Thymallus signifer_ Richardson. Nulato, Alaska.] [Illustration: FIG. 211.--Pike, _Esox lucius_ L. Ecorse, Mich.] [Illustration: FIG. 212.--Atka-fish, _Pleurogrammus monopterygius_ (Pallas). Atka Island.] Other most excellent food-fishes are the eel (_Anguilla_ species), the pike (_Esox lucius_), the muskallonge (_Esox Roccus_), the sole of Europe (_Solea solea_), the sardine (_Sardinella pilchardus_), the atka-fish (_Pleurogrammus monopterygius_) of Bering Sea, the pescado blanco of Lake Chapala (_Chirostoma estor_ and other species), the Hawaiian mullet (_Mugil cephalus_), the channel catfish (_Ictalurus punctatus_), the turbot (_Scophthalmus maximus_), the barracuda (_Sphyræna_), and the young of various sardines and herring, known as whitebait. Of large fishes, probably the swordfish (_Xiphias gladius_), the halibut (_Hippoglossus hippoglossus_), and the king-salmon, or quinnat (_Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_), may be placed first. Those people who feed on raw fish prefer in general the large parrot-fishes (as _Pseudoscarus jordani_ in Hawaii), or else the young of mullet and similar species. [Illustration: FIG. 213.--Pescado blanco, _Chirostoma humboldtianum_ (Val.). Lake Chalco, City of Mexico.] [Illustration: FIG. 214.--Red Goatfish, or Salmonete, _Pseudupeneus maculatus_ Bloch. Family _Mullidæ_ (Surmullets).] =Abundance of Food-fishes.=--In general, the economical value of any species depends not on its toothsomeness, but on its abundance and the ease with which it may be caught and preserved. It is said that more individuals of the herring (_Clupea harengus_ in the Atlantic, _Clupea pallasi_ in the Pacific) exist than of any other species. The herring is a good food-fish and whenever it runs it is freely sought. According to Björnsön, wherever the school of herring touches the coast of Norway, there a village springs up, and this is true in Scotland, Newfoundland, and from Killisnoo in Alaska to Otaru in Japan, and to Strielok in Siberia. Goode estimates the herring product of the North Atlantic at 1,500,000,000 pounds annually. In 1881 Professor Huxley used these words: [Illustration: FIG. 215.--Great Parrot-fish, or Guacamaia, _Pseudoscarus guacamaia_ Bloch & Schneider. Florida.] [Illustration: FIG. 216.--Striped Mullet, _Mugil cephalus_ (L.). Woods Hole, Mass.] "It is said that 2,500,000,000 or thereabout of herrings are every year taken out of the North Sea and the Atlantic. Suppose we assume the number to be 3,000,000,000 so as to be quite safe. It is a large number undoubtedly, but what does it come to? Not more than that of the herrings which may be contained in one shoal, if it covers half a dozen square miles, and shoals of much larger size are on record. It is safe to say that scattered through the North Sea and the Atlantic, at one and the same time, there must be scores of shoals, any one of which would go a long way toward supplying the whole of man's consumption of herrings." [Illustration: FIG. 217.--Mutton-snapper, or Pargo criollo, _Lutianus analis_ (Cuv. & Val.). Key West.] [Illustration: FIG. 218.--Herring, _Clupea harengus_ L. New York.] [Illustration: FIG. 219.--Codfish, _Gadus callarias_ L. Eastport, Maine.] The codfish (_Gadus callarias_ in the Atlantic; _Gadus macrocephalus_ in the Pacific) likewise swarms in all the northern seas, takes the hook readily, and is better food when salted and dried than it is when fresh. Next in economic importance probably stands the mackerel of the Atlantic (_Scomber scombrus_), a rich, oily fish which bears salting better than most. [Illustration: FIG. 220.--Mackerel, _Scomber scombrus_ L. New York.] Not less important is the great king-salmon, or quinnat (_Oncorhyanchus tschawytscha_), and the still more valuable blue-back salmon, or redfish (_Oncorhynchus nerka_). [Illustration: FIG. 221.--Halibut, _Hippoglossus hippoglossus_ (Linnæus). St. Paul Island, Bering Sea. (Photograph by U. S. Fur Seal Commission.)] The salmon of the Atlantic (_Salmo salar_), the various species of sturgeon (_Acipenser_), the sardines (_Sardinella_), the halibut (_Hippoglossus_), are also food-fishes of great importance. =Variety of Tropical Fishes.=--In the tropics no one species is represented by enormous numbers of individuals as is the case in colder regions. On the other hand, the number of species regarded as food-fishes is much greater in any given port. In Havana, about 350 different species are sold as food in the markets, and an equal number are found in Honolulu. Upward of 600 different species appear in the markets of Japan. In England, on the contrary, about 50 species make up the list of fishes commonly used as food. Yet the number of individual fishes is probably not greater about Japan or Hawaii than in a similar stretch of British coast. =Economic Fisheries.=--Volumes have been written on the economic value of the different species of fishes, and it is not the purpose of the present work to summarize their contents. [Illustration: FIG. 222.--Fishing for Ayu with Cormorants in the Tanagawa, near Tokyo. (After Photograph by J. O. Snyder by Sekko Shimada.)] Equally voluminous is the literature on the subject of catching fishes. It ranges in quality from the quaint wisdom of the "Compleat Angler" and the delicate wit of "Little Rivers" to elaborate discussions of the most economic and effective forms and methods, of the beam-trawl, the purse-seine, and the codfish hook. In general, fishes are caught in four ways--by baited hooks, by spears, by traps, and by nets. Special local methods, such as the use of the tamed cormorant[146] in the catching of the ayu, by the Japanese fishermen at Gifu, may be set aside for the moment, and all general methods of fishing come under one of these four classes. Of these methods, the hook, the spear, the seine, the beam-trawl, the gill-net, the purse-net, the sweep-net, the trap and the weir are the most important. The use of the hook is again extremely varied. In the deep sea long, sunken lines, are sometimes used for codfish, each baited with many hooks. For pelagic fish, a baited hook is drawn swiftly over the surface, with a "spoon" attached which looks like a living fish. In the rivers a line is attached to a pole, and when fish are caught for pleasure or for the joy of being in the woods, recreation rises to the dignity of angling. Angling may be accomplished with a hook baited with an earthworm, a grasshopper, a living fish, or the larva of some insect. The angler of to-day, however, prefers the artificial fly, as being more workmanlike and also more effective than bait-fishing. The man who fishes, not for the good company of the woods and brooks, but to get as many fish as possible to eat or sell, is not an angler but a pot-fisher. The man who kills all the trout he can, to boast of his skill or fortune, is technically known as a trout-hog. Ethically, it is better to lie about your great catches of fine fishes than to make them. For most anglers, also, it is more easy. =Fisheries.=--With the multiplicity of apparatus for fishing, there is the greatest variety in the boats which may be used. The fishing-fleet of any port of the world is a most interesting object, as are also the fishermen with their quaint garb, plain speech, and their strange songs and calls with the hauling in of the net. [Illustration: FIG. 223.--Fishing for Ayu in the Tanagawa, Japan. Emptying the pouch of the cormorant. (Photograph by J. O. Snyder.)] For much information on the fishing apparatus in use in America the reader is referred to the Reports of the Fisheries in the Tenth Census, in 1880, under the editorship of Dr. George Brown Goode. In these reports Goode, Stearns, Earle, Gilbert, Bean, and the present writer have treated very fully of all economic relations of the American fishes. In an admirable work entitled "American Fishes," Dr. Goode, with the fine literary touch of which he was master, has fully discoursed of the game- and food-fishes of America with especial reference to the habits and methods of capture of each. To these sources, to Jordan and Evermann's "Food and Game Fishes of North America," and to many other works of similar purport in other lands, the reader is referred for an account of the economic and the human side of fish and fisheries. =Angling.=--It is no part of the purpose of this work to describe the methods or materials of angling, still less to sing its praises as a means of physical or moral regeneration. We may perhaps find room for a first and a last word on the subject; the one the classic from the pen of the angler of the brooks of Staffordshire, and the other the fresh expression of a Stanford student setting out for streams such as Walton never knew, the Purissima, the Stanislaus, or perchance his home streams, the Provo or the Bear. "And let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying night-hooks, are like putting money to use; for they both work for the owners when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice, as you know we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly and as free from cares under this sycamore as Virgil's Tityrus and his Meliboeus did under their broad beech-tree. No life, my honest scholar,--no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on the cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, 'Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did'; and so, if I might be judge, 'God never made a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.' "I'll tell you, scholar, when I sat last on this primrose-bank, and looked down these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of Florence, 'That they were too pleasant to be looked on but only on holidays.' "Gentle Izaak! He has been dead these many years, but his disciples are still faithful. When the cares of business lie heavy and the sound of wheels jarring on cobbled streets grows painful, one's fingers itch for the rod; one would away to the quiet brook among the pines, where one has fished so often. Every man who has ever got the love of the stream in his blood feels often this longing. "It comes to me each year with the first breath of spring. There is something in the sweetness of the air, the growing things, the 'robin in the greening grass' that voices it. Duties that have before held in their performance something of pleasure become irksome, and practical thoughts of the day's work are replaced by dreamy pictures of a tent by the side of a mountain stream--close enough to hear the water's singing in the night. Two light bamboo rods rest against the tent-pole, and a little column of smoke rising straight up through the branches marks the supper fire. Jack is preparing the evening meal, and, as I dream, there comes to me the odor of crisply browned trout and sputtering bacon--was ever odor more delicious? I dare say that had the good Charles Lamb smelled it as I have, his 'Dissertation on Roast Pig' would never have been written. But then Charles Lamb never went a-fishing as we do here in the west--we who have the mountains and the fresh air so boundlessly. "And neither did Izaak Walton for that matter. He who is sponsor for all that is gentle in angling missed much that is best in the sport by living too early. He did not experience the exquisite pleasure of wading down mountain streams in supposedly water-proof boots and feeling the water trickling in coolingly; nor did he know the joy of casting a gaudy fly far ahead with a four-ounce rod, letting it drift, insect-like, over that black hole by the tree stump, and then feeling the seaweed line slip through his fingers to the _whirr_ of the reel. And, at the end of the day, supper over, he did not squat around a big camp-fire and light his pipe, the silent darkness of the mountains gathering round, and a basketful of willow-packed trout hung in the clump of pines by the tent. Izaak's idea of fishing did not comprehend such joy. With a can of worms and a crude hook, he passed the day by quiet streams, threading the worms on his hook and thinking kindly of all things. The day's meditations over, he went back to the village, and, mayhap, joined a few kindred souls over a tankard of ale at the sign of the Red Lobster. But he missed the mountains, the water rushing past his tent, the bacon and trout, the camp-fire--the physical exaltation of it all. His kind of fishing was angling purely, while modern Waltons, as a rule, eschew the worm. [Illustration: FIG. 224.--Fishing for Tai, Tokyo Bay. (Photograph by J. O. Snyder.)] "To my mind, there is no real sport in any kind of fishing except fly-fishing. This sitting on the bank of a muddy stream with your bait sunk, waiting for a bite, may be conducive to gentleness and patience of spirit, but it has not the joy of action in which a healthy man revels. How much more sport is it to clamber over fallen logs that stretch far out a-stream, to wade slipping over boulders and let your fly drop caressingly on ripples and swirling eddies and still holes! It is worth all the work to see the gleam of a silver side as a half-pounder rises, and, with a flop, takes the fly excitedly to the bottom. And then the nervous thrill as, with a deft turn of the wrist, you hook him securely--whoever has felt that thrill cannot forget it. It will come back to him in his law office when he should be thinking of other things; and with it will come a longing for that dear remembered stream and the old days. That is the hold trout-fishing takes on a man. "It is spring now and I feel the old longing myself, as I always do when life comes into the air and the smell of new growth is sweet. I got my rod out to-day, put it together, and have been looking over my flies. If I cannot use them, I can at least muse over days of the past and dream of those to come." (WALDEMAR YOUNG.) FOOTNOTES: [146] The cormorant is tamed for this purpose. A harness is placed about its wings and a ring about the lower part of its neck. Two or three birds may be driven by a boy in a shallow stream, a small net behind him to drive the fish down the river. In a large river like that of Gifu, where the cormorants are most used, the fishermen hold the birds from the boats and fish after dark by torchlight. The bird takes a great interest in the work, darts at the fishes with great eagerness, and fills its throat and gular pouch as far down as the ring. Then the boy takes him out of the water, holds him by the leg and shakes the fishes out into a basket. When the fishing is over the ayu are preserved, the ring is taken off from the bird's neck, and the zako or minnows are thrown to him for his share. These he devours greedily. CHAPTER XIX DISEASES OF FISHES =Contagious Diseases.=--As compared with other animals the fishes of the sea are subject to but few specific diseases. Those in fresh waters, being more isolated, are more frequently attacked by contagious maladies. Often these diseases are very destructive. In an "epidemic" in Lake Mendota, near Madison, Wis., Professor Stephen A. Forbes reports a death of 300 tons of fishes in the lake. I have seen similar conditions among the land-locked alewife in Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, the dead fishes being piled on the beaches so as to fill the air with the stench of their decay. [Illustration: FIG. 225.--Menhaden, _Brevoortia tyrannus_ (Latrobe). Woods Hole, Mass.] =Crustacean Parasites.=--The external parasites of fishes are of little injury. These are mainly lernæans and other crustaceans (fish-lice) in the sea, and in the rivers different species of leeches. These may suck the blood of the fish, or in the case of certain crustaceans which lie under the tongue, steal the food as it passes along, as is done by _Cymothoa prægustator_, the "bug" of the mouth of the menhaden (_Brevoortia tyrannus_). [Illustration: FIG. 226.--Australian Flying-fish, _Exonautes unicolor_ (Valenciennes). Specimen from Tasman Sea, having parasitic lernæan crustaceans, to which parasitic barnacles are attached. (After Kellogg.)] The relation of this crustacean to its host suggested to Latrobe, its discoverer, the relation of the "foretaster" in Roman times to the tyrant whom he served. A similar commensation exists in the mouth of a mullet (_Mugil hospes_) at Panama. The writer has received, through the courtesy of Mr. A. P. Lundin, a specimen of a flying-fish (_Exonautes unicolor_) taken off Sydney, Australia. To this are attached three large copepod crustaceans of the genus _Penella_, the largest over two inches long, and to the copepods in turn are attached a number of barnacles (_Conchoderma virgatum_) so joined to the copepods as to suggest strange flowers, like orchids, growing out of the fish. [Illustration: FIG. 227.--Black-nosed Dace, _Rhinichthys atronasus_ (Mitchill). East Coy Creek, W. N. Y. Showing black spots of parasitic organisms. (From life by Mary Jordan Edwards.)] =Myxosporidia, or Parasitic Protozoa.=--Internal parasites are very numerous and varied. Some of them are bacteria, giving rise to infectious diseases, especially in ponds and lakes. Others are myxosporidia, or parasitic protozoans, which form warty appendages, which burst, discharging the germs and leaving ulcers in their place. In the report of the U. S. Fish Commissioner for 1892, Dr. R. R. Gurley has brought together our knowledge of the protozoans of the subclass _Myxosporidia_, to which these epidemics are chiefly due. These creatures belong to the class of Sporozoa, and are regarded as animals, their nearest relatives being the parasitic _Gregarinida_, from which they differ in having the germinal portion of the spore consisting of a single protoplasmic mass instead of falciform protoplasmic rods as in the worm-like Gregarines. The _Myxosporidia_ are parasitic on fishes, both fresh-water and marine, especially beneath the epidermis of the gills and fins and in the gall-bladder and urinary bladder. In color these protozoa are always cream-white. In size and form they vary greatly. The cyst in which they lie is filled with creamy substance made up of spores and granule matter. Dr. Gurley enumerates as hosts of these parasites about sixty species of fishes, marine and fresh-water, besides frogs, crustaceans, sea-worms, and even the crocodile. In the sharks and rays the parasites occur mainly in the gall-ducts, in the minnows within the gill cavity and epidermis, and in the higher fishes mainly but not exclusively in the same regions. Forty-seven species are regarded by Gurley as well defined. The diseases produced by them are very obscurely known. These parasites on American fishes have been extensively studied by Charles Wardall Stiles, Edwin Linton, Henry B. Ward, and others. According to Dr. Linton the parasitism which results from infection with protozoan parasites will, of all kinds, be found to be the most important. Epidemics among European fish have been repeatedly traced to this source. The fatality which attends infection with psorosperms appears to be due to a secondary cause, however, namely, to bacilli which develop within the psorosperms (_Myxobolus_) tumors and give rise to ulceration. The discharge of these ulcers then disseminates the disease. [Illustration: FIG. 228.--White Shiner, _Notropis hudsonius_ (Clinton), with cysts of parasitic psorosperms. (After Gurley.)] "Brief mention of the remedies there proposed may appropriately be repeated here. Megnin sees no other method than to collect all the dead and sick fishes and to destroy them by fire. Ludwig thinks that the waters should be kept pure, and that the pollutions of the rivers by communities or industrial establishments should be interdicted. Further he says: "That most dangerous contamination of the water by the _Myxosporidia_ from the ulcers cannot of course be stopped entirely, but it is evident that it will be less if all fishermen are impressed with the importance of destroying all diseased and dead fish instead of throwing them back into the water. Such destruction must be so effected as to prevent the re-entry of the germs into the water. "Railliet says that it is expedient to collect the diseased fish and to bury them at a certain depth and at a great distance from the water-course. He further states that this was done on the Meuse with success, so that at the end of some years the disease appeared to have left no trace." [Illustration: FIG. 229.--White Catfish, _Ameiurus catus_ (Linnæus), from Potomac River, infested by parasitic protozoa, _Ichthyophthirus multifilis_ Fouquet. (After C. W. Stiles.)] =Parasitic Worms: Trematodes.=--Parasitic worms in great variety exist in the intestinal canal or in the liver or muscular substance of fishes. Trematode worms are most common in fresh-water fishes. These usually are sources of little injury, especially when found in the intestines, but they may do considerable mischief when encysted within the body cavity or in the heart or liver. Dr. Linton describes 31 species of these worms from 25 different species of American fishes. In 20 species of fishes from the Great Lakes, 102 specimens, Dr. H. B. Ward found 95 specimens infected with parasites, securing 4000 trematodes, 2000 acanchocephala, 200 cestodes, and 200 nematodes. In the bowfin (_Amia calva_), trematodes existed in enormous numbers. =Cestodes.=--Cestode worms exist largely in marine fishes, the adults, according to Dr. Linton, being especially common in the spiral valve of the shark. It is said that one species of human tape-worm (_Bothriocephalus tænia_) has been got from eating the flesh of the European tench (_Tinca tinca_). =The Worm of the Yellowstone.=--The most remarkable case of parasitism of worms of this type is that given by the trout of Yellowstone Lake (_Salmo clarki_). This is thus described by Dr. Linton: "One of the most interesting cases of parasitism in which direct injury results to the host, which has come to my attention, is that afforded by the trout of Yellowstone Lake (_Salmo clarki_). It was noticed by successive parties who visited the lake in connection with government surveys that the trout with which the lake abounded were, to a large extent, infested with a parasitic worm, which is most commonly in the abdominal cavity, in cysts, but which in time escapes from the cyst and tunnels into the flesh of its host. Fish, when thus much afflicted, are found to be lacking in vitality, weak, and often positively emaciated. "It was my good fortune, in the summer of 1890, to visit this interesting region for the purpose of investigating the parasitism of the trout of Yellowstone Lake. The results of this special investigation were published in the Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission for 1889, vol. ix., pp. 337-358, under the title 'A Contribution to the Life-history of _Dibothrium cordiceps_, a Parasite Infesting the Trout of Yellowstone Lake.' "I found the same parasite in the trout of Heart Lake, just across the great continental divide from Yellowstone Lake, but did not find any that had tunneled into the flesh of its host, while a considerable proportion of the trout taken in Yellowstone Lake had these worms in the flesh. Some of these worms were as much as 30 centimeters in length when first removed; others which had lain in water a few hours after removal before they were measured were much longer, as much as 54 centimeters. They are rather slender and of nearly uniform size throughout, 2.5 to 3 millimeters being an average breadth of the largest. I found the adult stage in the intestine of the large white pelican (_Pelecanus erythrorhynchus_), which is abundant on the lake and was found breeding on some small islands near the southern end of the lake. "In the paper alluded to above I attempted to account for two things concerning this parasitism among the trout of Yellowstone Lake: First, the abundance of parasitized trout in the lake; second, the migration of the parasite into the muscular tissue of its host. The argument cannot be well summarized in as short space as the requirements of this paper demand. It is sufficient to say that what appear to me to be satisfactory explanations are supplied by the peculiar conditions of distribution of fish in the lakes of this national park. Until three or four years ago, when the U. S. Fish Commission stocked some of the lakes and streams of the park, the conditions with relation to fish life in the three principal lakes were as follows: Shoshone Lake, no fish of any kind; Heart Lake, at least three species, _Salmo clarki_, _Leuciscus lineatus_, and _Catostomus ardens_; Yellowstone Lake, one species, _Salmo clarki_. Shoshone and Yellowstone Lakes are separated from the river systems which drain them by falls too high for fish to scale. Heart Lake has no such barrier. The trout of Yellowstone Lake are confined to the lake and to eighteen miles of river above the falls. Whatever source of parasitism exists in the lake, therefore, must continue to affect the fish all their lives. They cannot be going and coming from the lake as the trout of Heart Lake may freely do. If their food should contain eggs of parasites, or if the waters in which they swim should contain eggs or embryos of parasites, they would be continually exposed to infection, with no chance for a vacation trip for recuperation. To quote from my report: "'It follows, therefore, from the peculiar conditions surrounding the trout of Yellowstone Lake, that if there is a cause of parasitism present in successive years the trout are more liable to become infested than they would be in waters where they had a more varied range. Trout would become infested earlier and in greater relative numbers, and the life of the parasites themselves--that is, their residence as encysted worms--must be of longer duration than would be the rule where the natural conditions are less exceptional.... There are probably not less than one thousand pelicans on the lake the greater part of the time throughout the summer, of which at any time not less than 50 per cent. are infested with the adult form of the parasite, and, since they spend the greater part of their time on or over the water, disseminate millions of tape-worm eggs each in the waters of the lake. It is known that eggs of other dibothria hatch out in the water, where they swim about for some time, looking much like ciliated infusoria. Donnadieu found in his experiments on the adult dibothria of ducks that the eggs hatched out readily in warm water and very slowly in cold. If warm water, at least water that is warmer than the prevailing temperature of the lake, is needed for the proper development of these ova, the conditions are supplied in such places as the shore system of geysers and hot springs on the west arm of the lake, where for a distance of nearly three miles the shore is skirted by a hot spring and geyser formation, with numerous streams of hot water emptying into the lake, and large springs of hot water opening in the floor of the lake near shore. "'Trout abound in the vicinity of these warm springs, presumably on account of the abundance of food there. They do not love the warm water, but usually avoid it. Several persons with whom I talked on the subject while in the park assert that diseased fish--that is to say, those which are thin and affected with flesh worms--are more commonly found near the warm water; that they take the bait readily but are logy. I frequently saw pelicans swimming near the shore in the vicinity of the warm springs on the west arm of the lake. It would appear that the badly infested or diseased fish, being less active and gamy than the healthy fish, would be more easily taken by their natural enemies, who would learn to look for them in places where they most abound. But any circumstances which cause the pelican and the trout to occupy the same neighborhood will multiply the chances of the parasites developing in both the intermediate and final host. The causes that make for the abundance of the trout parasite conspire to increase the number of adults. The two hosts react on each other and the parasite profits by the reaction. About the only enemies the trout had before tourists, ambitious to catch big strings of trout and photograph them with a kodak, began to frequent this region, were the fish-eating birds, and chief among these in numbers and voracity was the pelican. It is no wonder, therefore, that the trout should have become seriously parasitized. It may be inferred from the foregoing statements that the reason why the parasite of the trout of Yellowstone Lake migrates into the muscular tissue of its host must be found in the fact that the life of the parasite within the fish is much more prolonged than is the case where the conditions of life are less exceptional. "The case just cited is probably the most signal one of direct injury to the host from the presence of parasites that I have seen. I shall enumerate more briefly a few additional cases out of a great number that I have encountered in my special investigations on the entozoa of fishes for the U. S. Fish Commission." Many worms of this type abound in codfishes, bluefishes, striped bass, and other marine fishes, rendering them lean and unfit for food. =The Heart Lake Tape-worm.=--Another very interesting case of parasitism is that of the large tape-worm (_Ligula catostomi_) infecting the suckers, _Catostomus ardens_, in the warm waters of Witch Creek, near Heart Lake, in the Yellowstone Park. Of this Dr. Linton gives the following account: [Illustration: FIG. 230.--Sucker, _Catostomus ardens_ (Jordan & Gilbert), from Heart Lake, Yellowstone Park, infested by a flatworm, _Ligula catostomi_ Linton, itself probably a larva of _Dibothrium_. (After Linton.)] "In the autumn of 1889 Dr. David Starr Jordan found an interesting case of parasitism in some young suckers (_Catostomus ardens_) which he had collected in Witch Creek, a small stream which flows into Heart Lake, in the Yellowstone National Park. Specimens of these parasites were sent to me for identification. They proved to be a species of ligula, probably identical with the European _Ligula simplicissima_ Rud., which is found in the abdominal cavity of the tench. On account of its larval condition in which it possesses few distinctive characters, I described it under the name _Ligula catostomi_. These parasites grow to a very large size when compared with the fish which harbors them, often filling the abdominal cavity to such a degree as to give the fish a deceptively plump appearance. The largest specimen in Dr. Jordan's collection measured, in alcohol, 28.5 centimeters in length, 8 millimeters in breadth at the anterior end, 11 millimeters at a distance of 7 millimeters from the anterior end, and 1.5 millimeters near the posterior end. The thickness throughout was about 2 millimeters. The weight of one fish was 9.1 grams, that of its three parasites 2.5 grams, or 27-1/2 per cent. the weight of the host. If a man weighing 180 pounds were afflicted with tape-worms to a similar degree, he would be carrying about with him 50 pounds of parasitic impedimenta. "In the summer of 1890 I collected specimens from the same locality. A specimen obtained from a fish 19 centimeters in length measured while living 39.5 centimeters in length and 15 millimeters in breadth at the anterior end. Another fish 15 centimeters in length harbored four parasites, 12, 13, 13, and 20 centimeters long, respectively, or 58 centimeters aggregate. Another fish 10 centimeters long was infested with a single parasite which was 39 centimeters in length. "These parasites were found invariably free in the body cavity. Dr. Jordan's collections were made in October and mine in July of the following year. Donnadieu has found that this parasite most frequently attains its maximum development at the end of two years. It is probable, therefore, that Dr. Jordan and I collected from the same generation. Since these parasites, in this stage of their existence, develop, not by levying a toll on the food of their host, after the manner of intestinal parasites, but directly by the absorption of the serous fluid of their host, it is quite evident that they work a positive and direct injury. Since, however, they lie quietly in the body cavity of the fish and possess no hard parts to cause irritation, they work their mischief simply by the passive abstraction of the nutritive juices of their host, and by crowding the viscera into confined spaces and unnatural positions. The worms, in almost every case, had attained such a size that they far exceeded in bulk the entire viscera of their host. "From the fact that the examples obtained were of comparatively the same age, it may be justly inferred that the period of infection to which the fish are subjected must be a short one. I did not discover the final host, but it is almost certain to be one or more of the fish-eating species of birds which visit that region, and presumably one of which, in its migrations, pays but a brief visit to this particular locality. This parasite was found only in the young suckers which inhabit a warm tributary of Witch Creek. They were not found in the large suckers of the lake. These young _Catostomi_ were found in a single school, associated with the young of the chub (_Leuciscus lineatus_), in a stream whose temperature was 95° F. near where it joined a cold mountain brook whose temperature was 46° F. We seined several hundred of these young suckers and chubs, ranging in length from 6 to 19 centimeters. The larger suckers were nearly all infested with these parasites, the smaller ones not so much, and the smallest scarcely at all. Or, to give concrete examples: Of 30 fish ranging in length from 14 to 19 centimeters, only one or two were without parasites; of 45 specimens averaging about 10 centimeters in length, 15 were infested and 30 were not; of 65 specimens averaging about 9 centimeters in length, 10 were infested and 55 were not; of 62 specimens less than 9 centimeters in length, 2 were infested and 60 were not. None of the chubs were infested with this parasite. "The conditions under which these fish were found are worthy of passing notice. The stream which they occupied flowed with rather sluggish current into a swift mountain stream, which it met almost at right angles. The school of young chubs and suckers showed no inclination to enter the cold water, even to escape the seine, but would dart around the edge of the seine, in the narrow space between it and the bank, in preference, apparently, to taking to the colder water. When not disturbed by the seine they would swim up near to the line which marked the division between the cold and the warm water, and seemed to be gazing with open mouth and eyes at the trout which occasionally darted past in the cold stream. The trout appeared to avoid the warm water, while the chubs and suckers appeared to avoid the cold water. It may be that what the latter really avoided was the special preserve of the trout, since large chubs and suckers are found in abundance in the lake, which is quite cold, a temperature of 40° F. having been taken by us at a depth of 124 feet. "Since the eggs of this parasite, after the analogy of closely related forms, in all probability are discharged into the water from the final host and hatch out readily in warm water, where they may live for a longer or shorter time as free-swimming planula-like forms, it will be observed that the sluggish current and high temperature of the water in which these parasitized fish occur give rise to conditions which are highly favorable to infection. "It may be of passing interest to state here what I have recorded elsewhere, that ligulæ, probably specifically identical with _L. catostomi_, form an article of food in Italy, where they are sold in the markets under the name _maccaroni piatti_; also in southern France, where they are less euphemistically but more truthfully called the _ver blanc_. So far as my information goes, this diet of worms is strictly European. "It is not necessary to prove cases of direct injury resulting from the presence of parasites in order to make out a case against them. In the sharp competition which nature forces on fishes in the ordinary struggle for existence, any factor which imparts an increment either of strength or of weakness may be a very potent one, and in a long term of years may determine the relative abundance or rarity of the individuals of a species. In most cases the interrelations between parasite and host have become so adjusted that the evil wrought by the parasite on its host is small. Parasitic forms, like free forms, are simply developing along the lines of their being, but unlike most free forms they do not contribute a fair share to the food of other creatures." =Thorn-head Worms.=--The thorn-head worms called _Acanthocephala_ are found occasionally in large numbers in different kinds of fishes. They penetrate the coats of the intestines, producing much irritation and finally waxy degeneration of the tissues. According to Linton, there is probably no practical way of counteracting the bad influences of worms of this order, since their larval state is passed, in some cases certainly, and in most cases probably, in small crustacea, which constitute a constant and necessary source of food for the fish. The same remark which was made in another connection with regard to the disposal of the viscera of fish applies here. In no case should the viscera of fish be thrown back into the water. In this order the sexes are distinct, and the females become at last veritable sacs for the shelter and nourishment of enormous numbers of embryos. The importance, therefore, of arresting the development of as many embryos as possible is at once apparent. =Nematodes.=--The round worms or nematodes are very especially abundant in marine fishes, and particularly in the young. The study of these forms has a large importance to man. Dr. Linton pertinently observes: "Where there is exhaustive knowledge of the thing itself the application of that knowledge toward getting good out of it or averting evil that may come from it first becomes possible. For example, a knowledge of the life-history of _Trichina spiralis_ and its pathological effects on its host has taught people a simple way of securing immunity from its often deadly effects. A knowledge of the life-histories of the various species of tæniæ which infest man and the domestic animals, frequently to their serious hurt, has made it possible to diminish their numbers, and may, in time, lead to their practical extinction. "So with the parasites of fishes. Whenever for any reason or reasons parasitism of any sort becomes so prevalent with any species as to amount to a disease, the remedy will be suggested, and in some cases may be practically applied. If, for example, it were thought desirable to counteract the influences which are at work to cause the parasitism of the trout of Yellowstone Lake, it could be very largely accomplished by breaking up the breeding-places of the pelican on the islands of the lake. With regard to parasitism among the marine food-fishes, the remedy while plainly suggested by the circumstances, might be difficult of application. Yet something could be done even there, if it were thought necessary to lessen the amount of parasitism. If such precautions as the destruction of the parasites which abound in the viscera of fish before throwing them back into the water, and if no opportunity be lost of killing those sharks which feed on the food-fishes, two sources of the prevalence of parasites would be affected and the sum total of parasitism diminished. These remarks are made not so much because such precautions are needed as to suggest possible applications of knowledge which is already available." =Parasitic Fungi.=--Fishes are often subject to wounds. If not too serious these will heal in time, with or without scars. Some lost portions may be restored, but not those including bone fin-rays or scales. In the fresh waters, wounds are usually attacked by species of fungus, notably _Saprolegnia ferox_, _Saprolegnia mixta_, and others, which makes a whitish fringe over a sore and usually causes death. This fungus is especially destructive in aquaria. This fungus is not primarily parasitic, but it fixes itself in the slime of a fish or in an injured place, and once established the animal is at its mercy. Spent salmon are very often attacked by this fungus. In America the spent salmon always dies, but in Scotland, where such is not the case, much study has been given to this plant and the means by which it may be exterminated. Dr. G. P. Clinton gives a useful account of the development of _Saprolegnia_, from which we take the following: "The minute structure and life-history of such fungous forms have been so thoroughly made out by eminent specialists that no investigation along this line was made, save to observe those phenomena which might be easily seen with ordinary microscopic manipulations. The fungus consists of branched, hyaline filaments, without septa, except as these are found cutting off the reproductive parts of the threads. It is made up of a root-like or rhizoid part that penetrates the fish and a vegetative and reproductive part that radiates from the host. The former consists of branched tapering threads which pierce the tissues for a short distance, but are easily pulled out. The function of this part is to obtain nourishment for the growth of the external parts. Prostrate threads are found running through the natural slime covering the fish, and from these are produced the erect radiating hyphæ so plainly seen when in the water. The development of these threads appears to be very rapid when viewed under the microscope, although the growth made under favorable conditions in two days is only about a third of an inch. From actual measurements of filaments of the fungus placed in water and watched under the microscope, it was found that certain threads made a growth of about 3000 microns in an hour. Two others, watched for twenty minutes, gave in that time a growth of 90 and 47 microns respectively; and yet another filament, observed during two periods of five minutes each, made a growth of 28 microns each time. In ordinary cultures the rate of growth depends upon the condition of the medium, host, etc." [Illustration: FIG. 231.--Quinnat Salmon, _Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_ (Walbaum). Monterey Bay. (Photograph by C. Rutter.)] Professor H. A. Surface thus speaks of the attacks of _Saprolegnia_ on the lamprey: "The attack that attends the end of more lampreys than does any other is that of the fungus (_Saprolegnia_ sp.). This looks like a gray slime and eats into the exterior parts of the animal, finally causing death. It covers the skin, the fins, the eyes, the gill-pouches, and all parts, like leprosy. It starts where the lamprey has been scratched or injured or where its mate has held it, and develops very rapidly when the water is warm. It is found late in the season on all lampreys that have spawned out, and it is almost sure to prove fatal, as we have repeatedly seen with attacked fishes or lampreys kept in tanks or aquaria. With choice aquarium fishes a remedy, or at least a palliative, is to be found in immersion in salt water for a few minutes or in bathing the affected parts with listerine. Since these creatures complete the spawning process before the fungoid attack proves serious to the individual, it can be seen that it affects no injury to the race, as the fertilized eggs are left to come to maturity. Also, as it is nature's plan that the adult lampreys die after spawning once, we are convinced that death would ensue without the attack of the fungus; and in fact this is to be regarded as a resultant of those causes that produce death rather than the immediate cause of it. Its only natural remedy is to be found in the depths of the lake (450 feet) where there is a uniform or constant temperature of about 39° Fahr., and where the light of the noon-day sun penetrates with an intensity only about equal to starlight on land on a clear but moonless night. [Illustration: FIG. 232.--Young Male Quinnat Salmon, _Oncorhynchus tschawytscha_, dying after spawning. Sacramento River. (Photograph by Cloudsley Rutter.)] "As light and heat are essential to the development of the fungus, which is a plant growth and properly called a water mold, and as their intensity is so greatly diminished in the depth of the lake, it is probable that if creatures thus attacked should reach this depth they might here find relief if their physical condition were otherwise strong enough to recuperate. However, we have recently observed a distinct tendency on the part of fungus-covered fishes to keep in the shallower, and consequently warmer, parts of the water, and this of course results in the more rapid growth of the sarcophytic plant, and the death of the fishes is thus hastened. "All kinds of fishes and fish-eggs are subject to the attacks of such fungus, especially after having been even slightly scratched or injured. As a consequence, the lamprey attacks on fishes cause wounds that often become the seat of a slowly spreading but fatal fungus. We have seen many nests of the bullhead, or horned pout (_Ameiurus nebulosus_), with all the eggs thus destroyed, and we have found scores of fishes of various kinds thus killed or dying. It is well known that in many rivers this is the apparent cause of great mortality among adult salmon. Yet we really doubt if it ever attacks uninjured fishes that are in good strong physical condition which have not at least had the slime rubbed from them when captured. It is contagious, not only being conveyed from one infested fish to another, but from dead flies to fishes." (For a further discussion of this subject see an interesting and valuable Manual of Fish Culture, by the U. S. Fish Commission, 1897.) =Earthquakes.=--Occasionally an earthquake has been known to kill sea-fishes in large numbers. The _Albatross_ obtained specimens of _Sternoptyx diaphana_ in the Japanese Kuro Shiwo, killed by the earthquakes of 1896, which destroyed fishing villages of the coast of Rikuchu in northern Japan. =Mortality of Tilefish.=--Some years ago in the Gulf Stream off Newfoundland an immense mortality of the filefish (_Lopholatilus chamæleonticeps_) was reported by fishermen. This handsome and large fish, inhabiting deep waters, died by thousands. For this mortality, which almost exterminated the species, no adequate cause has been found. As to the destruction of fresh-water fishes by larger enemies, we may quote from Professor H. A. Surface. He says there is no doubt that these three species, the lake lamprey (_Petromyzon marinus unicolor_), the garpike (_Lepidosteus osseus_), and the mud-puppy (_Necturus maculosus_), named "in order of destructiveness, are the three most serious enemies of fishes in the interior of this State [New York], each of which surely destroys more fishes annually than are caught by all the fishermen combined. The next important enemies of fishes in order of destructiveness, according to our observations and belief, are spawn-eating fishes, water-snakes, carnivorous or predaceous aquatic insects (especially larvæ), and piscivorous fishes and birds." The lamprey attaches itself to larger fishes, rasping away their flesh and sucking their blood, as shown in the accompanying plate. [Illustration: FIG. 233.--Catfishes, _Ameiurus nebulosus_ Le Sueur, destroyed by lampreys (_Petromyzon marinus unicolor_ De Kay). Cayuga Lake, N. Y. (Modified from photograph by Prof. H. A. Surface.)] CHAPTER XX THE MYTHOLOGY OF FISHES =The Mermaid.=--A word may be said of the fishes which have no existence in fact and yet appear in popular literature or in superstition. The mermaid, half woman and half fish, has been one of the most tenacious among these, and the manufacture of their dried bodies from the head, shoulders, and ribs of a monkey sealed to the body of a fish has long been a profitable industry in the Orient. The sea-lion, the dugong, and other marine mammals have been mistaken for mermaids, for their faces seen at a distance and their movements at rest are not inhuman, and their limbs and movements in the water are fish-like. In China, small mermaids are very often made and sold to the curious. The head and torso of a monkey are fastened ingeniously to the body and tail of a fish. It is said that Linnæus was once forced to leave a town in Holland for questioning the genuineness of one of these mermaids, the property of some high official. These monsters are still manufactured for the "curio-trade." =The Monkfish.=--Many strange fishes were described in the Middle Ages, the interest usually centering in some supposed relation of their appearance with the affairs of men. Some of these find their way into Rondelet's excellent book, "Histoire Entière des Poissons," in 1558. Two of these with the accompanying plate of one we here reproduce. Other myths less interesting grew out of careless, misprinted, or confused accounts on the part of naturalists and travelers. "In our times in Norway a sea-monster has been taken after a great storm, to which all that saw it at once gave the name of monk; for it had a man's face, rude and ungracious, the head shorn and smooth. On the shoulders, like the cloak of a monk, were two long fins instead of arms, and the end of the body was finished by a long tail. The picture I present was given me by the very illustrious lady, Margaret de Valois, Queen of Navarre, who received it from a gentleman who gave a similar one to the emperor, Charles V., then in Spain. This gentleman said that he had seen the monster as the portrait shows it in Norway, thrown by the waves and tempests on the beach at a place called Dieze, near the town called Denelopoch. I have seen a similar picture at Rome not differing in mien. Among the sea-beasts, Pliny mentions a sea-mare and a Triton as among the creatures not imaginary. Pausanias also mentions a Triton." [Illustration: FIG. 234.--"_Le monstre marin an habit de Moine._" (After Rondelet.)] Rondelet further says: =The Bishop-fish.=--"I have seen a portrait of another sea-monster at Rome, whither it had been sent with letters that affirmed for certain that in 1531 one had seen this monster in a bishop's garb, as here portrayed, in Poland. Carried to the king of that country, it made certain signs that it had a great desire to return to the sea. Being taken thither it threw itself instantly into the water." [Illustration: FIG. 235.--"_Le monstre marin en habit d'Évêque._" (After Rondelet.)] =The Sea-serpent.=--A myth of especial persistency is that of the sea-serpent. Most of the stories of this creature are seaman's yarns, sometimes based on a fragment of wreck, a long strip of kelp, the power of suggestion or the incitement of alcohol. But certain of these tales relate to real fishes. The sea-serpent with an uprearing red mane like that of a horse is the oarfish (_Regalecus_), a long, slender, fragile fish compressed like a ribbon and reaching a length of 25 feet. We here present a photograph of an oarfish (_Regalecus russelli_) stranded on the California coast at Newport in Orange County, California. A figure of a European species (_Regalecus glesne_) is also given showing the fish in its uninjured condition. Another reputed sea-serpent is the frilled shark (_Chlamydoselachus angineus_), which has been occasionally noticed by seamen. The struggles of the great killer (_Orca orca_) with the whales it attacks and destroys has also given rise to stories of the whale struggling in the embrace of some huge sea-monster. This description is correct, but the mammal is a monster itself, a relative of the whale and not a reptile. [Illustration: FIG. 236.--Oarfish, _Regalecus russelli_, on the beach at Newport, Orange Co., Cal. (Photograph by C. P. Remsberg.)] [Illustration: FIG. 237.--Glesnæs Oarfish, _Regalecus glesne_ Ascanius. Newcastle, England. (After Day.)] It is often hard to account for some of the stories of the sea-serpent. A gentleman of unquestioned intelligence and sincerity lately described to the writer a sea-serpent he had seen at short range, 100 feet long, swimming at the surface, and with a head as large as a barrel. I do not know what he saw, but I do know that memory sometimes plays strange freaks. Little venomous snakes with flattened tails (_Platyurus, Pelamis_) are found in the salt bays in many tropical regions of the Pacific (Gulf of California, Panama, East Indies, Japan), but these are not the conventional sea-serpents. Certain slender fishes, as the thread-eel (_Nemichthys_) and the wolf-eel (_Anarrhichthys_), have been brought to naturalists as young sea-serpents, but these of course are genuine fishes. Whatever the nature of the sea-serpent may be, this much is certain, that while many may be seen, none will ever be caught. The great swimming reptiles of the sea vanished at the end of Mesozoic time, and as living creatures will never be known of man. As a record of the Mythology of Science, we may add the following remarks of Rafinesque on the imaginary garpike (_Litholepis adamantinus_), of which a specimen was painted for him by the wonderful brush of Audubon: "This fish may be reckoned the wonder of the Ohio. It is only found as far up as the falls, and probably lives also in the Mississippi. I have seen it, but only at a distance, and have been shown some of its singular scales. Wonderful stories are related concerning this fish, but I have principally relied upon the description and picture given me by Mr. Audubon. Its length is from 4 to 10 feet. One was caught which weighed 400 pounds. It lies sometimes asleep or motionless on the surface of the water, and may be mistaken for a log or snag. It is impossible to take it in any other way than with the seine or a very strong hook; the prongs of the gig cannot pierce the scales, which are as hard as flint, and even proof against lead balls! Its flesh is not good to eat. It is a voracious fish. Its vulgar names are diamond-fish (owing to its scales being cut like diamonds), devil-fish, jackfish, garjack, etc. The snout is large, convex above, very obtuse, the eyes small and black; nostrils small, round before the eyes; mouth beneath the eyes, transversal with large angular teeth. Pectoral and abdominal fins trapezoidal. Dorsal and anal fins equal, longitudinal, with many rays. The whole body covered with large stone scales, lying in oblique rows; they are conical, pentagonal pentædral, with equal sides, from half an inch to one inch in diameter, brown at first but becoming the color of turtle-shell when dry. They strike fire with steel and are ball-proof!" [Illustration: FIG. 238.--Thread-eel, _Nemichthys avocetta_ Jordan & Gilbert. Puget Sound.] CHAPTER XXI CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES =Taxonomy.=--Classification, as Dr. Elliott Coues has well said,[147] is a natural function of "the mind which always strives to make orderly disposition of its knowledge and so to discover the reciprocal relations and interdependencies of the things it knows. Classification presupposes that there do exist such relations, according to which we may arrange objects in the manner which facilitates their comprehension, by bringing together what is like and separating what is unlike, and that such relations are the result of fixed inevitable law. It is therefore taxonomy (~taxis~, away; ~nomos~, law) or the rational, lawful disposition of observed facts." A perfect taxonomy is one which would perfectly express all the facts in the evolution and development of the various forms. It would recognize all the evidence from the three ancestral documents, palæontology, morphology, and ontogeny. It would consider structure and form independently of adaptive or physiological or environmental modifications. It would regard as most important those characters which had existed longest unchanged in the history of the species or type. It would regard as of first rank those characters which appear first in the history of the embryo. It would regard as of minor importance those which had arisen recently in response to natural selection or the forced alteration through pressure of environment, while fundamental alterations as they appear one after another in geologic time would make the basal characters of corresponding groups in taxonomy. In a perfect taxonomy or natural system of classification animals would not be divided into groups nor ranged in linear series. We should imagine series variously and divergently branched, with each group at its earlier or lower end passing insensibly into the main or primitive stock. A very little alteration now and then in some structure is epoch-making, and paves the way through specialization to a new class or order. But each class or order through its lowest types is interlocked with some earlier and otherwise diverging group. =Defects in Taxonomy.=--A sound system of taxonomy of fishes should be an exact record of the history of their evolution. But in the limitations of book-making, this transcript must be made on a flat page, in linear series, while for centuries and perhaps forever whole chapters must be left vacant and others dotted everywhere with marks of doubt. For science demands that positive assertion should not go where certainty cannot follow. A perfect taxonomy of fishes would be only possible through the study, by some Artedi, Müller, Cuvier, Agassiz, Traquair, Gill, or Woodward, of all the structures of all the fishes which have ever lived. There are many fishes living in the sea which are not yet known to any naturalist, many others are known from one or two specimens, but not yet accessible to students in other continents. Many are known externally from specimens in bottles or drawings in books, but have not been studied thoroughly by any one, and the vast multitude of species have perished in Palæozoic, Mesozoic, and Tertiary seas without leaving a tooth or bone or fin behind them. With all this goes human fallibility, the marring of our records, such as they are, by carelessness, prejudice, dependence, and error. Chief among these defects are the constant mistaking of analogy for homology, and the inability of men to trust their own eyes as against the opinion of the greater men who have had to form their opinions before all evidence was in. Because of these defects, the current system of classification is always changing with each accession of knowledge. The result is, again to quote from Dr. Coues, "that the natural classification, like the elixir of life or the philosopher's stone, is a goal far distant." =Analogy and Homology.=--_Analogy_, says Dr. Coues, "is the apparent resemblance between things really unlike--as the wing of a bird and the wing of a butterfly, as the lungs of a bird and the gills of a fish. _Homology_ is the real resemblance, or true relation between things, however different they may appear to be--as the wing of a bird and the foreleg of a horse, the lungs of a bird and the swim-bladder of a fish. The former commonly rests upon mere functional, i.e. physiological, modifications; the latter is grounded upon structural, i.e., morphological, identity or unity. Analogy is the correlative of physiology, homology of morphology; but the two may be coincident, as when structures identical in morphology are used for the same purposes, and are therefore physiologically identical. Physiological diversity of structure is incessant, and continually interferes with morphological identity of structure, to obscure or obliterate the indications of affinity the latter would otherwise express clearly.... We must be on our guard against those physiological appearances which are proverbially deceptive!" "It is possible and conceivable that every animal should have been constructed upon a plan of its own, having no resemblance whatever to the plan of any other animal. For any reason we can discover to the contrary, that combination of natural forces which we term life might have resulted from, or been manifested by, a series of infinitely diverse structures; nor would anything in the nature of the case lead us to suspect a community of organization between animals so different in habit and in appearance as a porpoise and a gazelle, an eagle and a crocodile, or a butterfly and a lobster. Had animals been thus independently organized, each working out its life by a mechanism peculiar to itself, such a classification as that now under contemplation would be obviously impossible; a morphological or structural classification plainly implying morphological or structural resemblances in the things classified. "As a matter of fact, however, no such mutual independence of animal forms exists in nature. On the contrary, the members of the animal kingdom, from the highest to the lowest, are marvelously connected. Every animal has something in common with all its fellows--much with many of them, more with a few, and usually so much with several that it differs but little from them. "Now, a morphological classification is a statement of these gradations of likeness which are observable in animal structures, and its objects and uses are manifold. In the first place, it strives to throw our knowledge of the facts which underlie, and are the cause of, the similarities discerned into the fewest possible general propositions, subordinated to one another, according to their greater or less degree of generality; and in this way it answers the purpose of a _memoria technica_, without which the mind would be incompetent to grasp and retain the multifarious details of anatomical science." =Coues on Classification.=--It is obvious that fishes like other animals may be classified in numberless ways, and as a matter of fact by numberless men they have been classified in all sorts of fashions. "Systems," again quoting from Dr. Coues, "have been based on this and that set of characters and erected from this or that preconception in the mind of the systematist.... The mental point of view was that every species of bird (or of fish) was a separate creature, and as much of a fixture in nature's museum as any specimen in a naturalist's cabinet. Crops of classifications have been sown in the fruitful soil of such blind error, but no lasting harvest has been reaped.... The genius of modern taxonomy seems to be so certainly right, to be tending so surely even if slowly in the direction of the desired consummation, that all differences of opinion we hope will soon be settled, and defect of knowledge, not perversity of mind, is the only obstacle in the way of success. The taxonomic goal is not now to find the way in which birds (or other animals) may be most conveniently arranged, but to discover their pedigree, and so construct their family tree. Such a genealogical table, or _phylum_ (~phylon~, tribe, race, stock), as it is called, is rightly considered the only taxonomy worthy the name--the only true or natural classification. In attempting this end, we proceed upon the belief that, as explained above, all birds, like all other animals and plants, are related to each other genetically, as offspring are to parents, and that to discover their generic relations is to bring out their true affinities--in other words, to reconstruct the actual taxonomy of nature. In this view there can be but one 'natural' classification, to the perfecting of which all increase in our knowledge of the structure of birds infallibly and inevitably tends. The classification now in use or coming into use is the result of our best endeavors to accomplish this purpose, and represents what approach we have made to this end. It is one of the great corollaries of that theorem of evolution which most naturalists are satisfied has been demonstrated. It is necessarily a _morphological classification_; that is, one based solely upon considerations of structure or form (~morphê~, form, _morphe_), and for the following reasons: Every offspring tends to take on precisely the form or structure of its parents, as its natural physical heritage; and the principle involved, or the _law of heredity_, would, if nothing interfered, keep the descendants perfectly true to the physical characters of their progenitors; they would 'breed true' and be exactly alike. But counter influences are incessantly operative, in consequence of constantly varying external conditions of environment; the plasticity of organization of all creatures rendering them more or less susceptible of modifications by such means, they become unlike their ancestors in various ways and to different degrees. On a large scale is thus accomplished, by natural selection and other natural agencies, just what man does in a small way in producing and maintaining different breeds of domestic animals. Obviously, amidst such ceaselessly shifting scenes, degrees of likeness or unlikeness of physical structure indicate with the greatest exactitude the nearness or remoteness of organisms in kinship. Morphological characters derived from the examination of structure are therefore the surest guides we can have to the blood relationships we desire to establish; and such relationships are the 'natural affinities' which all classification aims to discover and formulate." =Species as Twigs of a Genealogical Tree.=--In another essay Dr. Coues has compared species of animals to "the twigs of a tree separated from the parent stem. We name and arrange them arbitrarily in default of a means of reconstructing the whole tree according to nature's ramifications." If one had a tree, all in fragments, pieces of twig and stem, some of them lost, some destroyed, and some not yet separated from the mass not yet picked over, and wished to place each part where he could find it, he would be forced to adopt some system of natural classification. In such a scheme he would lay those parts together which grew from the same branch. If he were compelled to arrange all the fragments in a linear series, he would place together those of one branch, and when these were finished he would begin with another. If all this were a matter of great importance and extending over years or over many lifetimes, with many errors to be made and corrected, a set of names would be adopted--for the main trunk, for the chief branches, the lesser branches, and on down to the twigs and buds. A task of this sort on a world-wide scale is the problem of systematic zoology. There is reason to believe that all animals and plants sprang from a single stock. There is reasonable certainty that all vertebrate animals are derived from a single origin. These vertebrate animals stand related to each other, like the twigs of a gigantic tree of which the lowermost branches are the aquatic forms to which we give the name of fishes. The fishes are here regarded as composed of six classes or larger lines of descent. Each of these, again, is composed of minor divisions called orders. The different species or ultimate kinds of animals are grouped in genera. A genus is an assemblage of closely related species grouped around a central species as type. The type of a genus is, in common usage, that species with which the name of the genus was first associated. The name of the genus as a noun, often with that of the species which is an adjective in signification if not in form, constitutes the scientific name of the species. Thus _Petromyzon_ is the genus of the common large lamprey, _marinus_ is its species, and the scientific name of the species is _Petromyzon marinus_. _Petromyzon_ means stone-sucker; _marinus_, of the sea, thus distinguishing it from a species called _fluviatilis_, of the river. In like fashion all animals and plants are named in scientific record or taxonomy. Technical names are necessary because vernacular names fail. Half a million kinds of animals are known, while not half a thousand vernacular names exist in any language. And these are always loosely used, half a dozen of them often for the same species, one name often for a dozen species. In the same way, whenever we undertake an exact description, we must use names especially devised for that purpose. We cannot use the same names for the bones of the head of a fish and those of the head of a man, for a fish has a different series of bones, and this series is different with different fishes. =Nomenclature.=--A family in zoology is an assemblage of related genera. The name of a family, for convenience, always ends in the patronymic _idæ_, and it is always derived from the leading genus, that is, the one best known or earliest studied. Thus all lampreys constitute the family _Petromyzonidæ_. An order may contain one or more families. An order is a division of a larger group; a family an assemblage of related smaller groups. Intermediate groups are often recognized by the prefixes sub or super. A subgenus is a division of a genus. A subspecies is a geographic race or variation within a species; a super-family a group of allied families. Binomial nomenclature, or the use of the name of genus and species as a scientific name, was introduced into science as a systematic method by Linnæus. In the tenth edition of his Systema Naturæ, published in 1758, this method was first consistently applied to animals. By common consent the scientific naming of animals begins with this year, and no account is taken of names given earlier, as these are, except by accident, never binomial. Those authors who wrote before the adoption of the rule of binomials and those who neglected it are alike "ruled out of court." The idea of genus and species was well understood before Linnæus, but the specific name used was not one word but a descriptive phrase, and this phrase was changed at the whim of the different authors. [Illustration: FIG. 239.--Horned Trunkfish, Cowfish, or Cuckold, _Lactophrys tricornis_ (Linnæus). Charleston, S. C.] =Nomenclature of Trunkfishes.=--Examples of such names are those of the West Indian trunkfish, or cuckold (_Ostracion tricorne_, Linnæus). Lister refers to a specimen in 1686 as "_Piscis triangularis capiti cornutu cui e media cauda cutanea aculeus longus erigitus_." This Artedi alters in 1738 to _Ostracion triangulatus aculeis duobus in capite et unico longiore superne ad caudam_. This is more accurately descriptive and it recognizes the existence of a generic type, _Ostracion_, or trunkfish, to cover all similar fishes. French writers transformed this into various phrases beginning "Coffre triangulaire à trois cornes," or some similar descriptive epithet, and in English or German it was likely to wander still farther from the original. But Linnæus condenses it all in the word _tricornis_, which, although not fully descriptive, is still a name which all future observers can use and recognize. It is true that common consent fixes the date of the beginning of nomenclature at 1758. But to this there are many exceptions. Some writers date genera from the first recognition of a collective idea under a single name. Others follow even species back through the occasional accidental binomials. Most British writers have chosen the final and completed edition of the Systema Naturæ, the last work of Linnæus, in 1766, in preference to the earlier volume. But all things considered, justice and convenience alike seem best served by the use of the edition of 1758. =Synonymy and Priority.=--Synonymy is the record of the names applied at different times to the same group or species. With characteristic pungency Dr. Coues defines synonymy as "a burden and a disgrace to science." It has been found that the only way to prevent utter confusion is to use for each genus or species the first name applied to it and no other. The first name, once properly given, is sacred because it is the right name. All other later names whatever their appropriateness are wrong names. In science, of necessity, a name is a name without any necessary signification. For this reason and for the further avoidance of confusion, it remains as it was originally spelled by the author, obvious misprints aside, regardless of all possible errors in classical form or meaning. The names in use are properly written in Latin or in Latinized Greek, the Greek forms being usually preferred as generic names, the Latin adjectives for names of species. Many species are named in honor of individuals, these names being usually given the termination of the Latin genitive, as _Sebastodes gillii, Liparis agassizi_. In recent custom all specific names are written with the small initial; all generic names with the capital. One class of exceptions must be made to the law of priority. No generic name can be used twice among animals, and no specific name twice in the same genus. Thus the name _Diabasis_ has to be set aside in favor of the next name _Hæmulon_, because _Diabasis_ was earlier used for a genus of beetles. The specific name _Pristipoma humile_ is abandoned, because there was already a _humile_ in the genus _Pristipoma_. =The Conception of Genus.=--In the system of Linnæus, a genus corresponds roughly to the modern conception of a family. Most of the primitive genera contained a great variety of forms, as well as usually some species belonging to other groups disassociated from their real relationships. As greater numbers of species have become known the earlier genera have undergone subdivision until in the modern systems almost any structural character not subject to intergradation and capable of exact definition is held to distinguish a genus. As the views of these characters are undergoing constant change, and as different writers look upon them from different points of view, or with different ideas of convenience, we have constant changes in the boundaries of genera. This brings constant changes in the scientific names, although the same specific name should be used whatever the generic name to which it may be attached. We may illustrate these changes and the burden of synonymy as well by a concrete example. =The Trunkfishes.=--The horned trunkfish, or cuckold, of the West Indies was first recorded by Lister in 1686, in the descriptive phrase above quoted. Artedi, in 1738, recognized that it belonged with other trunkfishes in a group he called _Ostracion_. This, to be strictly classic, he should have written _Ostracium_, but he preferred a partly Greek form to the Latin one. In the Nagg's Head Inn in London, Artedi saw a trunkfish he thought different, having two spines under the tail, while Lister's figure seemed to show one spine above. This Nagg's Head specimen Artedi called "_Ostracion triangulatus duobus aculeis in fronte et totidem in imo ventre subcaudalesque binis_." Next came Linnæus, 1758, who named Lister's figure and the species it represented, _Ostracion tricornis_, which should in strictness have been _Ostracion tricorne_, as ~ostrakion~, a little box, is a neuter diminutive. The Nagg's Head fish he named _Ostracion quadricornis_. The right name now is _Ostracion tricornis_, because the name _tricornis_ stands first on the page in Linnæus' work, but _Ostracion quadricornis_ has been more often used by subsequent authors because it is more truthful as a descriptive phrase. In 1798, Lacépède changed the name of Lister's fish to _Ostracion listeri_, a needless alteration which could only make confusion. [Illustration: FIG. 240.--Horned Trunkfish, _Ostracion cornutum_ Linnæus. East Indies. (After Bleeker.)] In 1818, Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchill, receiving a specimen from below New Orleans, thought it different from _tricornis_ and _quadricornis_ and called it _Ostracion sexcornutus_; Dr. Holard, of Paris, in 1857, named a specimen _Ostracion maculatus_, and at about the same time Bleeker named two others from Africa which seem to be the same thing, _Ostracion guineensis_ and _Ostracion gronovii_. Lastly, Poey calls a specimen from Cuba _Acanthostracion polygonius_, thinking it different from all the rest, which it may be, although my own judgment is otherwise. This brings up the question of the generic name. Among trunkfishes there are four-angled and three-angled kinds, and of each form there are species with and without horns and spines. The original _Ostracion_ of Linnæus we may interpret as being _Ostracion cubicus_ of the coasts of Asia, a species similar to the _Ostracion rhinorhynchus_. This species, _cubicus_, we call the type species of the genus, as the Nagg's Head specimen of Artedi was the type specimen of the species _quadricornus_, and the one that was used for Lister's figure the type specimen of _tricornis_. _Ostracion cubicus_ is a four-angled species, and when the trunkfishes were regarded as a family (_Ostraciidæ_), the three-angled ones were set off as a separate genus. For this two names were offered, both by Swainson in 1839. For _trigonus_, a species without horns before the eyes, he gave the name _Lactophrys_, and for _triqueter_, a species without spines anywhere, the name of _Rhinesomus_. Most recent American authors have placed the three-cornered species which are mostly American in one genus, which must therefore be called _Lactophrys_. Of this name _Rhinesomus_ is a synonym, and our species should stand as _Lactophrys tricornis_. The fact that _Lactophrys_ as a word (from Latin _lætus_, smooth; Greek ~ophrys~, eyebrow; or else from _lactoria_, a milk cow, and ~ophrys~) is either meaningless or incorrectly written makes no difference with the necessity for its use. [Illustration: FIG. 241.--Spotted Trunkfish, _Lactophrys bicaudalis_ (Linnæus). Cozumel Island, Yucatan.] [Illustration: FIG. 242.--Spotted Trunkfish (face view), _Lactophrys bicaudalis_ (Linnæus).] In 1862, Bleeker undertook to divide these fishes differently. Placing all the hornless species, whether three-angled or four-angled, in _Ostracion_, he proposed the name _Acanthostracion_ for the species with horns, _tricornis_ being the type. But _Acanthostracion_ has not been usually adopted except as the name of a section under _Lactophrys_. The three-angled American species are usually set apart from the four-angled species of Asia, and our cuckold is called _Lactophrys tricornis_. But it may be with perfect correctness called _Ostracion tricorne_, in the spirit called conservative. Or with the "radical" systematists we may accept the finer definition and again correctly call it _Acanthostracion tricorne_. But to call it _quadricornis_ or _listeri_ or _maculatus_ with any generic name whatever would be to violate the law of priority. [Illustration: FIG. 243.--Spineless Trunkfish, _Lactophrys triqueter_ (Linnæus). Tortugas.] =Trinomial Nomenclature.=--By trinomial nomenclature we mean the use of a second subordinate specific name to designate a geographic subspecies, variety, or other intergrading race. Thus _Salmo clarki virginalis_ indicates the variety of Clark's trout, or the cut-throat trout, found in the lakes and streams of the Great Basin of Utah, as distinguished from the genuine _Salmo clarkii_ of the Columbia. Trinomials are not much used among fishes, as we are not yet able to give many of the local forms correct and adequate definition such as is awarded to similar variations among birds and mammals. Usually varieties in ichthyology count as species or as nothing. [Illustration: FIG. 244.--Hornless Trunkfish, _Lactophrys trigonus_ (Linnæus). Tortugas, Florida.] [Illustration: FIG. 245.--Hornless Trunkfish (face-view), _Lactophrys trigonus_ (Linnæus). Charleston, S. C.] =Meaning of Species.=--Quoting once more from the admirable essay of Dr. Coues on the taxonomy of birds: "The student cannot be too well assured that no such things as species, in the old sense of the word, exist in nature any more than have genera or families an actual existence. Indeed they cannot be, if there is any truth in the principles discussed in our earlier paragraphs. Species are simply ulterior modifications, which once were, if they be not still, inseparably linked together; and their nominal recognition is a pure convention, like that of a genus. More practically hinges upon the way we regard them than turns upon our establishment of higher groups, simply because upon the way we decide in this case depends the scientific labeling of specimens. If we are speaking of a robin, we do not ordinarily concern ourselves with the family or order it belongs to, but we do require a technical name for constant use. That name is compounded of its genus, species, and variety. No infallible rule can be laid down for determining what shall be held to be a species, what a conspecies, subspecies, or variety. It is a matter of tact and experience, like the appreciation of the value of any other group in zoology. There is, however, a convention upon the subject, which the present workers in ornithology in this country find available; at any rate we have no better rule to go by. We treat as "specific" any form, however little different from the next, that we do not know or believe to intergrade with that next one, between which and the next one no intermediate equivocal specimens are forthcoming, and none, consequently, are supposed to exist. This is to imply that differentiation is accomplished, the links are lost and the characters actually become "specific." We treat as "varietal" of each other any forms, however different in their extreme manifestation, which we know to intergrade, having the intermediate specimens before us, or which we believe with any good reason do intergrade. If the links still exist, the differentiation is still incomplete, and the characters are not specific, but only varietal, in the literal sense of these terms." =Generalization and Specialization.=--A few terms in common use may receive a moment's discussion. A type or group is said to be specialized when it has a relatively large number of peculiarities or when some one peculiarity is carried to an extreme. A sculpin is a specialized fish having many unusual phases of development, as is also a swordfish, which has a highly peculiar structure in the snout. A generalized type is one with fewer peculiarities, as the herring in comparison with the sculpin. In the process of evolution generalized types usually give place to specialized ones. Generalized types are therefore as a rule archaic types. The terms high and low are also relative, a high type being one with varied structure and functions. Low types may be primitively generalized, as the lancelet in comparison with all other fishes, or the herring in comparison with the perch, or they may be due to degradation, a loss of structures which have been elaborately specialized in their ancestry. The sea-snail (_Liparis_), an ally of the sculpin, with scales lost and fins deteriorated is an example of a low type which is specialized as well as degraded. =High and Low Forms.=--In the earlier history of ichthyology much confusion resulted from the misconception of the terms "high" and "low." Because sharks appeared earlier than bony fishes, it was assumed that they should be lower than any of their subsequent descendants. That the brain and muscular system in sharks was more highly developed than in most bony fishes seemed also certain. Therefore it was thought that the teleost series could not have had a common origin with the series of sharks. It is now understood that evolution means chiefly adaptation. The teleost is adapted to its mode of life, and to that end it is specialized in fin and skeleton rather than in brain and nerves. All degeneration is associated with specialization. The degeneration of the blindfish is a specialization for better adaptation to life in the darkness of caves; the degeneration of the deep-sea fish meets the demands of the depths, the degeneration of the globefish means the sinking of one line of functions in the extension of some other. Referring to his own work on the fossil fishes in the early forties, Professor Agassiz once said to the writer: "At that time I was on the verge of anticipating the views of Darwin, but it seemed to me that the facts were contrary to the theories of evolution. We had the highest fishes first." This statement leads us to consider what is meant by high and low. Undoubtedly the sharks are higher than the bony fishes in the sense of being nearer to the higher vertebrates. In brain, muscle, teeth, and reproductive structures they are also more highly developed. In all skeletal and cranial characters the sharks stand distinctly lower. But the essential fact, so far as evolution is concerned, is not that the sharks are high or low. They are, in almost all respects, distinctly generalized and primitive. The bony fishes are specialized in various ways through adaptation to the various modes of life they lead. Much of this specialization involves corresponding degeneration of organs whose functions have ceased to be important. As a broad proposition it is not true that "we had our highest fishes first," for in a complete definition of high and low, the specialized perch or bass stands higher. But whether true or not, it does not touch the question of evolution which is throughout a process of adaptation to conditions of life. Referring to the position of Agassiz and his early friend and disciple, Hugh Miller, Dr. Traquair (1900) uses these words in an address at Bradford, England: "It cannot but be acknowledged that the paleontology of fishes is not less emphatic in the support of descent than that of any other division of the animal kingdom. But in former days the evidence of fossil ichthyology was by some read otherwise. "It is now a little over forty years since Hugh Miller died: he who was one of the first collectors of the fossil fishes of the Scottish old red sandstone, and who knew these in some respects better than any other man of his time, not excepting Agassiz himself. Yet his life was spent in a fierce denunciation of the doctrine of evolution, then only in its Lamarckian form, as Darwin had not yet electrified the world with his 'Origin of Species.' Many a time I wonder greatly what Hugh Miller would have thought had he lived a few years longer, so as to have been able to see the remarkable revolution which was wrought by the publication of that book. "The main argument on which Miller rested was the 'high' state of organization of the ancient fishes of the Paleozoic formations, and this was apparently combined with a confident assumption of the completeness of the geological record. As to the first idea, we know of course that evolution means the passage from the more general to the more special, and that as the general result an onward advance has taken place; yet 'specialization' does not always or necessarily mean 'highness' of organization in the sense in which the term is usually employed. As to the idea of the perfection of the geological record, that of course is absurd. "We do not and cannot know the oldest fishes, as they would not have had hard parts for preservation, but we may hope to come to know many more old ones, and older ones still than we do at present. My experience on the subject of fossil ichthyology is that it is not likely to become exhausted in our day. "We are introduced at a period far back in geological history to certain groups of fishes, some of which certainly are high in organization as animals, but yet of generalized type, being fishes and yet having the potentiality of higher forms. But because their ancestors are unknown to us, that it is no evidence that they did not exist, and cannot overthrow the morphological testimony in favor of evolution with which the record actually does furnish us. We may therefore feel very sure that fishes or 'fish-like vertebrates' lived long ages before the oldest forms with which we are acquainted came into existence. "The modern type of bony fishes, though not so 'high' in many anatomical points as that of the Selachii, Crossopterygii, Dipnoi, Acipenseroidei, and Lepidosteoidei of the Palæozoic and Mesozoic eras, is more specialized in the direction of the fish proper, and, as already indicated, specialization and 'highness' in the ordinary sense of the word are not necessarily coincident. But ideas about these things have undergone a wonderful change since those pre-Darwinian days, and though we shall never be able fully to unravel the problems concerning the descent of animals, we see many things a great deal more clearly now than we did then." Dr. Gill observes: "Perhaps there are no words in science that have been productive of more mischief and more retarded the progress of biological taxonomy than those words pregnant with confusion, High and Low, and it were to be wished that they might be erased from scientific terminology. They deceive the person to whom they are addressed. They insensibly mislead the one who uses them. Psychological prejudices and fancies are so inextricably associated with these words that the use of them is provocative of such ideas. The words, generalized and specialized, having become almost limited to the expression of the ideas which the scientific biologist wishes to unfold by the others, can with great gain be employed in their stead." ("Families of Fishes," 1872.) =The Problem of the Highest Fishes.=--As to which fishes should be ranked highest and which lowest, Dr. Gill gives ("Families of Fishes," 1872) the following useful discussion: "While among the mammals there is almost universal concurrence as to the forms entitled to the first as well as the last places, naturalists differ much as to the 'highest' of the ichthyoid vertebrates, but are all of one accord respecting the form to be designated as the 'lowest.' With that admitted lowest form as a starting-point, inquiry may be made respecting the forms which are successively _most nearly related_. "No dissent has ever been expressed from the proposition that the Leptocardians (_Branchiostoma_) are the lowest of the vertebrates; while they have doubtless deviated much from the representatives of the immediate line of descent of the higher vertebrates, and are probably specialized considerably, in some respects, in comparison with those vertebrates from which they (in common with the higher forms) have descended, they undoubtedly have diverged far less, and furnish a better hint as to the protovertebrates than any other form. "Equally undisputed it is that most nearly related to the Leptocardians are the Marsipobranchiates (_Lampreys_, etc.), and the tendency has been rather to overlook the fundamental differences between the two, and to approximate them too closely, than the reverse. "But here unanimity ends, and much difference of opinion has prevailed with respect to the succession in the system of the several subclasses (by whatever name called) of true fishes: (1) Some (e.g., Cuvier, J. Müller, Owen, Lütken, Cope) arranging next to the lowest the Elasmobranchiates, and, as successive forms, the Ganoids and Teleosteans; (2) while others (e.g., Agassiz, Dana, Duméril, Günther) adopt the sequence Leptocardians, Marsipobranchiates, Teleosteans, Ganoids, and Elasmobranchiates. The source of this difference of opinion is evident and results partly from metaphysical or psychological considerations, and partly from those based (in the case of the Ganoids) on real similarities and affinities. "The evidence in favor of the title of the Elasmobranchiates to the 'highest' rank is based upon (1) the superior development of the brain; (2) the development of the egg, and the ovulation; (3) the possession of a placenta; and (4) the complexity of the organs of generation. "(1) It has not been definitely stated wherein the superior development of the brain consists, and as it is not evident to the author, the vague claim can only be met by this simple statement; it may be added, however, that the brains comparable in essentials and most similar as a whole to those of the Marsipobranchiates are those of the sharks. In answer to the statement that the sharks exhibit superior intelligence, and thus confirm the indications of cerebral structure, it may be replied that the impression is a subjective one, and the author has not been thus influenced by his own observations of their habits. Psychological manifestations, at any rate, furnish too vague criteria to be available in exact taxonomy. "(2) If the development of the eggs, their small number, and their investment in cases are arguments in favor of the high rank of the Elasmobranchiates, they are also for the Marsipobranchiates, and thus prove too much or too little for the advocates of the views discussed. The variation in number of progeny among true fishes (e.g., Cyprinodonts, _Embiotocids_) also demonstrates the unreliability of those modifications _per se_. "(3) The so-called placenta of some Elasmobranchiates may be _analogous_ to that of mammals, but that it is not _homologous_ (i.e., homogenetic) is demonstrable from the fact that all the forms intervening between them and the specialized placental mammals are devoid of a placenta, and by the variation (presence or want) among the Elasmobranchiates themselves. "(4) The organs of generation in the Elasmobranchiates are certainly more complex than in most other fishes, but as the complexity results from specialization of parts _sui generis_ and different from those of the higher (quadruped) vertebrates, it is not evident what bearing the argument has. If it is claimed simply on the ground of specialization, irrespective of homological agreement with admitted higher forms, then are we equally entitled to claim any specialization of parts as evidence of high rank, or at least we have not been told within what limits we should be confined. The Cetaceans, for example, are excessively specialized mammals, and, on similar grounds, would rank above the other mammals and man; the aye-aye exhibits in its dentition excessive specialization and deviation from the primitive type (as exhibited in its own milk teeth) of the Primates, and should thus also rank above man. It is true that in other respects the higher primates (even including man) may be more specialized, but the specialization is not as obvious as in the cases referred to, and it is not evident how we are to balance _irrelative_ specializations against each other, or even how we shall subordinate such cases. We are thus compelled by the _reductio ad absurdum_ to the confession that irrelative specialization of single organs is untrustworthy, and are fain to return to that better method of testing affinities by the equation of agreement in whole and after the elimination of special teleological modifications. "The question then recurs, What forms are the most _nearly allied_ to the Marsipobranchiates, and what show the closest approach in _characteristic_ features? And in response thereto the evidence is not undecisive. Wide as is the gap between Marsipobranchiates and fishes, and comparatively limited as is the range of the latter among themselves, the Elasmobranchiates are very appreciably more like, and share more characters in common with them, than any other; so much is this the case that some eminent naturalists (e.g., Pallas, Geoffroy, St. Hilaire, Latreille, Agassiz, formerly Lütken) have combined the two forms in a peculiar group, contradistinguished from the other fishes. The most earnest and extended argument in English, in favor of this combination has been published by Professor Agassiz in his 'Lake Superior,' but that eminent naturalist subsequently arrived at the opposite conclusions already indicated. "The evidences of the closer affinity of the Elasmobranchiates (than of any other fishes) with the Marsipobranchiates are furnished by (1) the cartilaginous condition of the skeleton; (2) the post-cephalic position of the branchiæ; (3) the development of the branchiæ and their restriction to special chambers; (4) the larger number of the branchiæ; (5) the imperfect development of the skull; (6) the mode of attachment of the teeth; (7) the slight degree of specialization of the rays of the fins; and (8) the rudimentary condition of the shoulder-girdle." FOOTNOTES: [147] Key to North American Birds. CHAPTER XXII THE HISTORY OF ICHTHYOLOGY Science consists of human experience, tested and placed in order. The science of ichthyology represents our knowledge of fishes, derived from varied experiences of man, tested by methods or instruments of precision and arranged in orderly sequence. This science, in common with every other, is the work of many persons, each in his own field, and each contributing a series of facts, a series of tests of the alleged facts of others, or some improvement in the method of arrangement. As in other branches of science, this work has been done by sincere, devoted men, impelled by a love for this kind of labor, and having in view, as "the only reward they asked, a grateful remembrance of their work." And in token of this reward it is well sometimes, in grateful spirit, to go over the names of those who made even its present stage of completeness possible. We may begin the history of ichthyology with that of so many others of the sciences, with the work of Aristotle (383-322 B.C.). This wonderful observer recorded many facts concerning the structure and habits of the fishes of Greece, and in almost every case his actual observation bears the closest modern test. These observations were hardly "set in order." The number of species he knew was small, about 118 in all, and it did not occur to him that they needed classification. His ideas of species were those of the fishermen, and the local vernacular supplied him with the only names needed in his records. As Dr. Günther wisely observes, "It is less surprising that Aristotle should have found so many truths as that none of his followers should have added to them." For nearly 1800 years the scholars of the times copied the words of Aristotle, confusing them by the addition of fabulous stories and foolish superstitions, never going back to nature herself, "who leads us to absolute truth whenever we wander." A few observations were made by Caius Plinius, Claudius Ælianus, Athenæus and others. Theophrastus (370-270 B.C.) wrote on the fishes which may live out of water. About 400 A.D., Decius Magnus Ausonius wrote a pleasing little poem on the Moselle, setting forth the merits of its various fishes. It was not, however, until the middle of the seventeenth century that any advance was made in the knowledge of fishes. At that time the development of scholarship among the nations of Europe was such that a few wise men were able to grasp the idea of species. In 1553, Pierre Bélon (1518-64) published his octavo volume of 448 pages, entitled "De Aquatilibus," in which numerous (110) species of fishes of the Mediterranean were described, with tolerable figures, and with these is a creditable attempt at classification. At about this time Ulysses Aldrovandi, of Bologna, founded the first museum of natural history and wrote on the fishes it contained. In 1554-58, Ippolito Salviani (1513-72), a physician at Rome, published a work entitled "Aquatilium Animalium Historia," with good figures of most of the species, together with much general information as to the value and habits of animals of the sea. More important than these, but almost simultaneous with them, is the great work of Guillaume Rondelet (1507-57), "De Piscibus Marinus" (1554-55), at first written in Latin, later translated into French and enlarged under other titles. In this work, 244 different species, chiefly from the Mediterranean, are fairly described, and the various fables previously current are subjected to severe scrutiny. Recognizable woodcuts represent the different species. Classification, Rondelet had none, except as simple categories for purposes of convenience. More than usual care is given to the vernacular names, French and Greek. He closes his book with these words: "Or s'il en i a qui prennent les choses tant à la rigueur, qui ne veulent rien apparouver qui ne soit du tout parfait, je les prie de bien bon cueur de traiter telle, ou quelque autre histoire parfaitement, sans qu'il i ait chose quelconque à redire et la receverons é haut louerons bien vouluntiers. Cependant je scai bien, et me console . . . avec grand travail . . . qu'on pourra trouver plusieurs bones choses e dignes de louange ou proufit é contentement des homes studieux é à l'honneur é grandissime admiration des tres excellens é perfaits oeuvres de Dieu." And with the many "bones choses" of the work of Rondelet, men were too long satisfied, and it was not until the impulse of commerce had brought them face to face with new series of animals not found in the Mediterranean that the work of investigating fishes was again resumed. About 1640, Prince Moritz (Maurice) of Nassau (1604-79) visited Brazil, taking with him two physicians, Georg Marcgraf (1610-44) and Wilhelm Piso. In the great work "Historia Naturalis Brasiliæ," published at Leyden (1648), Marcgraf described about one hundred species, all new to science, under Portuguese names and with a good deal of spirit and accuracy. This work was printed by Piso after Marcgraf's death, and his colored drawings--long afterward used by Bloch--are in the "History of Brazil" reduced to small and crude woodcuts. This is the first study of a local fish fauna outside the Mediterranean region and it reflects great credit on Marcgraf and on the illustrious prince whose assistant he was. There were no other similar attempts of importance in ichthyology for a hundred years, when Per Osbeck, an enthusiastic student of Linnæus, published (1757) the records of his cruise to China, under the name of "Iter Chinensis." At about the same time another of Linnæus' students, Fredrik Hasselquist, published, in his "Iter Palestinum" the account of his discoveries of fishes in Palestine and Egypt. More pretentious than these and of much value as an early record is Mark Catesby's (1679-1749) "Natural History of Carolina and the Bahamas," published in 1749, with large colored plates which are fairly correct except in those cases in which the drawing was made from memory. At about the same time, Hans Sloane (1660-1752) published his large volume on the "Fishes of Jamaica," Patrick Browne (1720-90) wrote on the fishes of the same region, while Father Charles Plumier (1646-1704) made paintings of the fishes of Martinique, long after used by Bloch and Lacépède. Dr. Alexander Garden (1730-91), of Charleston, S. C., collected fishes for Linnæus, as did also Dr. Pehr Kalm in his travels in the northern parts of the American colonies. With the revival of interest in general anatomy several naturalists took up the structure of fishes. Among these Günther mentions Borelli, Malpighi, Swammerdam, and Duverney. Other anatomists of later dates were Albrecht von Heller (1708-77), Peter Camper (1722-89), Felix Vicq d'Azyr (1748-94), and Alexander Monro (1783). The basis of classification was first fairly recognized by John Ray (1628-1705) and Francis Willughby (1635-72), who, with other and varied scientific labors, undertook, in the "Historia Piscium," published in Oxford in 1686, to bring order out of the confusion left by their predecessors. This work, edited by Ray after Willughby's death, is ostensibly the work of Willughby with additions by Ray. In this work 420 species were recorded, 180 of which were actually examined by the authors, and the arrangement chosen by them pointed the way to a final system of nomenclature. Direct efforts in this direction, with a fairly clear recognition of genera as well as species, were made by Lorenz Theodor Gronow, called Gronovius, a German naturalist of much acumen, and by Jacob Theodor Klein (1685-1757), whose work, "Historic Naturalis Piscium," published about 1745, is of less importance, not being much of an advance over the catalogue of Rondelet. Far greater than any of these investigators, and earlier than either Klein or Gronow, was he who has been justly called the Father of Ichthyology, Petrus (Peter) Artedi (1705-35). Artedi was born in Sweden. He was a fellow student of Linnæus at Upsala, and he devoted his short life wholly to the study of fishes. He went to Holland to examine the collection of East and West Indian fishes of a rich Dutch merchant in Amsterdam named Albert Seba, and there at the age of twenty-nine he was, by accident, drowned in one of the Dutch canals. "His manuscripts were fortunately rescued by an Englishman, Cliffort," and they were edited and published by Linnæus in a series of five parts or volumes. Artedi divided the class of fishes into orders, and these orders again into genera, the genera into species. The name of each species consisted of that of the genus with a descriptive phrase attached. This cumbersome system, called polynomial, used by Artedi, Gronow, Klein, and others, was a great advance on the shifting vernacular, of which it now took the place. But the polynomial method as a system was of short duration. Linnæus soon substituted for it the convenient, in fact inevitable binomial system which has now endured for 150 years, and which with certain modifications must form the permanent substructure of the nomenclature in systematic zoology and botany. The genera of Artedi are in almost all cases natural groups, corresponding essentially equivalent to the families of to-day. Families in ichthyology were first clearly recognized and defined by Cuvier. The following is a list of Artedi's genera and their arrangement: ORDER MALACOPTERYGII. _Syngnathus_ (pipefishes) (4 species). _Cobitis_ (loaches) (3). _Cyprinus_ (carp and dace) (19). _Clupea_ (herrings) (4). _Argentina_ (argentines) (1). _Exocoetus_ (flying-fishes) (2). _Coregonus_ (whitefishes) (4). _Osmerus_ (smelts) (2). _Salmo_ (salmon and trout) (10). _Esox_ (pike) (3). _Echeneis_ (remoras) (1). _Coryphæna_ (dolphins) (3). _Ammodytes_ (sand-launces) (1). _Pleuronectes_ (flounders) (10). _Stromateus_ (butter-fishes) (1). _Gadus_ (codfishes) (11). _Anarhichas_ (wolf-fishes) (1). _Muræna_ (eels) (6). _Ophidion_ (cusk-eels) (2). _Anableps_ (four-eyed fish) (1). _Gymnotus_ (carapos) (1). _Silurus_ (catfishes) (1). ORDER ACANTHOPTERYGII. _Blennius_ (blennies) (5). _Gobius_ (gobies) (4). _Xiphias_ (swordfishes) (1). _Scomber_ (mackerels) (5). _Mugil_ (mullets) (1). _Labrus_ (wrasses) (9). _Sparus_ (porgies) (15). _Sciæna_ (croakers) (2). _Perca_ (perch and bass) (7). _Trachinus_ (weavers) (2). _Trigla_ (gurnards) (10). _Scorpæna_ (scorpion-fishes) (2). _Cottus_ (sculpins) (5). _Zeus_ (john dories, etc.) (3). _Chætodon_ (butterfly-fishes) (4). _Gasterosteus_ (sticklebacks) (3). _Lepturus_ (cutlass-fishes) (=_Trichiurus_) (1). ORDER BRANCHIOSTEGI. _Balistes_ (trigger-fishes) (6). _Ostracion_ (trunkfishes) (22). _Cyclopterus_ (lumpfishes) (1). _Lophius_ (anglers) (1). ORDER CHONDROPTERYGII. _Petromyzon_ (lampreys) (3). _Acipenser_ (sturgeons) (2). _Squalus_ (sharks) (14). _Raja_ (rays) (11). In all 47 genera and 230 species of fishes were known from the whole world in 1738. The cetaceans, or whales, constitute a fifth order, Plagiuri, in Artedi's scheme. As examples of the nomenclature of species I may quote: "_Zeus ventre aculeato, cauda in extremo circinata._" This polynomial expression was shortened by Linnæus to _Zeus faber_. The species was called by Rondelet "_Faber sive Gallus Marinus_" and by other authors "_Piscis Jovii_." "Jovii" suggested _Zeus_ to Artedi, and Rondelet's name _faber_ became the specific name. "_Anarhichas Lupus marinus nostras._" This became with Linnæus "_Anarhichas lupus_." "_Clupea, maxilla inferiore longiore, maculis nigris carens: Harengus vel Chalcis Auctorum, Herring vel Hering Anglis, Germanis Belgis._" This became _Clupea harengus_ in the convenient binomial system of Linnæus. The great naturalist of the eighteenth century, Carl von Linné, known academically as Carolus Linnæus, was the early associate and close friend of Artedi, and from Artedi he obtained practically all his knowledge of fishes. Linnæus, professor in the University of Upsala and for a time its rector, primarily a botanist, was a man of wonderful erudition, and his great strength lay in his skill in the orderly arrangement of things. In his lifetime, his greatest work, the "Systema Naturæ," passed through twelve editions. In the tenth edition, in 1758, the binomial system of nomenclature was first consistently applied to all animals. For this reason most naturalists use the date of its publication as the beginning of zoological nomenclature, although the English naturalists have generally preferred the more complete twelfth edition, published in 1766. This difference in the recognized starting-point has been often a source of confusion, as in several cases the names of species were needlessly changed by Linnæus and given differently in the twelfth edition. In taxonomy it is not nearly so important that a name be pertinent or even well chosen as that it be stable. In changing his own established names, the father of classification set a bad example to his successors, one which they did not fail to follow. In Linnæus' system (tenth and twelfth editions) all of Artedi's genera were retained save _Lepturus_, which name was changed to _Trichiurus_. The following new genera were added: _Chimæra_, _Tetraodon_, _Diodon_, _Centriscus_, _Pegasus_, _Callionymus_, _Uranoscopus_, _Cepola_, _Mullus_, _Teuthis_, _Loricaria_, _Fistularia_, _Atherina_, _Mormyrus_, _Polynemus_, _Amia_, _Elops_. The classification was finally much altered: the Chondropterygia and Branchiostegi (with _Syngnathus_) being called _Amphibia Nantes_, and divided into two groups--_Spiraculis compositis_ and _Spiraculis solitariis_. The other fishes were more naturally distributed according to the position of the ventral fins into Pisces Apodes, Jugulares, Thoracici, and Abdominales. The Apodes of Linnæus do not form a homogeneous group, as members of various distinct groups have lost their ventral fins in the process of evolution. But the Jugulares, the Thoracici, and the Abdominales must be kept as valid categories in any natural system. Linnæus' contributions to zoology consisted mainly of the introduction of his most ingenious and helpful system of bookkeeping. By it naturalists of all lands were able to speak of the same species by the same name in whatever tongue. Unfortunately, ignorance, carelessness, and perversity brought about a condition of confusion. For a long period many species were confounded under one name. This source of confusion began with Linnæus himself. On the other hand, even with Linnæus, the same species often appeared under several different names; in this matter it was not the system of naming which was at fault. It was the lack of accurate knowledge, and sometimes the lack of just and conscientious dealing with the work of other men. No system of naming can go beyond the knowledge on which it rests. Ignorance of fact produces confusion in naming. The earlier naturalists had no conception of the laws of geographical distribution. The "Indies," East or West, were alike to them, and "America" or "India" or "Africa" was a sufficiently exact record of the origin of any specimen. Moreover, no thought of the geological past of groups and species had yet arisen, and without the conception of common origin, the facts of homology had no significance. All classification was simply a matter of arbitrary pigeon-holing the records of forms, rather than an expression of actual blood relationship. To this confusion much was added through love of novelty. Different authors changed names to suit their personal tastes regardless of rights of priority. _Amia_ was altered to _Amiatus_ by Rafinesque in 1815 because it was too short a name. _Hiodon_ was changed to _Amphiodon_ because it sounded too much like _Diodon_, _Batrachoides_ to _Batrictius_ because ~batrachos~ means a frog, not a fish, and other changes even more wanton were introduced, to be condemned and discarded by the more methodical workers of a later period. With all its abuses, however, the binomial nomenclature made possible systematic zoology and botany, and with the "Systema Naturæ" arose a new era in the science of living organisms. In common with most naturalists of his day, the spirit of Linnæus was essentially a devout one. Admiration for the wonderful works of God was breathed on almost every page. "O Jehovah! quam ampla sunt opera Tua" is on the title-page of the "Systema Naturæ," and the inscription over the door of his home at Hammarby was to Linnæus the wisdom of his life. This inscription read: "Innocue vivito: Numen adest" (Live blameless: God is here). The followers of Linnæus are divided into two classes, explorers and compilers. To the first class belonged his own students and others who ransacked all lands for species to be added to the lists of the "Systema Naturæ." Those men, mostly Scandinavian and Dutch, worked with wonderful zeal, enduring every hardship and making great contributions to knowledge, which they published in more or less satisfactory forms. To these men we owe the beginnings of the science of geographical distribution. Among the most notable of these are Pehr Osbeck and Fredrik Hasselquist, already noted; Otto Fabricius (1744-1822), author of an excellent "Fauna of Greenland"; Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-), successor of Linnæus as rector of the University of Upsala, who collected fishes about Nagasaki, intrusting most of the descriptive work to the less skillful hands of his students, Jonas Nicolas Ahl and Martin Houttuyn; Martin Th. Brünnich, who collected at Marseilles the materials for his "Pisces Massiliensis"; Petrus Forskål (1736-63), whose work on the fishes of the Red Sea ("Descriptio Animalium," etc.), published posthumously in 1775, is one of the most accurate of faunal lists, and one which shows a fine feeling for taxonomic distinctions scarcely traceable in any previous author. Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-45), naturalist of Bering's expedition, gathered amid incredible hardships the first knowledge of the fishes of Alaska and Siberia, his notes being printed after his tragic death, by Pallas and Krascheninnikov. Petrus Simon Pallas (1741-1811) gives the account of his travels in the North Pacific in his most valuable volumes, "Zoographia Russo-Asiatica"; Johann Georg Gmelin (1709-55) with Samuel Theophilus Gmelin (1745-84), and Johann Anton Güldenstädt (1745-91), like Steller, crossed Siberia, recording its animals. Johann David Schöpf (1752-1800), a Hessian surgeon stationed at Long Island in the Revolutionary War, gave an excellent account of the fishes about New York. Still other naturalists accompanied navigators around the globe, collecting specimens and information as opportunity offered. John Reinhold Forster (1729-98), with his son, John George Adam Forster (1754-94), and Daniel Solander (1736-81), a student of Linnæus, and Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), sailed with Captain James Cook. Philibert Commerson (1727-73) accompanied the explorer, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, and furnished nearly all the original material used by Lacépède. Other noted travelers of the early days were Pierre Sonnerat and Mungo Park. Still other naturalists, scarcely less useful, gave detailed accounts of the fauna of their own native regions. Ablest of these was Anatole Risso, an apothecary of Nice, who published in 1810 the "Ichthyologie de Nice," an excellent work, afterward (1826) expanded by him into a "Histoire Naturelle de l'Europe Méridionalé." Contemporary with Risso was a man of very different character, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1784-1842), who wrote at Palermo in 1810 his "Caratteri di Alcuni Nuovi Generi" and his "Ittiologia Siciliana." Later he went to America, where he was for a time professor in the Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky. Brilliant, erudite, irresponsible, fantastic, he wrote of the fishes of Sicily and later ("Ichthyologia Ohiensis," 1820) of the fishes of the Ohio River, with wide knowledge, keen taxonomic insight, and a hopeless disregard of the elementary principles of accuracy. Always eager for novelties, restless and credulous, his writings have been among the most difficult to interpret of any in ichthyology. Earlier than Risso and Rafinesque, Thomas Pennant (1726-58) wrote of the British fishes; Otto Fredrik Müller of the fishes of Denmark; J. E. Gunner, Bishop of Thröndhjem, of fishes of Norway; Francis Valentijn (1660-1730), Jan Nieuhof (1600-1671), Renard, and Castour of the fishes of the Dutch East Indies; Duhamel du Monceau of the fisheries of France; Francesco Cette of the fishes of Sicily; José Cornide of the fishes of Spain; Ignacio Molina of the fishes of Chile; and Meidinger of those of Austria. Some of these writers lived before Linnæus. Others knew little of the Linnæan system, and their records are generally in the vernacular. Most important of this class is the work of Antonio Parra, "Descripcion de Diferentes Piezas de Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba," published in Havana in 1787. In 1803, Patrick Russell gave a valuable account, non-binomial, of "Two Hundred Fishes Collected at Vizagapatam and on the Coast of Coromandel." Papers on the fishes of Bering Sea and Japan by Wilhelm Theophilus Tilesius (1775-1835), are published in the transactions of the early societies of Russia. The collections of the traveler Krusenstern were recorded by Tilesius. Stephen Krascheninnikov (1786) wrote a history of Russia in Asia. Other notable names among the early writers are those of Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet, of Montpelier, whose work (1780), too soon cut short, showed marked promise; Fr. Faber, who wrote of the fishes of Iceland; E. Blyth, who studied the fishes of the Andamans; A. G. Desmarest, who made excellent studies of the fishes of Cuba; J. T. Kölreuter and Everard Home in the East Indies; Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, who recorded the fishes of Egypt at the command of Napoleon. Others equally notable were B. A. Euphrasen, Iwan Lepechin (1750-1802), John Latham, W. E. Leach, George Montagu, C. Quensel, Jean-Antoine Scopoli, Peter Ascanius, Francois Etienne de la Roche (1789-1812), Hans Ström, M. Vahl and Zuieuw. The compilers who followed Linnæus belonged to a wholly different class. These were men of extensive learning, methodical ways, sometimes brilliant, occasionally of deep insight, but more often, on the whole, dull, plodding, and mechanical. Earliest of those is Antoine Gouan, whose "Historia Piscium" was published in Paris in 1770. In this work, which is of fair quality, only genera were included, and the three new ones which he introduces into the "System" (_Lepadogaster_, _Lepidopus_, and _Trachypterus_) are still retained with his definition of them. Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1748-1804), a relative of the explorers of Siberia, published in 1788 a thirteenth edition of the "Systema Naturæ" of Linnæus, adding to it the discoveries of Forskål, Forster, and others who had written since Linnæus' time. This work was useful as bringing the compilation of Linnæus to a later date, but it is not well done, the compiler having little knowledge of the animals described and little penetration in matters of taxonomy. Very similar in character, although more lucid in expression, is the French compilation of the same date (1788), "Tableau Encyclopédique et Méthodique des Trois Règnes de la Nature," by the Abbé J. P. Bonnaterre. Another volume of the "Encyclopédie Méthodique," of still less merit, was published as a dictionary in Paris in 1787 by Réné Just Haüy. Another dictionary in 1817 even poorer was the work of Hippolyte Cloquet. In 1792, Johann Julius Walbaum (1721-1800), a German compiler of a little higher rank, gathered together the records of all known species, using the work of Artedi as a basis and giving binominal names in place of the vernacular terms used by Schöpf, Steller, Pennant, and Krascheninnikov. Far more pretentious and more generally useful, as well as containing a large amount of original material, is the "Ichthyologia" of Mark Eliezer Bloch, published in Berlin in various parts from 1782 to 1785. It was originally in German and divided into two portions--"Oeconomische Naturgeschichte der Fische Deutschlands" and "Naturgeschichte der auslandischen Fische." Bloch was a Jewish physician, born at Anspach in 1723, and at the age of fifty-six began to devote himself to ichthyology. In his great work is contained every species which he had himself seen, every one which he could purchase from collections, and every one of which he could find drawings made by others. That part which relates to the fishes of Germany is admirably done. In the treatment of East Indian and American fishes there is much guesswork and many errors of description and of fact, for which the author was not directly responsible. To learn to interpret the personal equation in the systematic work of other men is one of the most delicate of taxonomic arts. After the publication of these great folio volumes of plates, Dr. Bloch began a systematic catalogue to include all known species. This was published after his death by his collaborator, the philologist, Dr. Johann Gottlob Schneider. This work, "M. E. Blochii Systema Ichthyologia," contains 1519 species of fishes, and is the most creditable compilation subsequent to the death of Linnæus. Even more important than the work of Bloch is that of the Comte de La Cépède, who became with the progress of the French Revolution, "Citoyen Lacépède," his original full name being Bernard Germain Etienne de la Ville-sur-Illon, Comte de La Cépède. His great work, "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," was published originally in five volumes, in Paris, from 1798 to 1803. It was brought out under great difficulties, his materials being scattered, his country in a constant tumult. For original material he depended largely on the collections and sagacious notes of the traveler Commerson. Dr. Gill sums up the strength and weakness of Lacépède's work in these terms: "A work by an able man and eloquent writer even prone to aid rhetoric by the aid of the imagination in absence of desirable facts, but which because of undue confidence in others, default of comparison of material from want thereof and otherwise, and carelessness generally is entirely unreliable." The work of Lacépède had a great influence upon subsequent investigators, especially in France. A considerable number of the numerous new genera of Rafinesque were founded on divisions made in the analytical keys of Lacépède. [Illustration: BERNARD GERMAIN DE LACÉPÈDE. GEORGES DAGOBERT CUVIER. LOUIS AGASSIZ. JOHANNES MÜLLER.] In 1803 and 1804, Dr. George Shaw published in London his "General Zoology," the fishes forming part of volumes IV and V. This is a poor compilation, the part concerning the fishes being mostly extracted from Bloch and Lacépède. Another weak compilation for the supposed use of students was the "Ichthyologie Analytique" of A. M. Constant Duméril. About 1815, Henri Ducrotay de Blainville wrote the "Faune Française" and contributed important studies to the taxonomy of sharks. With Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (1769-1832) and the "Règne Animal arrangé aprés son Organization" (1817; 1829-30) we have the beginning of a new era in ichthyology. This period is characterized by a recognition of the existence of a natural classification inevitable in proportion to the exactness of our knowledge, because based on the principles of morphology. The "Règne Animal" is, in the history of ichthyology, not less important than the "Systema Naturæ" itself, and from it dates practically our knowledge of families of fishes and the interrelations of the different groups. The great facts of homology were clearly understood by Cuvier. Their significance as indications of lines of descent were never grasped by him, and this notwithstanding the fact that Cuvier was almost the first to bring extinct forms into proper relations with those now living. Dr. Günther well says that the investigation of anatomy of fishes was continued by Cuvier until he had succeeded in completing so perfect a framework of the system of the whole class that his immediate successors could content themselves with filling up those details for which their master had no leisure. Indefatigable in examining all the external and internal characters of the fishes of a rich collection, he ascertained the natural affinities of the infinite variety of fishes, and accurately defined the divisions, orders, families, and genera of the class as they appear in the two original editions of the "Règne Animal." His industry equaled his genius; he opened connections with almost every accessible part of the globe; not only French travelers and naturalists, but also Germans, Englishmen, Americans rivaled one another to assist him with collections; and for many years the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes was the Center where all ichthyological treasures were deposited. Thus Cuvier brought together a collection the like of which had never been seen before, and which, as it contains all the materials on which his labors were based, must still be considered to be one of the most important in existence. "Those little low rooms, five in number" (in the museum of the Jardin des Plantes), "they should be the Mecca of scientific devotees. Perhaps every great zoologist of the past hundred years has sat in them and discussed those problems of life which are always inviting solution and are never solved. The spirits of great naturalists still haunt these corridors and speak from the specimens their hands have set in order." (THEODORE LYMAN.) Cuvier's studies of the different species of fishes are contained in the great "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," the joint work of Cuvier and his pupil and successor, Achille Valenciennes (1794-1865). Of this work 22 volumes were published, from 1828 to 1849, containing 4514 nominal species, the greater portion being written after the death of Cuvier (1832). The work was finally left unfinished on account of a disagreement with the publisher. Dr. Gill tells me that at this time Valenciennes made an unsuccessful appeal to the Smithsonian Institution for assistance in the publication of the remaining chapters. This is a most masterly work, indispensable to the student of fishes. Its descriptions are generally fairly correct, its plates accurate, and its judgments trustworthy. But with all this it is very unequal. Too often nominal species are based on variations due to age or sex or to the conditions of preservation of specimens. Many of the species are treated very lightly by Cuvier; many of the descriptions of Valenciennes are very mechanical, as though the author had grown weary of the endless process, "a failing commonly observed among zoologists when attention to descriptive details becomes to them a tedious task." After the death of Valenciennes (1865) Dr. Auguste Duméril began another Natural History of the Fishes. Of this two volumes (1865-70) were published covering sharks, ganoids, and other fishes not treated by Cuvier and Valenciennes, his category beginning at the opposite end of the fish series. The death of Duméril left this catalogue also unfinished. Duméril's work is useful and carefully done, but his excessive trust in slight differences has filled his book with nominal species. Thus among the living ganoid fishes he recognizes 135 species, the actual number being not far from 40. We may anticipate the sequence of time by here referring to the remaining attempts at a record of all the fishes in the world, Dr. Albert C. L. G. Günther, a naturalist of German birth, but resident in London for many years, long the honored keeper of the British Museum, published in eight volumes the "Catalogue of the Fishes of the British Museum," from 1859 to 1870. In this monumental work, the one work most essential to all systematic study of fishes, 6843 species are described and 1682 doubtful species are mentioned. The book is a remarkable example of patient industry. Its great merits are at once apparent, and those of us engaged in the same line of study may pass by its faults with the leniency which we may hope that posterity may bestow on ours. The publication of this work gave an immediate impetus to the study of fishes. The number of known species has been raised from 9000 to about 12,000 in the last thirty years, although meanwhile some hundreds of species even accepted by the conservatism of Günther have been erased from the system. A new edition of this work has been long in contemplation, and in 1898 the first volume of it, covering the percoid fishes, was published by Dr. George Albert Boulenger. This volume is one of the most satisfactory in the history of ichthyology. It is based on ample material. Its accepted species have been subject to thorough criticism and in its classification every use has been made of the teachings of morphology and especially of osteology. Its classification is distinctly modern, and with the writings of the contemporary ichthyologists of Europe and America, it is fully representative of the scientific era ushered in by the researches of Darwin. The chief criticism which one may apply to this work concerns most of the publications of the British Museum. It is the frequent assumption that those species not found in the greatest museum of the world do not really exist at all. There are still many forms of life, very many, outside the series gathered in any or all collections. [Illustration: ALBERT GÜNTHER. FRANZ STEINDACHNER. GEORGE A. BOULENGER. ROBERT COLLETT.] We may now turn from the universal catalogues to the work on special groups, on local faunas, or on particular branches of the subject of ichthyology. These lines of study were made possible by the work of Cuvier and Valenciennes and especially by that of Dr. Günther. Before taking up the students of faunal groups, we may, out of chronological order, consider the researches of three great taxonomists, who have greatly contributed to the modern system of the classification of fishes. Louis Agassiz (born at Motiers in western Switzerland in 1807; died at Cambridge, Mass., in 1873) was a man of wonderful insight in zoological matters and possessed of a varied range of scientific information, scarcely excelled in any age--intellectually a lineal descendant of Aristotle. His first work on fishes was the large folio on the fishes collected by Jean Baptiste Spix (1781-1826) in Brazil, published at Munich in 1827. After his establishment in America in 1846, soon after which date, he became a professor in Harvard University, Agassiz published a number of illuminating papers on the fresh-water fishes of North America. He was the first to recognize the necessity of the modern idea of genera among fishes, and most of the groups designated by him as distinct genera are retained by later writers. He was also the first to investigate the structure of the singular viviparous surf-fishes of California, the names _Embiotoca_ and _Holconotus_ applied to these fishes being chosen by him. His earlier work, "Recherches sur les Poissons des Eaux Douces," published in Europe, gave a great impetus to our knowledge of the anatomy and especially of the embryology of the fresh-water fishes. Most important of all his zoological publications was the "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles," published at Neufchatel from 1833 to 1843. This work laid the foundation of the systematic study of the extinct groups of fishes. The relations of sharks were first appreciated by Agassiz, and the first segregation of the ganoids was due to him. Although he included in this group many forms not truly related either to anything now called ganoids, nor even to the extinct mailed forms which preceded them, yet the definition of this order marked a distinct step in advance. The great, genial, hopeful personality of Agassiz and his remarkable skill as a teacher made him the "best friend that ever student had" and gave him a large following as a teacher. Among his pupils in ichthyology were Charles Girard (1822-1895), Frederick Ward Putnam, Alexander Agassiz, Samuel Garman, Samuel H. Scudder, and the present writer. Johannes Müller (1808-1858), of Berlin, was one of the greatest of comparative anatomists. In his revision of Cuvier's "System of Classification" he corrected many errors in grouping, and laid foundations which later writers have not altered or removed. Especially important is his classical work, "Ueber den Bau and die Grenzen der Ganoiden." In this he showed some of the real fundamental characters of that group of archaic fishes, and took from it the most heterogeneous of the elements left in it by Agassiz. To Müller we also owe the first proper definition of the Leptocardii and the Cyclostomata, and, in association with Dr. J. Henle, Müller has given us one of the best general accounts of the sharks ("Systematische Beschriebungen der Plagiostomen"). To Müller we owe an accession of knowledge in regard to the duct of the air-bladder, and the groups called Physostomi, Physoclysti, Dipneusti (Dipnoi), Pharyngognathi, and Anacanthini were first defined by him. In his work on Devonian fishes, the great British comparative anatomist, Thomas Henry Huxley, first distinguished the group of Crossopterygians, and separated it from the ganoids and dipnoans. Theodore Nicholas Gill is the keenest interpreter of taxonomic facts yet known in the history of ichthyology. He is the author of a vast number of papers, the first bearing date of 1858, touching almost every group and almost every phase of relation among fishes. His numerous suggestions as to classification have been usually accepted in time by other authors, and no one has had a clearer perception than he of the necessity of orderly methods in nomenclature. Among the orders first defined by Gill are the Eventognathi, Nematognathi, Pediculati, Iniomi, Heteromi, Haplomi, Xenomi, and the group called Teleocephali, originally framed to include all the bony fishes except those which showed peculiar eccentricities or modifications. Dr. Gill's greatest excellence has been shown as a scientific critic. Incisive, candid, and friendly, there is scarcely an investigator in biology, in America, who is not directly indebted to him for critical aid of the highest importance. The present writer cannot too strongly express his own obligations to this great teacher, his master in fish taxonomy. Dr. Gill's work is not centered in any single great treatise, but is diffused through a very large number of brief papers and catalogues, those from 1861 to 1865 mostly published by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, those of recent date by the United States National Museum. For many years Dr. Gill has been identified with the work of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Closely associated with Dr. Gill was Dr. Edward Drinker Cope, of Philadelphia, a tireless worker in almost every field of zoology, and a large contributor to the broader fields of ichthyological taxonomy as well as to various branches of descriptive zoology. Cope was one of the first to insist on the close relation of the true ganoids with the teleost fishes, the nearest related group of which he defined as Isospondyli. At the same time he recognized the wide range of difference even among the forms which Johannes Müller had assembled under that name. In breadth of vision and keenness of insight, Cope ranked with the first of taxonomic writers. Always bold and original, he was not at all times accurate in details, and to the final result in classification his contribution has been less than that of Dr. Gill. Professor Cope also wrote largely on American fresh-water fishes, a large percentage of the Cyprinidæ and Percidæ of the eastern United States having been discovered by him, as well as much of the Rocky Mountain fauna. In later years his attention was absorbed by the fossil forms, and most of the species of Cretaceous rocks and the Eocene shales of Wyoming were made known through his ceaseless activity. [Illustration: SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD. EDWARD DRINKER COPE. THEODORE NICHOLAS GILL. GEORGE BROWN GOODE.] The enumeration of other workers in the great field of ichthyology must assume something of the form of a catalogue. Part of the impulse received from the great works of Cuvier and Valenciennes and of Günther was spent in connection with voyages of travel. In 1824 Quoy and Gaimard published in Paris the great folio work on the fishes collected by the corvette _l'Uranie_ and _la Physicienne_ in Freycinet's voyages around the world, and in 1834 the same authors published the fishes collected in Duperrey's voyage of the _Astrolabe_. In 1826 Lesson published the fishes of Dumont D'Urville's voyage of the _Coquille_. These three great works lie at the foundation of our knowledge of the fishes of Polynesia. In 1839 Eydoux and Gervais published an account of the fishes of the voyage of _La Favorite_. In 1853, also in Paris, Hombron and Jacquinot gave an account of the fishes taken in Dumont D'Urville's expedition to the South Pole. In England, Sir John Richardson (1787-1865), a wise and careful naturalist, wrote of the fishes collected by the _Sulphur_ (1845), the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ (1846), the _Samarang_, and the _Herald_. Lay and Bennett recorded the species taken by Beechey's voyage on the _Blossom_. A most useful work is the account of the species taken by Charles Darwin on the voyage of the _Beagle_, prepared by the conscientious hand of Rev. Leonard Jenyns. Still more important and far ranging is the voyage of the _Challenger_, including the first important work in the deep seas, one stately volume and parts of other volumes on fishes being the work of Dr. Günther. Other deep-sea work of equal importance has been accomplished in the Atlantic and the Pacific by the U. S. Fish Commission steamer _Albatross_. Its results in Central America, Alaska, Japan, Hawaii, as well as off both coasts of the United States, have been made known in different memoirs by Goode and Bean, Gilbert, Garman, Gill, Jordan, Cramer, Ryder, and others. The deep-sea fish collections of the _Fish Hawk_ and the _Blake_ have been studied by Goode and Bean and Garman. The deep-sea work of other countries may be briefly noticed. The French vessels _Travailleur_ and _Talisman_ have made collections chiefly in the Mediterranean and along the coast of Africa, the results having been made known by Léon Valliant. The _Hirondelle_ about the Azores and elsewhere has furnished material for Professor Robert Collett, of the University of Christiania. Dr. Decio Vinciguerra, of Rome, has reported on the collections of the _Violante_, a vessel belonging to the Prince of Monaco. Dr. A. Alcock, of Calcutta, has had charge of the most valuable deep-sea work of the _Investigator_ in the Indian Seas. Edgar R. Waite and James Douglas Ogilby, of the Australian Museum at Sydney, have described the collections of the _Thetis_, on the shores of the New South Wales. [Illustration: JOHANN REINHARDT. EDWARD WALLER CLAYPOLE. CARLOS BERG. EDGAR R. WAITE.] From Austria the voyage of the frigate _Novara_ has yielded large material which has been described by Dr. Rudolph Kner. The cream of many voyages of many Danish merchant vessels has been gathered in the "Spolia Atlantica" and other truly classical papers of Christian Frederik Lütken, of the University of Copenhagen, one of the most accomplished naturalists of recent times. F. H. von Kittlitz has written on the fishes seen by him in the northern Pacific, and earlier and more important we may mention the many ichthyological notes found in the records of travel in Mexico and South America by Alexander von Humboldt (1796-1859). The local faunal work in various nations has been very extensive. In Great Britain we may note Parnell's "Natural History of the Fishes of the Firth of Forth," published in Edinburgh in 1838, William Yarrell's "History of British Fishes" (1859), the earlier histories of British fishes by Edward Donovan and by William Turton, and the works of J. Couch (1862) and Dr. Francis Day (1888), possessing similar titles. The work of Day, with its excellent plates, will long be the standard account of the relatively scant fish fauna of the British islands. H. G. Seeley has prepared (1886) also a useful synopsis of "The Fresh-water Fishes of Europe." We may here notice without praise the pretentious work of William Swainson (1838-39). W. Thompson has written of the fishes of Ireland, and Rev. Richard T. Lowe and J. Y. Johnson have done most excellent work on the fishes of Madeira. F. McCoy, better known for work on fossil fishes, may be mentioned here. The fish fauna of Scandinavia has been described more or less fully by S. Kröyer (1840), Robert Nilsson (1855), Fries and Ekström (1836), Robert Collett, Robert Lilljeborg, and F. A. Smitt, besides special papers by other writers, notably Reinhardt, L. Esmarck, Japetus Steenstrup, Lütken, and A. W. Malm. Reinhardt, Kröyer, Lütken, and A. J. Malmgren have written of the Arctic fishes of Greenland and Spitzbergen. In Russia, Nordmann has described the fishes of the Black Sea ("Ichthyologic Pontique," Paris, 1840) and Eichwald those of the Caspian. More recently, S. Herzenstein, Warpachowsky, K. Kessler, B. N. Dybowsky, and others have written of the rich fauna of Siberia, the Caucasus, and the scarcely known sea of Ochotsk. Stephan Basilevsky has written of the fishes of northern China. A. Kowalevsky has contributed very much to our knowledge of anatomy. Peter Schmidt has studied the fishes of the Japan Sea. In Germany and Austria the chief local works have been those of Heckel and Kner on the fresh-water fishes of Austria (1858) and C. Th. von Siebold on the fresh-water fishes of Central Europe (1863). German ichthyologists have, however, often extended their view to foreign regions where their characteristic thoroughness and accuracy has made their work illuminating. The two memoirs of Eduard Rüppell on the fishes of the Red Sea and the neighboring parts of Africa, "Atlas zu der Reise im Nördlichen Afrika," 1828, and "Neue Wirbelthiere," 1837, rank with the very best of descriptive literature. Günther's illustrated "Fische der Südsee," published in Hamburg, may be regarded as German work. The excellent colored plates are mostly from the hand of Andrew Garrett. Other papers are those of Dr. Wilhelm Peters on Asiatic fishes, the most important being on the fishes of Mozambique. J. J. Heckel, Rudolph Kner, and Franz Steindachner, successively directors of the Museum at Vienna, have written largely on fishes. The papers of Steindachner cover almost every part of the earth and are absolutely essential to any systematic study of fishes. No naturalist of any land has surpassed Steindachner in industry or accuracy, and his work has the advantage of the best illustrations of fishes made by any artist, the noted Eduard Konopicky. In association with Dr. Döderlein, formerly of Tokyo, Dr. Steindachner has given an excellent account of the fishes of Japan. Other German writers are J. J. Kaup, who has worked in numerous fields, but as a whole with little skill, Dr. S. B. Klunzinger, who has given excellent accounts of the fishes of the Red Sea, and Dr. Franz Hilgendorf, of the University of Berlin, whose papers on the fishes of Japan and other regions have shown a high grade of taxonomic insight. A writer of earlier date is W. L. von Rapp, who wrote on the "Fische den Bodensees." J. F. Brandt has written of the sturgeons of Russia, and Johann Marcusen, to whom we owe much of our knowledge, of the Mormyri of Africa. In Italy, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, has published an elaborate "Fauna Italica" (1838) and in numerous minor papers has taken a large part in the development of ichthyology. Many of the accepted names of the large groups (as Elasmobranchii, Heterosomata, etc.) were first suggested by Bonaparte. The work of Rafinesque has been already noticed. O. G. Costa published (about 1850) a "Fauna of Naples." In recent times Camillo Ranzani, of Bologna, wrote on the fishes of Brazil and of the Mediterranean. Giovanni Canestrini, Decio Vinciguerra, Enrico Hillyer Giglioli, Luigi Döderlein, and others have contributed largely to our knowledge of Italian fishes, while Carlo F. Emery, F. de Filippi, Luigi Facciolá, and others have studied the larval growth of different species. Camillo Ranzani, G. G. Bianconi, Domenico Nardo, Cristoforo Bellotti, Alberto Perugia, and others have contributed to different fields of ichthyology. Nicholas Apostolides and, still later, Horace A. Hoffman and the present writer, have written of the fishes of Greece. In France, the fresh-water fishes are the subject of an important work by Emile Blanchard (1866), and Emile Moreau has given us a convenient account of the fish fauna of France. Léon Vaillant has written on various groups of fishes, his monograph of the American darters (Etheostominæ) being a masterpiece so far as the results of the study of relatively scanty material would permit. The "Mission Scientifique au Mexique," by Valliant and F. Bocourt, is one of the most valuable contributions to our knowledge of the fishes of that region. Dr. H. E. Sauvage, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, has also written largely on the fishes of Asia, Africa, and other regions. Among the most important of these are the "Poissons de Madagascar," and a monograph of the sticklebacks. Alexander Thominot and Jacques Pellegrin have also written, in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, on different groups of fishes. Earlier writers were Constant Duméril, Alphonse Guichenot, L. Brissot de Barneville, H. Hollard, an able anatomist, and Bibron, an associate of Auguste Duméril. [Illustration: FELIPE POEY Y ALOY. LÉON VAILLANT. LOUIS DOLLO. DECIO VINCIGUERRA.] In Spain and Portugal the chief work of local authors is that of J. V. B. Bocage and F. de Brito Capello on the fishes of Portugal. So far as the fishes of Spain are concerned, the most valuable memoir is Steindachner's account of his travels in Spain and Portugal. The principal studies of the Balkan region have also been made by Steindachner. José Gogorza y González, of the Museum of Madrid, has given a list of the fishes of the Philippines. A still more elaborate list, praiseworthy as a beginning, is the work of the Reverend Padre Casto de Elera, professor of Natural History in the Dominican College of Santo Tomas in Manila. In Holland, the chief great works have been those of Schlegel and Pieter van Bleeker. Professor H. Schlegel, of the University of Leyden, described the fishes collected about Nagasaki by Ph. Fr. de Siebold and Bürger. His work on fishes forms a large folio illustrated by colored plates, a volume of the "Fauna Japonica," published in Leyden from 1843 to 1847. Schlegel's work in every field is characterized by scrupulous care and healthful conservatism, and the "Fauna Japonica" is a most useful monument to his rare powers of discrimination. Pieter von Bleeker (1819-78), a surgeon in the Dutch East Indies, is the most voluminous writer in ichthyology. He began his work in Java without previous training and in a very rich field where almost everything was new. With many mistakes at first he rose to the front by sheer force of industry and patience, and his later work, while showing much of the "personal equation," is still thoroughly admirable. At his death he was engaged in the publication of a magnificent folio work, "Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Neerlandaises," illustrated by colored plates. This work remains about two-thirds completed. The writings of Dr. Bleeker constitute the chief source of our knowledge of the fauna of the East Indies. Dr. Van Lidth de Jeude, of the University of Leyden, is the author of a few descriptive papers on fishes. To Belgium we may assign part at least of the work of the eminent Belgian naturalist, George Albert Boulenger, now long connected with the British Museum. His various valuable papers on the fishes of the Congo are published under the auspices of the "Congo Free State." To Belgium also we may ascribe the work of Louis Dollo on the morphology of fishes and on the deep-sea fishes obtained by the "Expedition Antarctique Belge." The fish fauna of Cuba has been the lifelong study of Dr. Felipe Poey y Aloy (1799-1891), a pupil of Cuvier, for a half century or more the honored professor of zoology in the University of Havana. Of his many useful papers, the most extensive are his "Memorias sobre la Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba," followed by a "Repertorio" and an "Enumeratio" in which the fishes are elaborately catalogued. Poey devoted himself solely to the rich fish fauna of his native island, in which region he was justly recognized as a ripe scholar and a broad-minded gentleman. A favorite expression of his was "Comme naturaliste, je ne suis pas espagnol: je suis cosmopolite." Before Poey, Guichenot, of Paris, had written on the fishes collected in Cuba by Ramon de la Sagra (1810-60). His account was published in Sagra's "Historia de Cuba," and later Philip H. Gosse (1810-1888) wrote on the fishes of Jamaica. Much earlier, Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1804-65) wrote on the fishes of British Guiana. Other papers on the Caribbean fishes were contributed by Johannes Müller and F. H. Troschel, and by Richard Hill and J. Hancock. Besides the work in South America of Marcgraf, Agassiz, Reinhardt, Lütken, Steindachner, Jenyns, Boulenger, and others already named, we may note the local studies of Dr. Carlos Berg in Argentina, Dr. R. A. Philippi, and Frederico T. Delfin in Chile, Miranda-Ribeiro in Brazil, with Garman, J. F. Abbott, and others in recent times. Carl H. Eigenmann and earlier Jordan and Eigenmann have studied the great collections made in Brazil by Agassiz. Steindachner has described the collections of Johann Natterer and Gilbert those made by Dr. John Casper Branner. The most recent examinations of the myriads of Brazilian river fishes have been made by Dr. Eigenmann. Earlier than any of these (1855), Francis de Castelnau (1800-65) described many Brazilian fishes and afterwards numerous fishes of Australia and southern Africa, Alphonse Guichenot, of Paris, contributed a chapter on fishes to Claude Gay's (1800-63) "History of Chile," and J. J. von Tschudi, of St. Gallen, published an elaborate but uncritical "Fauna Peruana" with colored plates of Peruvian fishes. In New Zealand, F. W. Hutton and J. Hector have published a valuable work on the fishes of New Zealand, to which Dr. Gill added useful critical notes in a study of "Antipodal Faunas." Later writers have given us a good knowledge of the fishes of Australia. Notable among them are Charles DeVis, William Macleay, H. de Miklouho-Maclay, James Douglas Ogilby, and Edgar R. Waite. Clarke has also written on "Fishes of New Zealand." The most valuable work on the fishes of Hindustan is the elaborate treatise on the "Fishes of India" by Surgeon Francis Day. In this all the species are figured, the groups being arranged as in Günther's catalogue, a sequence which few non-British naturalists seem inclined to follow. Cantor's "Malayan Fishes" is a memoir of high merit, as is also McClelland's work on Indian fishes and the still earlier work of Francis Buchanan Hamilton on the fishes of the Ganges. We may here refer to Andrew Smith's papers on the fishes of the Cape of Good Hope and to R. I. Playfair and A. Günther's "Fishes of Zanzibar." T. C. Jerdon, John Edward Gray, E. Tyrwhitt Bennett, and others have also written on the fishes of India; J. C. Bennett has published several excellent papers on the fishes of Polynesia and the East Indies. In Japan, following the scattering papers of Thunberg, Tilesius, and Houttuyn, and the monumental work of Schlegel, numerous species have been recorded by James Carson Brevoort, Günther, Gill, Eduard Nyström, Hilgendorf, and others. About 1884 Steindachner and Döderlein published the valuable "Fische Japans," based on the collections made about Tokyo by Dr. Döderlein. In 1881, Motokichi Namiye, then assistant curator in the Imperial University, published the first list of Japanese fishes by a native author. In 1900, Dr. Chiyomatsu Ishikawa, on the "Fishes of Lake Biwa," was the first Japanese author to venture to name a new species of fish (_Pseudogobio zezera_). This reticence was due not wholly to lack of self-confidence, but rather to the scattered condition of the literature of Japanese ichthyology. For this reason no Japanese author has ever felt that any given undetermined species was really new. Other Japanese ichthyologists of promise are Dr. Kamakichi Kishinouye, in charge of the Imperial fisheries Bureau, Dr. Shinnosuke Matsubara, director of the Imperial Fisheries Institute, Keinosuke Otaki, S. Hatta, S. Nozawa, T. Kitahara, and Michitaro Sindo, and we may look for others among the pupils of Dr. Kakichi Mitsukuri, the distinguished professor of zoology in the Imperial University. [Illustration: BASHFORD DEAN. KAKICHI MITSUKURI. CARL H. EIGENMANN. FRANZ HILGENDORF.] The most recent, as well as the most extensive, studies of the fishes of Japan were made in 1999 by the present writer and his associate, John Otterbein Snyder. The scanty pre-Cuvieran work on the fishes of North America has been already noticed. Contemporary with the early work of Cuvier is the worthy attempt of Professor Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764-1831) to record in systematic fashion the fishes of New York. Soon after followed the admirable work of Charles Alexandre Le Sueur (1789-1840), artist and naturalist, who was the first to study the fishes of the Great Lakes and the basin of the Ohio. Le Sueur's engravings of fishes, in the early publications of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, are still among the most satisfactory representations of the species to which they refer. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1784-1842), the third of this remarkable but very dissimilar trio, published numerous papers descriptive of the species he had seen or heard of in his various botanical rambles. This culminated in his elaborate but untrustworthy "Ichthyologia Ohiensis." The fishes of Ohio received later a far more conscientious though less brilliant treatment at the hands of Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland (1793-1877), an eminent physician of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1842 the amiable and scholarly James Ellsworth Dekay (1799-1851) published his detailed report on the fishes of the "New York Fauna," and a little earlier (1836) in the "Fauna Boreali-Americana" Sir John Richardson (1787-1865) gave a most valuable and accurate account of the fishes of the Great Lakes and Canada. Almost simultaneously, Rev. Zadock Thompson (1796-1856) gave a catalogue of the fishes of Vermont, and David Humphreys Storer (1804-91) began his work on the fishes of Massachusetts, finally expanded into a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" (1846) and a "History of the Fishes of Massachusetts" (1853-67). Dr. John Edwards Holbrook (1794-1871), of Charleston, published (1855-60) his invaluable record of the fishes of South Carolina, the promise of still more important work, which was prevented by the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States. The monograph on Lake Superior (1850) and other publications of Louis Agassiz (1807-73) have been already noticed. One of the first of Agassiz's students was Charles Girard (1822-95), who came with him from Switzerland, and, in association with Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-87), described the fishes from the United States Pacific Railway Surveys (1858) and the United States and Mexican Boundary Surveys (1859). Professor Baird, primarily an ornithologist, became occupied with executive matters, leaving Girard to finish these studies of the fishes. A large part of the work on fishes published by the United States National Museum and the United States Fish Commission has been made possible through the direct help and inspiration of Professor Baird. Among those engaged in this work, James William Milner (1841-80), Marshall Macdonald (1836-95), and Hugh M. Smith may be noted. Most eminent, however, among the students and assistants of Professor Baird was his successor, George Brown Goode (1851-96), one of the most accomplished of American naturalists, whose greatest work, "Oceanic Ichthyology," published in collaboration with his long associate, Dr. Tarleton Hoffman Bean, was barely finished at the time of his death. The work of Theodore Nicholas Gill and Edward Drinker Cope has been already noticed. Other faunal writers of more or less prominence were William Dandridge Peck (1763-1822) in New Hampshire, George Suckley (1830-69) in Oregon, James William Milner (1841-80) in the Great Lake Region, Samuel Stehman Haldeman (1812-80) in Pennsylvania, William O. Ayres (1817-91) in Connecticut and California; Dr. John G. Cooper (died 1902), Dr. William P. Gibbons and Dr. William N. Lockington (died 1902) in California; Philo Romayne Hoy (1816-93) studied the fishes of Wisconsin, Charles Conrad Abbott those of New Jersey, Silas Stearns (1859-88) those of Florida, Stephen Alfred Forbes and Edward W. Nelson those of Illinois, Oliver Perry Hay, later known for his work on fossil forms, those of Mississippi, Alfredo Dugés, of Guanajuato, those of Central Mexico. Samuel Garman, at Harvard University, a student of Agassiz, is the author of numerous valuable papers, the most notable being on the sharks and on the deep-sea collections of the _Albatross_ in the Galapagos region, the last illustrated by plates of most notable excellence. Other important monographs of Garman treat of the Cyprinodonts and the Discoboli. The present writer began a "Systematic Catalogue of the Fishes of North America" in 1875 in association with his gifted friend, Herbert Edson Copeland (1849-76), whose sudden death, after a few promising beginnings, cut short the undertaking. Later, Charles Henry Gilbert (1860-), a student of Professor Copeland, took up the work and in 1883 a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" was completed by Jordan and Gilbert. Later, Dr. Gilbert has been engaged in studies of the fishes of Panama, Alaska, and other regions, and the second and enlarged edition of the "Synopsis" was completed in 1898, as the "Fishes of North and Middle America," in collaboration with another of the writer's students, Dr. Barton Warren Evermann. A monographic review of the Fishes of Puerto Rico was later (1900) completed by Dr. Evermann, together with numerous minor works. Other naturalists whom the writer may be proud to claim as students are Charles Leslie McKay (1854-83), drowned in Bristol Bay, Alaska, while engaged in explorations, and Charles Henry Bollman (1868-89), stricken with fever in the Okefinokee Swamps in Georgia. Still others are Dr. Carl B. Eigenmann, the indefatigable investigator of Brazilian fishes and of the blind fishes of the caves; Dr. Oliver Peebles Jenkins, the first thorough explorer of the fishes of Hawaii; Dr. Alembert Winthrop Brayton, explorer of the streams of the Great Smoky Mountains; Dr. Seth Eugene Meek, explorer of Mexico; John Otterbein Snyder, explorer of Mexico, Japan, and Hawaii; Edwin Chapin Starks, explorer of Puget Sound and Panama and investigator of fish osteology. Still other naturalists of the coming generation, students of the present writer and of his lifelong associate, Professor Gilbert, have contributed in various degrees to the present fabric of American ichthyology. Among them are Mrs. Rosa Smith Eigenmann, Dr. Joseph Swain, Wilbur Wilson Thoburn (1859-99), Frank Cramer, Alvin Seale, Albert Jefferson Woolman, Philip H. Kirsch (1860-1902), Cloudsley Rutter (died 1903), Robert Edward Snodgrass, James Francis Abbott, Arthur White Greeley, Edmund Heller, Henry Weed Fowler, Keinosuke Otaki, Michitaro Sindo, and Richard Crittenden McGregor. [Illustration: DAVID STARR JORDAN. HERBERT EDSON COPELAND. CHARLES HENRY GILBERT. BARTON WARREN EVERMANN.] Other facts and conclusions of importance have been contributed by various persons with whom ichthyology has been an incident rather than a matter of central importance. =The Fossil Fishes.=[148]--The study of fossil fishes was begun systematically during the first decades of the nineteenth century, for it was then realized that of fossils of back-boned animals, fishes were the only ones which could be determined from early Palæozoic to recent horizons, and that from the diversity of their forms they could serve as reliable indications of the age of rocks. At a later time, when the evolution of vertebrates began to be studied, fishes were examined with especial care with a view of determining the ancestral line of the Amphibians. The earliest work upon fossil fishes is, as one would naturally expect, of a purely systematic value. Anatomical observations were scanty and crude, but as the material for study increased, a more satisfactory knowledge was gained of the structures of the various major groups of fishes; and finally by a comparison of anatomical results important light came to be thrown upon more fundamental problems. The study of fossil fishes can be divided for convenience into three periods: (I) That which terminated in the _magnum opus_ of Louis Agassiz; (II) that of the systematists whose major works appeared between 1845 and the recent publication of the Catalogue of Fossil Fishes of the British Museum (from this period date many important anatomical observations); and (III) that of morphological work, roughly from 1870 to the present. During this period detailed consideration has been given to the phylogeny of special structures, to the probable lines of descent of the groups of fossil fishes, and to the relationships of terrestrial to aquatic vertebrates. =First Period.=--=The Work of Louis Agassiz.=--The real beginning of our knowledge of fossil fishes dates from the publication of the classic volumes of Agassiz, "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles (Neuchâtel, 1833-44)." There had previously existed but a fragmentary and widely scattered literature; the time was ripe for a great work which should bring together a knowledge of this important vertebrate fauna and the museums throughout Europe had been steadily growing in their collections of fossils. Especially ripe, too, since the work of Cuvier (1769-1832) had been completed and the classic anatomical papers of J. Müller (1802-56) were appearing. And Agassiz (1807-73) was eminently the man for this mission. At the age of one and twenty he had already mapped out the work, and from this time he devoted sixteen active years to its accomplishment. One gets but a just idea of the personality of Agassiz when he recalls that the young investigator while in an almost penniless position contrived to travel over a large part of Europe, mingle with the best people of his day, devote almost his entire time to research, employ draughtsmen and lithographers, support his own printing-house, and in the end publish his "Poissons Fossiles" in a fashion which would have done credit to the wealthiest amateur. With tireless energy he collected voluminous notes and drawings numberless; he corresponded with collectors all over Europe and prevailed upon them to loan him tons of specimens; in the meanwhile he collated industriously the early but fragmental literature in such works as those of de Blainville, Münster, Murchison, Buckland, Egerton, Redfield, W. C. Williamson, and others. Hitherto less than 300 species of fossil fishes were known; at the end of Agassiz's work about 900 were described and many of them figured. It is easy to see that such a work made a ready basis of future studies. Doubtless, too, much is owing to the personal energy of Agassiz that such keen interest was focused in the collection and study of fossil fishes during the middle of the nineteenth century. The actual value of Agassiz's work can hardly be overestimated; his figures and descriptions are usually clear and accurate. And it is remarkable, perhaps, that in view of the very wide field which he covered that his errors are not more glaring and numerous. Upon the purely scientific side, however, one must confess that the "Poissons Fossiles" is of minor importance for the reason that as time has gone by it has been found to yield no generalizations of fundamental value. The classification of fishes advocated by Agassiz, based upon the nature of the scales, has been shown to be convenient rather than morphological. This indeed Agassiz himself appears to realize in a letter written to Humboldt, but on the other hand he regards his creation of the now discarded order of _Ganoids_, which was based upon integumental characters, as his most important contribution to the general study of ichthyology. And although there passed through his hands a series of forms more complete than has perhaps been seen by any later ichthyologist,[149] a series which demonstrates the steps in the evolution of the various families and even orders of fishes, he is nowhere led to such important philosophical conclusions as was, for example, his contemporary, Johannes Müller. And even to his last day, in spite of the light which palæontology must have given him, he denied strenuously the truth of the doctrine of evolution, a result the more remarkable since he has even given in graphic form the geological occurrence of the various groups of fishes in a way which suggests closely a modern phylogenetic table, and since at various times he has emphasized the dictum that the history of the individual is but the epitomized history of the race. The latter statement, which has been commonly attributed to Agassiz, is clearly of much earlier origin; it was definitely formulated by von Baer and Meckel, the former of whom even as early as 1834 pronounced himself a distinct evolutionist. [Illustration: RAMSAY HEATLEY TRAQUAIR. ARTHUR SMITH WOODWARD. KARL A. ZITTEL. CHARLES R. EASTMAN.] =Second Period.=--=Systematic Study of Fossil Fishes.=--On the ground planted by Agassiz, many important works sprang up within the next decades. In England a vigorous school of palæichthyologists was soon flourishing. Many papers of Egerton date from this time, and the important work of Owen on the structure of fossil teeth and the often-quoted papers of Huxley in the "British Fossil Remains." Among other workers may be mentioned James Powrie, author of a number of papers upon Scottish Devonian fossils; the enthusiastic Hugh Miller, stone-mason and geologist; Montague Brown, Thomas Atthey, J. Young, and W. J. Barkas, students upon Coal Measure fishes; E. Ray Lankester, some of whose early papers deal with pteraspids; E. T. Newton, author of important works on chimæroids. The extensive works of J. W. Davis deal with fishes of many groups and many horizons. Mr. Davis, like Sir Philip Gray Egerton, was an amateur whose devotion did much to advance the study of fossil fishes. The dean of British palæichthyology is at present Dr. R. H. Traquair, of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Arts. During four decades he has devoted himself to his studies with rare energy and success, author of a host of shorter papers and numerous memoirs and reports. Finally, and belonging to a younger generation of palæontologists, is to be named Arthur Smith Woodward, curator of vertebrate palæontology of the British Museum. Dr. Woodward has already contributed many scores of papers to palæichthyology, besides publishing a four-volume Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes of the British Museum, a compendial work whose value can only be appreciated adequately by specialists. In the United States the study of fossil fishes was taken up by J. H. and W. C. Redfield, father and son, prior to the work of Agassiz, and there has been since that time an active school of American workers. Agassiz himself, however, is not to be included in this list, since his interest in extinct fishes became almost entirely unproductive during his life in America. Foremost among these workers was John Strong Newberry (1822-92), of Columbia College, whose publications deal with fishes of many horizons and whose work upon this continent is not unlike that of Agassiz in Europe. He was the author of many state reports, separate contributions, and two monographs, one upon the palæozoic fishes of North America, the other upon the Triassic fishes. Among the earlier palæontologists were Orestes H. St. John, a pupil of Agassiz at Harvard, and A. H. Worthen (1813-88), director of the Geological Survey of Illinois; also W. Gibbes and Joseph Leidy. The late E. D. Cope (1840-97) devoted a considerable portion of his labors to the study of extinct fishes. E. W. Claypole, of Buchtel College, is next to be mentioned as having produced noteworthy contributions to our knowledge of sharks, palæaspids, and arthrodires, as has also A. A. Wright, of Oberlin College. Among other workers may be mentioned O. P. Hay, of the American Museum; C. R. Eastman, of Harvard, author of important memoirs upon arthrodires and other forms; Alban Stewart, a student of Dr. S. W. Williston at Kansas University, and Bashford Dean. Among Canadian palæontologists G. F. Matthew deserves mention for his work on Cyathaspis, Principal Dawson for interesting references to Mesozoic fishes, and J. F. Whiteaves for his studies upon the Devonian fishes of Scaumenac Bay. Belgian palæontologists have also been active in their study of fishes. Here we may refer to the work of Louis Dollo, of Brussels, of Max Lohest, of P. J. van Beneden, of L. G. de Koninck, of T. C. Winckler, and of R. Storms, the last of whom has done interesting work on Tertiary fishes. Foremost among Russian palæichthyologists is to be named C. H. Pander, long-time Academician in St. Petersburg, whose elaborate studies of extinct lung-fishes, ostracophores, and crossopterygians published between 1856 and 1860 will long stand as models of careful work. We should also refer to the work of H. Asmuss and H. Trautschold, E. Eichwald and of Victor Rohon, the last named having published many important papers upon ostracophores during his residence in St. Petersburg. German palæichthyologists include Otto Jaekel, of Berlin; O. M. Reis of the Oberbergamt, in Munich; A. von Koenen, of Göttingen; A. Wagner, E. Koken, and K. von Zittel. Among Austro-Hungarians are Anton Fritsch, author of the _Fauna der Gaskohleformations Boemens_; Rudolf Kner, an active student of living fishes as well, as is also Franz Steindachner. French palæichthyologists are represented by the veteran H. E. Sauvage, of Boulogne-sur-Mer, V. Thollière, M. Brongniart, and F. Priem. In Italy Francesco Bassani, of Naples, is the author of many important works dealing with Mesozoic and Tertiary forms; also was Baron Achille di Zigno. Robert Collett, of Bergen, and G. Lindström are worthy representatives of Scandinavia in kindred work. =Third Period.=--=Morphological Work on Fossil Fishes.=--Among the writers who have dealt with the problems of the relationships of the Ostracophores as well as _Palæospondylus_ and the Arthrodires may be named Traquair, Huxley, Newberry, Smith Woodward, Rohon, Eastman, and Dean; most recently William Patten. Upon the phylogeny of the sharks Traquair, A. Fritsch, Hasse, Cope, Brongniart, Jaekel, Reis, Eastman, and Dean. On Chimæroid morphology mention may be made of the papers of A. S. Woodward, Reis, Jaekel, Eastman, C. D. Walcott, and Dean. As to Dipnoan relationships the paper of Louis Dollo is easily of the first value; of especial interest, too, is the work of Eastman as to the early derivation of the Dipnoan dentition. In this regard a paper of Rohon is noteworthy, as is also that of Richard Semon on the development of the dentition of recent Neoceratodus, since it contains a number of references to extinct types. Interest notes on Dipnoan fin characters have been given by Traquair. In the morphology of Ganoids, the work of Traquair and A. S. Woodward takes easily the foremost rank. Other important works are those of Huxley, Cope, A. Fritsch, and Oliver P. Hay. =Anatomists.=--Still more difficult of enumeration is the long list of those who have studied the anatomy of fishes usually in connection with the comparative anatomy or development of other animals. Pre-eminent among these are Karl Ernst von Baer, Cuvier, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Louis Agassiz, Johannes Müller, Carl Vogt, Carl Gegenbaur, William Kitchen Parker, Francis M. Balfour, Thomas Henry Huxley, Meckel, H. Rathke, Richard Owen, Kowalevsky, H. Stannius, Joseph Hyrtl, Gill, Boulenger, and Bashford Dean. Other names of high authority are those of Wilhelm His, Kölliker, Bakker, Rosenthal, Gottsche, Miklucho-Macleay, Weber, Hasse, Retzius, Owsjannikow, H. Müller, Stieda, Marcusen, J. A. Ryder, E. A. Andrews, T. H. Morgan, G. B. Grassi, R. Semon, Howard Ayers, R. R. Wright, J. P. McMurrich, C. O. Whitman, A. C. Eyclesheimer, E. Pallis, Jacob Reighard, and J. B. Johnston. Besides all this, there has risen, especially in the United States, Great Britain, Norway, and Canada and Australia, a vast literature of commercial fisheries, fish culture, and angling, the chief workers in which fields we may not here enumerate even by name. FOOTNOTES: [148] For these paragraphs on the history of the study of fossil fishes the writer is indebted to the kind interest of Professor Bashford Dean. [149] Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward excepted. CHAPTER XXIII THE COLLECTION OF FISHES =How to Secure Fishes.=--In collecting fishes three things are vitally necessary--a keen eye, some skill in adapting means to ends, and some willingness to take pains in the preservation of material. In coming into a new district the collector should try to preserve the first specimen of every species he sees. It may not come up again. He should watch carefully for specimens which look just a little different from their fellows, especially for those which are duller, less striking, or with lower fins. Many species have remained unnoticed through generations of collectors who have chosen the handsomest or most ornate specimens. In some groups with striking peculiarities, as the trunkfishes, practically all the species were known to Linnæus. No collector could pass them by. On the other hand, new gobies or blennies can be picked up almost every day in the lesser known parts of the world. For these overlooked forms--herrings, anchovies, sculpins, blennies, gobies, scorpion-fishes--the competent collector should be always on the watch. If any specimen looks different from the rest, take it at once and find out the reason why. In most regions the chief dependence of the collector is on the markets and these should be watched most critically. By paying a little more for unusual, neglected, or useless fish, the supply of these will rise to the demand. The word passed along among the people of Onomichi in Japan, that "Ebisu the fish-god was in the village" and would pay more for okose (poison scorpion-fishes) and umiuma (sea-horses) than real fishes were worth soon brought (in 1900) all sorts of okose and umiuma into the market when they were formerly left neglected on the beach. Thus with a little ingenuity the markets in any country can be greatly extended. The collector can, if he thinks best, use all kinds of fishing tackle for himself. In Japan he can use the "dabonawa" long lines, and secure the fishes which were otherwise dredged by the _Challenger_ and _Albatross_. If dredges or trawls are at his hand he can hire them and use them for scientific purposes. He should neglect no kind of bottom, no conditions of fish life which he can reach. Especially important is the fauna of the tide-pools, neglected by almost all collectors. As the tide goes down, especially on rocky capes which project into the sea, myriads of little fishes will remain in the rock-pools, the algæ, and the clefts of rock. In regions like California, where the rocks are buried with kelp, blennies will lie in the kelp as quiescent as the branches of the algæ themselves until the flow of water returns. A sharp three-tined fork will help in spearing them. The water in pools can be poisoned on the coast of Mexico with the milky juice of the "hava" tree, a tree which yields strychnine. In default of this, pools can be poisoned by chloride of lime, sulphate of copper, or, if small enough, by formaline. Of all poisons the commercial chloride of lime seems to be most effective. By such means the contents of the pool can be secured and the next tide carries away the poison. The water in pools can be bailed out, or, better, emptied by a siphon made of small garden-hose or rubber tubing. On rocky shores, dynamite can be used to advantage if the collector or his assistant dare risk it and if the laws of the country do not prevent. Most effective in rock-pool work is the help of the small boy. In all lands the collector will do well to take him into his pay and confidence. Of the hundred or more new species of rock-pool fishes lately secured by the writer in Japan, fully two-thirds were obtained by the Japanese boys. Equally effective is the "muchacho" on the coasts of Mexico. Masses of coral, sponges, tunicates, and other porous or hollow organisms often contain small fishes and should be carefully examined. On the coral reefs the breaking up of large masses is often most remunerative. The importance of securing the young of pelagic fishes by tow-nets and otherwise cannot be too strongly emphasized. =How to Preserve Fishes.=--Fishes must be permanently preserved in alcohol. Dried skins are far from satisfactory, except as a choice of difficulties in the case of large species. Dr. Günther thus describes the process of skinning fishes: "Scaly fishes are skinned thus: With a strong pair of scissors an incision is made along the median line of the abdomen from the foremost part of the throat, passing on one side of the base of the ventral and anal fins to the root of the caudal fin, the cut, being continued upward to the back of the tail close to the base of the caudal. The skin of one side of the fish is then severed with the scalpel from the underlying muscles to the median line of the back; the bones which support the dorsal and caudal are cut through, so that these fins remain attached to the skin. The removal of the skin of the opposite side is easy. More difficult is the preparation of the head and scapulary region. The two halves of the scapular arch which have been severed from each other by the first incision are pressed toward the right and left, and the spine is severed behind the head, so that now only the head and shoulder bones remain attached to the skin. These parts have to be cleaned from the inside, all soft parts, the branchial and hyoid apparatus, and all smaller bones being cut away with the scissors or scraped off with the scalpel. In many fishes which are provided with a characteristic dental apparatus in the pharynx (Labroids, Cyprinoids), the pharyngeal bones ought to be preserved and tied with a thread to their specimen. The skin being now prepared so far, its entire inner surface as well as the inner side of the head are rubbed with arsenical soap; cotton-wool or some other soft material is inserted into any cavities or hollows, and finally a thin layer of the same material is placed between the two flaps of the skin. The specimen is then dried under a slight weight to keep it from shrinking. "The scales of some fishes, as for instance of many kinds of herrings, are so delicate and deciduous that the mere handling causes them to rub off easily. Such fishes may be covered with thin-paper (tissue paper is the best) which is allowed to dry on them before skinning. There is no need for removing the paper before the specimen has reached its destination. "Scaleless fishes, as siluroids and sturgeons, are skinned in the same manner, but the skin can be rolled up over the head; such skins can also be preserved in spirits, in which case the traveler may save to himself the trouble of cleaning the head. "Some sharks are known to attain to a length of thirty feet, and some rays to a width of twenty feet. The preservation of such gigantic specimens is much to be recommended, and although the difficulties of preserving fishes increase with their size, the operation is facilitated, because the skins of all sharks and rays can easily be preserved in salt and strong brine. Sharks are skinned much in the same way as ordinary fishes. In rays an incision is made not only from the snout to the end of the fleshy part of the tail, but also a second across the widest part of the body. When the skin is removed from the fish, it is placed into a cask with strong brine mixed with alum, the head occupying the upper part of the cask; this is necessary, because this part is most likely to show signs of decomposition, and therefore most requires supervision. When the preserving fluid has become decidedly weaker from the extracted blood and water, it is thrown away and replaced by fresh brine. After a week's or fortnight's soaking the skin is taken out of the cask to allow the fluid to drain off; its inner side is covered with a thin layer of salt, and after being rolled up (the head being inside) it is packed in a cask the bottom of which is covered with salt; all the interstices and the top are likewise filled with salt. The cask must be perfectly water-tight." =Value of Formalin.=--In the field it is much better to use formalin (formaldehyde) in preference to alcohol. This is an antiseptic fluid dissolved in water, and it at once arrests decay, leaving the specimen as though preserved in water. If left too long in formalin fishes swell, the bones are softened, and the specimens become brittle or even worthless. But for ordinary purposes (except use as skeleton) no harm arises from two or three months' saturation in formalin. The commercial formalin can be mixed with about twenty parts of water. On the whole it is better to have the solution too weak rather than too strong. Too much formalin makes the specimens stiff, swollen, and intractable, besides too soon destroying the color. Formalin has the advantage, in collecting, of cheapness and of ease in transportation, as a single small bottle will make a large amount of the fluid. The specimens also require much less attention. An incision should be made in the (right) side of the abdomen to let in the fluid. The specimen can then be placed in formalin. When saturated, in the course of the day, it can be wrapped in a cloth, packed in an empty petroleum can, and at once shipped. The wide use of petroleum in all parts of the world is a great boon to the naturalist. Before preservation, the fishes should be washed, to remove slime and dirt. They should have an incision to let the fluid into the body cavity and an injection with a syringe is a useful help to saturation, especially with large fishes. Even decaying fishes can be saved with formalin. =Records of Fishes.=--The collector should mark localities most carefully with tin tags and note-book records if possible. He should, so far as possible, keep records of life colors, and water-color sketches are of great assistance in this matter. In spirits or formalin the life colors soon fade, although the pattern of marking is usually preserved or at least indicated. A mixture of formalin and alcohol is favorable to the preservation of markings. In the museum all specimens should be removed at once from formalin to alcohol. No substitute for alcohol as a permanent preservative has been found. The spirits derived from wine, grain, or sugar is much preferable to the poisonous methyl or wood alcohol. In placing specimens directly into alcohol, care should be taken not to crowd them too much. The fish yields water which dilutes the spirit. For the same reason, spirits too dilute are ineffective. On the other hand, delicate fishes put into very strong alcohol are likely to shrivel, a condition which may prevent an accurate study of their fins or other structures. It is usually necessary to change a fish from the first alcohol used as a bath into stronger alcohol in the course of a few days, the time depending on the closeness with which fishes are packed. In the tropics, fishes in alcohol often require attention within a few hours. In formalin there is much less difficulty with tropical fishes. Fishes intended for skeletons should never be placed in formalin. A softening of the bones which prevents future exact studies of the bones is sure to take place. Generally alcohol or other spirits (arrack, brandy, cognac, rum, sake "vino") can be tested with a match. If sufficiently concentrated to be ignited, they can be safely used for preservation of fishes. The best test is that of the hydrometer. Spirits for permanent use should show on the hydrometer 40 to 60 above proof. Decaying specimens show it by color and smell and the collector should be alive to their condition. One rotting fish may endanger many others. With alcohol it is necessary to take especial pains to ensure immediate saturation. Deep cuts should be made into the muscles of large fishes as well as into the body cavity. Sometimes a small distilling apparatus is useful to redistil impure or dilute alcohol. The use of formalin avoids this necessity. Small fishes should not be packed with large ones; small bottles are very desirable for their preservation. All spinous or scaly fishes should be so wrapped in cotton muslin as to prevent all friction. =Eternal Vigilance.=--The methods of treating individual groups of fishes and of handling them under different climatic and other conditions are matters to be learned by experience. Eternal vigilance is the price of a good collection, as it is said to be of some other good things. Mechanical collecting--picking up the thing got without effort and putting it in alcohol without further thought--rarely serves any useful end in science. The best collectors are usually the best naturalists. The collections made by the men who are to study them and who are competent to do so are the ones which most help the progress of ichthyology. The student of a group of fishes misses half the collection teaches if he has made no part of it himself. CHAPTER XXIV THE EVOLUTION OF FISHES =The Geological Distribution of Fishes.=--The oldest unquestioned remains of fishes have been very recently made known by Mr. Charles D. Walcott, from rocks of the Trenton period in the Ordovician or Lower Silurian. These are from Cañon City in Colorado. Among these is certainly a small Ostracophore (_Asteraspis desideratus_). With it are fragments (_Dictyorhabdus_) thought to be the back-bone of a Chimæra, but more likely, in Dean's view, the axis of a cephalopod, besides bony, wrinkled scales, referred with doubt to a supposed Crossopterygian genus called _Eriptychius_. This renders certain the existence of _Ostracophores_ at this early period, but their association with _Chimæras_ and Crossopterygians is questionable. Primitive sharks may have existed in Ordovician times, but thus far no trace of them has been found. [Illustration: FIG. 246.--Fragment of Sandstone from Ordovician deposits, Cañon City, Colo., showing fragments of scales, etc., the earliest known traces of vertebrates. (From nature.)] The fish-remains next in age in America are from the Bloomfield sandstone in Pennsylvania of the Onondaga period in the upper Silurian. The earliest in Europe are found in the Ludlow shales, both of these localities being in or near the horizon of the Niagara rocks, in the Upper Silurian Age. It is, however, certain that these Lower Silurian remains do not represent the beginning of fish-life. Probably _Ostracophores_, and _Arthrodires_, with perhaps Crossopterygians and Dipnoans, existed at an earlier period, together perhaps with unarmed, limbless forms without jaws, of which no trace whatever has been left. [Illustration: FIG. 247.--Fossil fish remains from Ordovician rocks, Cañon City, Colo. (After Walcott.) _a._ Scale of _Eriptychius americanus_ Walcott. Family _Holoptychiidæ?_ _b._ Dermal plate of _Asteraspis desideratus_ Walcott. Family _Asterolepidæ_. _c._ _Dictyorhabdus priscus_ Walcott, a fragment of uncertain nature, thought to be a chordal sheath of a Chimæra, but probably part of a Cephalopod (Dean). _Chimæridæ?_] =The Earliest Sharks.=--The first actual trace of sharks is found in the Upper Silurian in the form of fin-spines (_Onchus_), thought to belong to primitive sharks, perhaps Acanthodeans possibly to Ostracophores. With these are numerous bony shields of the mailed Ostracophores, and somewhat later those of the more highly specialized Arthrodires. Later appear the teeth of _Cochliodontidæ_, with Chimæras, a few Dipnoans, and Crossopterygians. =Devonian Fishes.=--In the Devonian Age the _Ostracophores_ increase in size and abundance, disappearing with the beginning of the Carboniferous. The Arthrodires also increase greatly in variety and in size, reaching their culmination in the Devonian, but not disappearing entirely until well in the Carboniferous. These two groups (often united by geologists under the older name Placoderms) together with sharks and a few Chimæras made up almost exclusively the rich fish-fauna of Devonian times. The sharks were chiefly Acanthodean and Psammodont, as far as our records show. The supposed more primitive type of _Cladoselache_ is not known to appear before the latter part of the Devonian Age, while _Pleuracanthus_ and _Cladodus_, sometimes regarded as still more primitive, are as yet found only in the Carboniferous. It is clear that the records of early shark life are still incomplete, whatever view we may adopt as to the relative rank of the different forms. Chimæroids occur in the Devonian, and with them a considerable variety of Crossopterygians and Dipnoans. The true fishes appear also in the Devonian in the guise of the Ganoid ancestors and relatives of _Palæoniscum_, all with diamond-shaped enameled scales. In the Devonian, too, we find the minute creature _Palæospondylus_, our ignorance of which is concealed under the name _Cycliæ_. =Carboniferous Fishes.=--In the Carboniferous Age the sharks increase in number and variety, the Ostracophores disappear, and the Arthrodires follow them soon after, the last being recorded from the Permian. Other forms of Dipnoans, Crossopterygians, and some Ganoids now appear giving the fauna a somewhat more modern aspect. The _Acanthodei_ and the _Ichthyotomi_ pass away with the Permian, the latest period of the Carboniferous Age. [Illustration: FIG. 248.--_Dipterus valenciennesi_ Agassiz, a Dipnoan. (After Dean, from Woodward.)] =Mesozoic Fishes.=--In the Triassic period which follows the Permian, the earliest types of Ganoids give place to forms approaching the garpike and sturgeon. The Crossopterygians rapidly decline. The Dipnoans are less varied and fewer in number; the primitive sharks, with the exception of certain Cestracionts, all disappear, only the family of _Orodontidæ_ remaining. Here are found the first true bony fishes, doubtless derived from Ganoid stock, the allies and predecessors of the great group of herrings. Herring-like forms become more numerous in the Jurassic, and with them appear other forms which give the fish-fauna of this period something of a modern appearance. In the Jurassic the sharks become divided into several groups, _Notidani_, Scyllioid sharks, Lamnoid sharks, angel-fishes, skates, and finally Carcharioid sharks being now well differentiated. Chimæras are still numerous. The _Acanthodei_ have passed away, as well as the mailed Ostrachopores and Arthrodires. The Dipnoans and Crossopterygians are few. The early Ganoids have given place to more modern types, still in great abundance and variety. This condition continues in the Cretaceous period. Here the rays and modern sharks increase in number, the Ganoids hold their own, and the other groups of soft-rayed fishes, as the smelts, the lantern-fishes, the pikes, the flying-fishes, the berycoids and the mackerels join the group of herring-like forms which represent the modern bony fishes. In the Cretaceous appear the first spiny-rayed fishes, derived probably from herring-like forms. These are allies or ancestors of the living genus _Beryx_. [Illustration: FIG. 249.--_Hoplopteryx lewesiensis_ (Mantell), restored. English Cretaceous. Family _Berycidæ_. (After Woodward.)] Dr. Woodward observes: "As soon as fishes with a completely osseous endoskeleton began to predominate at the dawn of the Cretaceous period, specializations of an entirely new kind were rapidly acquired. Until this time the skull of the Actinopterygii had always been remarkably uniform in type. The otic region of the cranium often remained incompletely ossified and was never prominent or projecting beyond the roof bones; the supraoccipital bone was always small and covered with the superficial plates; the maxilla invariably formed the greater part of the upper jaw; the cheek-plates were large and usually thick; while none of the head or opercular bones were provided with spines or ridges. The pelvic fins always retained their primitive remote situation, and the fin-rays never became spines. During the Cretaceous period the majority of the bony fishes began to exhibit modifications in all these characters, and the changes occurred so rapidly that by the dawn of the Eocene period the diversity observable in the dominant fish-fauna was much greater than it had ever been before. At this remote period, indeed, nearly all the great groups of bony fishes, as represented in the existing world, were already differentiated, and their subsequent modifications have been quite of a minor character." [Illustration: FIG. 250.--A living Berycoid fish, _Paratrachichthys prosthemius_ Jordan & Fowler. Misaki, Japan. Family _Berycidæ_.] [Illustration: FIG. 251.--Flying-fish, _Cypsilurus heterurus_ (Rafinesque). Family _Exocætidæ_ Woods Hole, Mass.] [Illustration: FIG. 252.--The Schoolmaster Snapper, a Perch-like fish. Family _Lutianidæ_. Key West.] =Tertiary Fishes.=--With the Eocene or first period of the Tertiary great changes have taken place. The early families of bony fishes nearly all disappear. The herring, pike, smelt, salmon, flying-fish, and berycoids remain, and a multitude of other forms seem to spring into sudden existence. Among these are the globefishes, the trigger-fishes, the catfishes, the eels, the morays, the butterfly-fishes, the porgies, the perch, the bass, the pipefishes, the trumpet-fishes, the mackerels, and the John-dories, with the sculpins, the anglers, the flounders, the blennies, and the cods. That all these groups, generalized and specialized, arose at once is impossible, although all seem to date from the Eocene times. Doubtless each of them had its origin at an earlier period, and the simultaneous appearance is related to the fact of the thorough study of the Eocene shales, which have in numerous localities (London, Monte Bolca, Licata, Mount Lebanon, Green River) been especially favorable for the preservation of these forms. Practically fossil fishes have been thoroughly studied as yet only in a very few parts of the earth. The rocks of Scotland, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Syria, Ohio, and Wyoming have furnished the great bulk of all the fish remains in existence. In some regions perhaps collections will be made which will give us a more just conception of the origin of the different groups of bony fishes. We can now only say with certainty that the modern families were largely existent in the Eocene, that they sprang from ganoid stock found in the Triassic and Jurassic, that several of them were represented in the Cretaceous also, that the Berycoids were earliest of the spiny-rayed fishes, and forms allied to herring the earliest of the soft-rayed forms. Few modern families arose before the Cretaceous. Few of the modern genera go back to the Eocene, many of them arose in the Miocene, and few species have come down to us from rocks older than the end of the Pliocene. The general modern type of the fish-faunas being determined in the latter Eocene and the Miocene, the changes which bring us to recent times have largely concerned the abundance and variety of the individual species. From geological distribution we have arising the varied problems of geographical distribution and the still more complex conditions on which depend the extinction of species and of types. [Illustration: FIG. 253.--Decurrent Flounder, _Pleuronichthys decurrens_ Jordan & Gilbert. San Francisco.] =Factors of Extinction.=--These factors of extinction have been recently formulated as follows by Professor Herbert Osborn. He considers the process of extinction as of five different types: "(1) That extinction which comes from modification or progressive evolution, a relegation to the past as a result of the transmutation into more advanced forms. (2) Extinction from changes of physical environment which outrun the powers of adaptation. (3) The extinction which results from competition. (4) The extinction which results from extreme specialization and limitation to special conditions the loss of which means extinction. (5) Extinction as a result of exhaustion." =Fossilization of a Fish.=--When a fish dies he leaves no friends. His body is at once attacked by hundreds of creatures ranging from the one-celled protozoa and bacteria to individuals of his own species. His flesh is devoured, his bones are scattered, the gelatinous substance in them decays, and the phosphate of lime is in time dissolved in the water. For this reason few fishes of the millions which die each year leave any trace for future preservation. At the most a few teeth, a fin-spine, or a bone buried in the clay might remain intact or in such condition as to be recognized. But now and then it happens that a dead fish may fall in more fortunate conditions. On a sea bottom of fine clay the bones, or even the whole body, may be buried in such a way as to be sealed up and protected from total decomposition. The flesh will usually disappear and leave no mark or at the most a mere cast of its surface. But the hard parts, even the muscles may persist, and now and then they do persist, the salts of lime unchanged or else silicified or subjected to some other form of chemical substitution. Only the scales, the teeth, the bones, the spines, and the fin-rays can be preserved in the rocks of sea or lake bottom. In a few localities, as near Green River in Wyoming, Monte Bolca, near Verona, and Mount Lebanon in Syria, the London clays, with certain quarries in Scotland and lithographic stones in Germany, many skeletons of fishes have been found pressed flat in layers of very fine rock, their structures traced as delicately as if actually drawn on the smooth stone. Fragments preserved in ruder fashion abound in the clays and even the sandstones of the earliest geologic ages. In most cases, however, fossil fishes are known from detached and scattered fragments, many of them, especially of the sharks, by the teeth alone. Fishes have occurred in all ages from the Silurian to the present time and probably the very first lived long before the Silurian. =The Earliest Fishes.=--No one can say what the earliest fishes were like, nor do we know what was their real relation to the worm-like forms among which men have sought their presumable ancestors, nor to the Tunicates and other chordate forms, not fish-like, but still degenerate relatives of the primeval fish. From analogy we may suppose that the first fishes which ever were bore some resemblance to the lancelet, for that is a fish-like creature with every structure reduced to the lowest terms. But as the lancelet has no hard parts, no bones, nor teeth, nor scales, nor fins, no traces of its kind are found among the fossils. If the primitive fish was like it in important respects, all record of this has probably vanished from the earth. =The Cyclostomes.=--The next group of living fishes, the Cyclostomes, including the hagfishes and lampreys,--fishes with small skull and brain but without limbs or jaws,--stands at a great distance above the lancelet in complexity of structure, and equally far from the true fishes in its primitive simplicity. In fact the lamprey is farther from the true fish in structure than a perch is from an eagle. Yet for all that it may be an offshoot from the primitive line of fish descent. There is not much in the structure of the lamprey which may be preserved in the rocks. But the cartilaginous skull, the back-bone, fins, and teeth might leave their traces in soft clay or lithographic stone. But it is certain that they have not done so in any rocks yet explored, and it may be that the few existing lampreys owe their form and structure to a process of degradation from a more complex and more fish-like ancestry. The supposed lamprey fossil of the Devonian of Scotland, _Palæospondylus_, has little in common with the true lampreys. =The Ostracophores.=--Besides the lampreys the Devonian seas swarmed with mysterious creatures covered with an armor of plate, fish-like in some regards, but limbless, without true jaws and very different from the true fishes of to-day. These are called Ostracophori, and some have regarded them as mailed lampreys, but they are more likely to be a degenerate or eccentric offshoot from the sharks, as highly modified or specialized lampreys, a side offshoot which has left no descendants among recent forms. Recently Professor Patten has insisted that the resemblance of their head-plates to those of the horseshoe crab (_Limulus_) is indicative of real affinity. Among these forms in mail-armor are some in which the jointed and movable angles of the head suggest the pectoral spines of some catfishes. But in spite of its resemblance to a fin, the spine in _Pterichthyodes_ is an outgrowth of the ossified skin and has no more homology with the spines of fishes than the mailed plates have with the bones of a fish's cranium. In none of these fishes has any trace of an internal skeleton been found. It must have retained its primitive gelatinous character. There are, however, some traces of eyes, and the mucous channels of the lateral line indicate that these creatures possessed some other special senses. [Illustration: FIG. 254.--An Ostracophore, _Cephalaspis lyelli_ Agassiz, restored. Devonian. (After Agassiz, per Dean.)] Whatever the Ostracophores may be, they should not be included within the much-abused term _Ganoidei_, a word which was once used in the widest fashion for all sorts of mailed fishes, but little by little restricted to the hard-scaled relatives and ancestors of the garpike of to-day. =The Arthrodires.=--Dimly seen in the vast darkness of Paleozoic time are the huge creatures known as Arthrodires. These are mailed and helmeted fishes, limbless so far as we know, but with sharp, notched, turtle-like jaws quite different from those of the fish or those of any animal alive to-day. These creatures appear in Silurian rocks and are especially abundant in the fossil beds of Ohio, where Newberry, Claypole, Eastman, Dean and others have patiently studied the broken fragments of their armor. Most of them have a great casque on the head with a shield at the neck and a movable joint connecting the two. Among them was almost every variation in size and form. [Illustration: FIG. 255.--An Arthrodire, _Dinichthys intermedius_ Newberry, restored. Devonian, Ohio. (Family after Dean.)] These creatures have been often called ganoids, but with the true ganoids like the garpike they have seemingly nothing in common. They are also different from the Ostracophores. To regard them with Woodward as derived from ancestral Dipnoans is to give a possible guess as to their origin, and a very unsatisfactory guess at that. In any event these have all passed away in competition with the scaly fishes and sharks of later evolution, and it seems certain that they, like the mailed Ostracophores, have left no descendants. =The Sharks.=--Next after the lampreys, but a long way after them in structure, come the sharks. With the sharks appear for the first time true limbs and the lower jaw. The upper jaw is, however, formed from the palate, and the shoulder-girdle is attached behind the skull. "Little is known," says Professor Dean, "of the primitive stem of the sharks, and even the lines of descent of the different members of the group can only be generally suggested. The development of recent forms has yielded few results of undoubted value to the phylogenist. It would appear as if paleontology alone could solve the puzzles of their descent." Of the very earliest sharks in the Upper Silurian Age the remains are too scanty to prove much save that there were sharks in abundance and variety. Spines, teeth, fragments of shagreen, show that in some regards these forms were highly specialized. In the Carboniferous Age the sharks became highly varied and extensively specialized. Of the Paleozoic types, however, all but a single family seems to have died out, leaving Cestraciontes only in the Permian and Triassic. From these the modern sharks one and all may very likely have descended. =Origin of the Sharks.=--Perhaps the sharks are developed from the still more primitive shark imagined as without limbs and with the teeth slowly formed from modification of the ordinary shagreen prickles. In determining the earliest among the several primitive types of shark actually known we are stopped by an undetermined question of theory. What is the origin of paired limbs? Are these formed, like the unpaired fins, from the breaking up of a continuous fold of skin, in accordance with the view of Balfour and others? Or is the primitive limb, as supposed by Gegenbaur, a modification of the bony gill-arch? Or again, as supposed by Kerr, is it a modification of the hard axis of an external gill? If we adopt the views of Gegenbaur or Kerr, the earliest type of limb is the jointed _archipterygium_, a series of consecutive rounded cartilaginous elements with a fringe of rays along its length. Sharks possessing this form of limb (_Ichthyotomi_) appear in the Carboniferous rocks, but are not known earlier. It may be that from these the Dipnoans, on the one hand, may be descended and, on the other, the true sharks and the Chimæras; but there is no certainty that the jointed arm or archipterygium of the Dipnoans is derived from the similar pectoral fin of the _Ichthyotomi_. On the other hand, if we regard the paired fins as parts of a lateral fold of skin, we find primitive sharks to bear out our conclusions. In _Cladoselache_ of the Upper Devonian, the pectoral and the ventral fins are long and low, and arranged just as they might be if Balfour's theory were true. _Acanthoessus_, with a spine in each paired fin and no other rays, might be a specialization of this type or fin, and _Climatius_, with rows of spines in place of pectorals and ventrals, might be held to bear out the same idea. In all these the tail is less primitive than in the _Ichthyotomi_. On the other hand, the vent in _Cladoselache_ is thought by Dean to have been near the end of the tail. If this is the case, it should indicate a very primitive character. On the whole, though there is much to be said in favor of the primitive nature of the _Ichthyotomi_ (_Pleuracanthus_) with the tapering tail and jointed pectoral fin of a dipnoan, and other traits of a shark, yet, on the whole, _Cladoselache_ is probably nearer the origin of the shark-like forms. The relatively primitive sharks called _Notidani_ have the weakly ossified vertebræ joined together in pairs and there are six or seven gill-openings. This group has persisted to our day, the frilled shark (_Chlamydoselachus_) and the genera _Hexanchus_ and _Heptranchias_ still showing its archaic characters. Here the sharks diverge into two groups, the one with the vertebræ better developed and its calcareous matter arranged star-fashion. This forms Hasse's group of _Asterospondyli_, the typical sharks. The earliest forms (_Orodontidæ_, _Heterodontidæ_) approach the _Notidani_, and so far as geological records go, precede all the other modern sharks. One such ancient type, _Heterodontus_, including the bullhead shark, and the Port Jackson shark, still persists. The others diverge to form the three chief groups of the cat-sharks (_Scyliorhinus_, etc.), the mackerel-sharks (_Lamna_, etc.), and the true sharks (_Carcharhias_, etc.). [Illustration: FIG. 256.--Mackerel-shark or Salmon-shark, _Lamna cornubica_ (Gmelin). Santa Barbara, Cal.] In the second group the vertebræ have their calcareous matter arranged in rings, one or more about the notochordal center. In all these the anal fin is absent, and in the process of specialization the shark gradually gives place to the flattened body and broad fins of the ray. This group is called _Tectospondyli_. Those sharks of this group with one ring of calcareous matter in each vertebra constitute the most primitive extreme of a group representing continuous evolution. From _Cladoselache_ and _Chlamydoselachus_ through the sharks to the rays we have an almost continuous series which reaches its highest development in the devil rays or mantas of the tropical seas, _Manta_ and _Mobula_ being the most specialized genera and among the very largest of the fishes. However different the rays and skates may appear in form and habit, they are structurally similar to the sharks and have sprung from the main shark stem. [Illustration: FIG. 257.--Star-spined Ray, _Raja stellulata_ Jordan & Gilbert. Monterey, Cal.] =The Chimæras.=--The most ancient offshoot from the shark stem, perhaps dating from Silurian times and possibly separated at a period earlier than the date of any known shark, is the group of _Holocephali_ or Chimæras, shark-like in essentials, but differing widely in details. Of these there are but few living forms and the fossil types are known only from dental plates and fin-spines. The living forms are found in the deeper seas the world over, one of the simplest in structure being the newly discovered _Rhinochimæra_ of Japan. The fusion of the teeth into overlapping plates, the covering of the gills by a dermal flap, the complete union of the palato-quadrate apparatus or upper jaw with the skull and the development of a peculiar clasping spine on the forehead of the male are characteristic of the Chimæras. The group is one of the most ancient, but it ends with itself, none of the modern fishes being derived from Chimæras. [Illustration: FIG. 258.--A Deep-sea Chimæra, _Harriotta raleighiana_ Goode & Bean. Gulf Stream.] [Illustration: FIG. 259.--An extinct Dipnoan, _Dipterus valenciennesi_ Agassiz. Devonian. (After Pander.)] =The Dipnoans.=--The most important offshoot of the primitive sharks is not the Chimæras, nor even the shark series itself, but the groups of Crossopterygians and Dipnoans, or lung-fishes, with the long chain of their descendants. With the Dipnoan appears the lung or air-bladder, at first an outgrowth from the ventral side of the oesophagus, as it still is in all higher animals, but later turning over, among fishes, and springing from the dorsal side. At first an arrangement for breathing air, a sort of accessory gill, it becomes the sole organs of respiration in the higher forms, while in the bony fishes its respiratory function is lost altogether. The air-bladder is a degenerate lung. In the Dipnoans the shoulder-girdle moves forward to the skull, and the pectoral limb, a jointed and fringed archipterygium, is its characteristic appendage. The shark-like structure of the mouth remains. The few living lung-fishes resemble the salamanders in many regards, and some writers have ranged the class as midway between the primitive sharks and the amphibians. These forms show their intermediate characters in the development of lungs and in the primitive character of the pectoral and ventral limbs. Those now extant give but little idea of the great variety of extinct Dipnoans. The living genera are three in number--_Neoceratodus_ in Australian rivers, _Lepidosiren_ in the Amazon, and _Protopterus_ in the Nile. These are all mudfishes, some of them living through most of the dry season encased in a cocoon of dried mud. Of these forms _Neoceratodus_ is certainly the nearest to the ancient forms, but its embryology, owing to the shortening of its growth stages due to its environment, has thrown little light on the question of its ancestry. From some ally of the Dipnoans the ancestry of the amphibians, and through them that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals may be traced, although a good deal of evidence has been produced in favor of regarding the primitive crossopterygian or fringe fin as the point of divergence. It is not unlikely that the Crossopterygian gave rise to Amphibian and Dipnoan alike. In the process of development we next reach the characteristic fish mouth in which the upper jaw is formed of maxillary and premaxillary elements distinct from the skull. The upper jaw of the shark is part of the palate, the palate being fused with the quadrate bone which supports the lower jaw. That of the Dipnoan is much the same. The development of a typical fish mouth is the next step in evolution, and with its appearance we note the decline of the air-bladder in size and function. =The Crossopterygians.=--The fish-like mouth appears with the group of Crossopterygians, fishes which still retain the old-fashioned type of pectoral and ventral fin, the archipterygium. In the archaic tail, enameled scales, and cartilaginous skeleton the Crossopterygian shows its affinity with its Dipnoan ancestry. Thus these fishes unite in themselves traits of the shark, lung-fish, and Ganoid. The few living Crossopterygians, _Polypterus_ and _Erpetoichthys_, are not very different from those which prevailed in Devonian times. The larvæ possess external gills with firm base and fringe-like rays, suggesting a resemblance to the pectoral fin itself, which develops from the shoulder-girdle just below it and would seem to give some force to Kerr's contention that the archipterygium is only a modified external gill. In _Polypterus_ the archipterygium has become short and fan-shaped, its axis made of two diverging bones with flat cartilage between. From this type it is thought that the arm of the higher forms has been developed. The bony basis may be the humerus, from which diverge radius and ulna, the carpal bones being formed of the intervening cartilage. [Illustration: FIG. 260.--An extinct Crossopterygian, _Holoptychius giganteus_ Agassiz (1835). (After Agassiz, per Zittel.)] =The Actinopteri.=--From the Crossopterygians springs the main branch of the true fishes, known collectively as _Actinopteri_, or ray-fins, those with ordinary rays on the paired fins instead of the jointed archipterygium. The transitional series of primitive _Actinopteri_ are usually known as Ganoids. The Ganoid differs from the Crossopterygian in having the basal elements of the paired fins small and concealed within the flesh. But other associated characters of the Crossopterygii and Dipnoans are preserved in most of the species. Among these are the mailed head and body, the heterocercal tail, the cellular air-bladder, the presence of valves in the arterial bulb, the presence of a spiral valve in the intestine and of a chiasma in the optic nerves. All these characters are found in the earlier types so far as is known, and all are more or less completely lost or altered in the teleosts or bony fishes. Among these early types is every variety of form, some of them being almost as long as deep, others arrow-shaped, and every intermediate form being represented. An offshoot from this line is the bowfin (_Amia calva_), among the Ganoids the closest living ally of the bony fishes, showing distinct affinities with the great group to which the herring and salmon belong. Near relatives of the bowfin flourished in the Mesozoic, among them some with a forked tail, and some with a very long one. From Ganoids of this type the vast majority of recent fishes may be descended. [Illustration: FIG. 261.--An ancient Ganoid fish, _Platysomus gibbosus_ Blainville. Family _Platysomidæ_. (After Woodward.)] [Illustration: FIG. 262.--A living Ganoid fish, the Short-nosed Gar, _Lepisosteus platystomus_ Rafinesque. Lake Erie.] Another branch of Ganoids, divergent from both garfish and bowfin and not recently from the same primitive stock, included the sturgeons (_Acipenser_, _Scaphirhynchus_, _Kessleria_) and the paddle-fishes (_Polyodon_ and _Psephurus_). All these are regarded by Woodward as degenerate descendants of the earliest Ganoids, _Palæoniscidæ_, of Devonian and Carboniferous time. [Illustration: FIG. 263.--A primitive Ganoid fish, _Palæoniscum macropomum_ (Agassiz), restored. Permian. Family _Potaconiscidæ_. (After Traquair.)] [Illustration: FIG. 264.--A fossil Herring, _Diplomystus humilis_ Leidy. (From a specimen obtained at Green River, Wyo.) The scutes along the back lost in the specimen. Family _Clupeidæ_.] =The Bony Fishes.=--All the remaining fishes have ossified instead of cartilaginous skeletons. The dipnoan and ganoid traits one by one are more or less completely lost. Through these the main line of fish development continues and the various groups are known collectively as bony fishes or teleosts. [Illustration: FIG. 265.--A primitive Herring-like fish, _Holcolepis lewesiensis_ Mantell, restored. Family _Elopidæ_. English Chalk. (After Woodward.)] [Illustration: FIG. 266.--Ten-pounder, _Elops saurus_ L. An ally of the earliest bony fishes. Virginia.] The earliest of the true bony fishes or teleosts appear in Mesozoic times, the most primitive forms being soft-rayed fishes with the vertebræ all similar in form, allied more or less remotely to the herring of to-day, but connected in an almost unbroken series with the earliest ganoid forms. In these and other soft-rayed fishes the pelvis still retains its posterior insertion, the ventral fins being said to be abdominal. The next great stage in evolution brings the pelvis forward, attaching it to the shoulder-girdle so that the ventral fins are now thoracic as in the perch and bass. If brought to a point in front of the pectoral fins, a feature of specialized degradation, they become jugular as in the codfish. In the abdominal fishes the air-bladder still retains its rudimentary duct joining it to the oesophagus. From the abdominal forms allied to the herring, the huge array of modern fishes, typified by the perch, the bass, the mackerel, the wrasse, the globefish, the sculpin, the sea-horse, and the cod descended in many diverging lines. The earliest of the spine-rayed fishes with thoracic fins belong to the type of _Berycidæ_, a group characterized by rough scales, the retention of a primitive bone between the eyes, and the retention of the primitive larger number of ventral rays. These appear in the Cretaceous or chalk deposits, and show various attributes of transition from the abdominal to the thoracic type of ventrals. [Illustration: FIG. 267.--Cardinal-fish, a perch-like fish, _Apogon semilineatus_ Schlegel. Misaki, Japan.] [Illustration: FIG. 268.--Summer Herring, _Pomolobus æstivalis_ (Mitchill). Potomac River. Family _Clupeidæ_.] Another line of descent apparently distinct from that of the herring and salmon extends through the characins to the loach, carps, catfishes, and electric eel. The fishes of this series have the anterior vertebræ coossified and modified in connection with the hearing organ, a structure not appearing elsewhere among fishes. This group includes the majority of fresh-water fishes. Still another great group, the eels, have lost the ventral fins and the bones of the head have suffered much degradation. [Illustration: FIG. 269.--Fish with jugular ventral fins, _Bassozetus catena_ Goode & Bean. Family _Brotulidæ_. Gulf Stream.] [Illustration: FIG. 270.--A specialized bony fish, _Trachicephalus uranoscopus_. Family _Scorpænidæ_. From Swatow, China.] The most highly developed fishes, all things considered, are doubtless the allies of the perch, bass, and sculpin. These fishes have lost the air-duct and on the whole they show the greatest development of the greatest number of structures. In these groups their traits one after another are carried to an extreme and these stages of extreme specialization give way one after another to phases of degeneration. The specialization of one organ usually involves degeneration of some other. Extreme specialization of any organ tends to render it useless under other conditions and may be one step toward its final degradation. [Illustration: FIG. 271.--An African Catfish, _Chlarias breviceps_ Boulenger. Congo River. Family _Chlariidæ_. (After Boulenger.)] [Illustration: FIG. 272.--Silverfin, _Notropis whipplii_ (Girard). White River, Indiana. Family _Cyprinidæ_.] We have thus seen, in hasty review, that the fish-like vertebrates spring from an unknown and possibly worm-like stock, that from this stock, before it became vertebrate, degenerate branches have fallen off, represented to-day by the _Tunicates_ and _Enteropneustans_. We have seen that the primitive vertebrate was headless and limbless and without hard parts. The lancelet remains as a possible direct offshoot from it; the cyclostome with brain and skull is a possible derivative from archaic lancelets. The earliest fishes leaving traces in the rocks were mailed ostracophores. From an unknown but possibly lamprey-like stock sprang the sharks and chimæras. The sharks developed into rays in one right line and into the highest sharks along another, while by a side branch through lost stages the primitive sharks passed into Crossopterygians, into Dipnoans, or lung-fishes, and perhaps into Ostracophores. All these types and others abound in the Devonian Age and the early records were lost in the Silurian. From the Crossopterygians or their ancestors or descendants by the specialization of the lung and limbs, the land animals, at first amphibians, after these reptiles, birds, and mammals, arose. [Illustration: FIG. 273.--Moray, _Gymnothorax moringa_ Bloch. Family _Murænidæ_ Tortugas.] [Illustration: FIG. 274.--Amber-fish, _Seriola lalandi_ (Cuv. & Val.). Family _Carangidæ_. Woods Hole.] In the sea, by a line still more direct, through the gradual emphasis of fish-like characters, we find developed the Crossopterygians with archaic limbs and after these the Ganoids with fish-like limbs but otherwise archaic; then the soft-rayed and finally the spiny-rayed bony fishes, herring, mackerel, perch, which culminate in specialized and often degraded types, as the anglers, globefishes, parrot-fishes, and flying gurnards; and from each of the ultimate lines of descent radiate infinite branches till the sea and rivers are filled, and almost every body of water has fishes fitted to its environment. [Illustration: Geological Distribution of the Families of Elasmobranchs. A=Pliocene B=Miocene C=Eocene D=Cretaceous E=Jurassic F=Triassic G=Permian H=Coal Measures I=Sub-Carbonifero J=Devonian K=Silurian L=Ordovician +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L| |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| Cladoselachidæ | | | | | | | | |X|X| | | Acanthodii | | | | | | |X|X|X|X| | | Pleuracanthidæ | | | | | | |X|X|X|X| | | Cladodontidæ | | | | | | |X|X|X|X| | | Petalodontidæ | | | | | | |X|X|X| | | | Psammodontidæ | | | | | | | |X|X|X| | | Cochliodontidæ | | | | | | | |X|X|X| | | Orodontidæ | | | | | | | |X|X| | | | Heterodontidæ |X|X|X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | Tamiobatidæ | | | | | | | | | |X| | | Hexanchidæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | Lamnidæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | Mitsukurinidæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Odontaspidæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Scyliorhinidæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | Carchariidæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Squalidæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Dalatiidæ |X|X|X| | | | | | | | | | Squatinidæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | Rhinobatidæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | Pristididæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Rajidæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Narcobatidæ |X|X|X| | | | | | | | | | Dasyatidæ |X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | | Myliobatidæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | | Ptychodontidæ | | | |X| | | | | | | | | Chimæridæ |X|X|X|X|X| | | | | | | |] CHAPTER XXV THE PROTOCHORDATA =The Chordate Animals.=--Referring to our metaphor of the tree with its twigs as used in the chapter on classification we find the fishes with the higher vertebrates as parts of a great branch from which the lower twigs have mostly perished. This great branch, phylum, or line of descent is known in zoology as _Chordata_, and the organisms associated with it or composing it are chordate animals. The chordate animals are those which at some stage of life possess a notochord or primitive dorsal cartilage which divides the interior of the body into two cavities. The dorsal cavity contains the great nerve centers or spinal cord; the ventral cavity contains the heart and alimentary canal. In all other animals which possess a body cavity, there is no division by a notochord, and the ganglia of the nervous system if existing are placed on the ventral side or in a ring about the mouth. =The Protochordates.=--Modern researches have shown that besides the ordinary back-boned animals certain other creatures easily to be mistaken for mollusks or worms and being chordate in structure must be regarded as offshoots from the vertebrate branch. These are degenerate allies, as is shown by the fact that their vertebrate traits are shown in their early or larval development and scarcely at all in their adult condition. As Dr. John Sterling Kingsley has well said: "Many of the species start in life with the promise of reaching a point high in the scale, but after a while they turn around and, as one might say, pursue a downward course, which results in an adult which displays but few resemblances to the other vertebrates." In the Tunicates or Ascidians (sea-squirts, sea-pears, and salpas), which constitute the class known as _Tunicata_ or _Urochordata_, there is no brain, the notochord is confined to the tail and is usually present only in the larval stage of the animal when it has the form of a tadpole. In later life the animal usually becomes quiescent, attached to some hard object, fixed or floating. It loses its form and has the appearance of a hollow, leathery sac, the body organs being developed in a tough tunic. There are numerous families of Tunicates and the species are found in nearly all seas. They suggest no resemblance to fishes and look like tough clams without shells. The internal cavity being usually filled with water it is squirted out through the two apertures when the animal is handled. The class _Enteropneusta_ (_Adelochorda_, or _Hemichordata_), includes the rather rare worm-like forms related to _Balanoglossus_. Bateson has shown that these animals possess a notochord which is developed in the anterior part of the body. They have no fins and before the mouth is a long proboscis. Gill-slits are found in the larval tunicate. In _Balanoglossus_ these persist through life as in the fishes. The remaining chordate forms constitute the vertebrates proper, not worm-like nor mollusk-like, the notochord not disappearing with age, except as it gives way, by specialized segmentation to the complex structures of the vertebral column. These vertebrates, which are permanently aquatic, are known in a popular sense as fishes. The fish, in the broad sense, is a back-boned animal which retains the homologue of the back-bone throughout life, which does not develop jointed limbs, its locomotive members, if present, being developed as fins, and which breathes through life the air contained in water by means of gills. This definition excludes the Tunicates and Enteropneusta on the one hand and the Amphibia or Batrachia with the reptiles, birds, and mammals on the other. The Amphibia are much more closely related to certain fishes than the classes of fishes are to each other. Still for purposes of systematic study, the frogs and salamanders are left out of the domain of ichthyology, while the Tunicata and the Enteropneusta might well be included in it. The known branchiferous or gill-bearing chordates living and extinct may be first divided into eight classes--the _Enteropneusta_, the _Tunicata_, the _Leptocardii_, or lancelets, the _Cyclostomi_, or lampreys, the _Elasmobranchii_, or sharks, the _Ostracophori_ the _Arthrodira_, and the _Teleostomi_, or true fishes. The first two groups, being very primitive and in no respect fish-like in appearance, are sometimes grouped together as _Protochordata_, the others with the higher Chordates constituting the _Vertebrata_. =Other Terms used in Classification.=--The Leptocardii are sometimes called Acraniata (without skull), as distinguished from the higher groups, Craniota, in which the skull is developed. The _Leptocardii_, _Cyclostomi_, and _Ostracophori_ are sometimes called _Agnatha_ (without jaws) in contradistinction to the _Gnathostomi_ (jaw mouths), which include the sharks and true fishes with the higher vertebrates. The sharks and Teleostomes are sometimes brought together as _Pisces_, or fishes, as distinguished from other groups not true fishes. To the sharks and true fishes the collective name of _Lyrifera_ has been given, these fishes having the harp-shaped shoulder-girdle, its parts united below. The _Ostracophores_ and _Arthrodires_ agreeing in the bony coat of mail, and both groups now extinct and both of uncertain relationship, have been often united under the name of _Placoderms_, and these and many other fishes have been again erroneously confounded with the Ganoids. Again, the Teleostomi have been frequently divided into three classes--_Crossopterygii_, _Dipneusti_ or _Dipnoi_, and _Actinopterygii_. The latter may be again divided into _Ganoidei_ and _Teleostei_ and all sorts of ranks have been assigned to each of these groups. For our purposes a division into eight classes is most convenient, and lowest among these we may place the _Enteropneusta_. =The Enteropneusta.=--Most simple, most worm-like, and perhaps most primitive of all the Chordates is the group of worm-shaped forms, forming the class of _Enteropneusta_. The class of _Enteropneusta_, also called _Adelochorda_ or _Hemichordata_, as here recognized, consists of a group of small marine animals allied to the genus _Balanoglossus_, or acorn-tongues (~balanos~, acorn; ~glôssa~, tongue). These are worm-like creatures with fragile bodies buried in the sand or mud, or living under rocks of the seashore and in shallow waters, where they lie coiled in a spiral, with little or no motion. From the surface of the body a mucous substance is secreted, holding together particles by which are formed tubes of sand. The animal has a peculiar odor like that of iodoform. At the front is a long muscular proboscis, very sensitive, capable of great extension and contraction, largely used in burrowing in the ground, and of a brilliant orange color in life. Behind this is a collar which overlaps the small neck and conceals the small mouth at the base of the proboscis. The gill-slits behind the collar are also more or less concealed by it. The body, which is worm-like, extends often to the length of two or three feet. The gill-slits in the adult are arranged in regular pairs, there being upwards of fifty in number much like the gill-slits of the lancelet. As the animal grows older the slits become less conspicuous, their openings being reduced to small slit-like pores. In the interior of the proboscis is a rod-like structure which arises as an outgrowth of the alimentary canal above the mouth. In development and structure this rod so resembles the notochord of the lancelet that it is regarded as a true notochord, though found in the anterior region only. From the presence of gill-slits and notochord and from the development and structure of the central nervous system _Balanoglossus_ was recognized by William Bateson, who studied an American species, _Dolichoglossus kowalevskii_, at Hampton Roads in Virginia in 1885, and at Beaufort in North Carolina, as a member of the Chordate series. Unlike the Tunicates it represents a primitively simple, not a degenerate, type. It seems to possess real affinities with the worms, or possibly, as some have thought, with the sea-urchins. [Illustration: FIG. 275.--"Tornaria" Larva of _Glossobalanus minutus_. (After Minot.)] A peculiar little creature, known as _Tornaria_, was once considered to be the larva of a starfish. It is minute and transparent, floating on the surface of the sea. It has no visible resemblance to the adult _Balanoglossus_, but it has been reared in aquaria and shown to pass into the latter or into the related genus _Glossobalanus_. No such metamorphosis was found by Bateson in the more primitive genus _Dolichoglossus_, studied by him. This adult animal may be, indeed, a worm as it appears, but the presence of gill-slits, the existence of a rudimentary notochord, and the character of the central nervous system are distinctly fish-like and therefore vertebrate characters. With the Chordates, and not with the worms, this class, _Enteropneusta_ (~enteron~, intestine; ~pnein~, to breathe), must be placed if its characters have been rightly interpreted. It is possibly a descendant of the primitive creatures which marked the transition from the archaic worms, or possibly archaic Echinoderms, to the archaic Chordate type. [Illustration: FIG. 276.--_Glossobalanus minutus_, one of the higher Enteropneustans. (After Minot.)] It is perhaps not absolutely certain that the notochord of _Balanoglossus_ and its allies is a true homologue of the notochord of the lancelet. There may be doubt even of the homologies of the gill-slits themselves. But the balance of evidence seems to throw _Balanoglossus_ on the fish side of the dividing line which separates the lower Chordates from the worms. It may be noticed that Hubrecht regards the proboscis of various marine Nemertine worms as a real homologue of the notochord, and other writers have traced with more or less success other apparent or possible homologies between the Chordate and the Annelid series. =Classification of Enteropneusta.=--Until recently the _Enteropneusta_ have been usually placed in a single family or even in a single genus. The recent researches of Professor J. W. Spengel of Giessen and of Professor William Emerson Ritter of the University of California, have shown clearly that the group is much larger than had been generally supposed, with numerous species in all the warm seas. In Spengel's recent paper, "Die Benennung der Enteropneusten-Gattungen," three families are recognized with nine genera and numerous species. At least seven species are now known from the Pacific Coast of North America. =Family Harrimaniidæ.=--In _Harrimania maculosa_, lately described by Dr. Ritter from Alaska, the eggs are large, with much food yolk, and the process of development is probably, without _Tornaria_ stage. A second species of _Harrimania_ (_H. kupferi_) is now recognized from Norway and Greenland. This genus is the simplest in structure among all the Enteropneustans and may be regarded as the lowest of known Chordates, the most worm-like of back-boned animals. [Illustration: FIG. 277.--_Harrimania maculosa_ (Ritter), the lowest of chordate animals. An Enteropneustan from Alaska. (After Ritter.)] In _Dolichoglossus kowalevskii_ the species studied by Bateson on the Virginia coast, the same simplicity of development occurs. This genus, with a third, _Stereobalanus_ (_canadensis_), constitutes in Spengel's system the family of _Harrimaniidæ_. =Balanoglossidæ.=--The family _Glandicepitidæ_ contains the genera _Glandiceps_, _Spengelia_, and _Schizocardium_. In the _Balanoglossidæ_ (_Ptychoderidæ_ of Spengel) the eggs are very small and numerous, with little food yolk. The species in this family pass through the Tornaria stage above described, a condition strikingly like that of the larval starfish. This fact has given rise to the suggestion that the Enteropneusta have a real affinity with the Echinoderms. The _Balanoglossidæ_ include the genera _Glossobalanus_, _Balanoglossus_, and _Ptychodera_, the latter the oldest known member of the group, its type, _Ptychodera flava_, having been described by Eschscholtz from the Pacific Coast in 1825, while _Balanoglossus clavigerus_ was found by Della Chiaje in 1829. =Low Organization of Harrimaniidæ.=--Apparently the _Harrimaniidæ_, with simpler structure, more extensive notochord, and direct development, should be placed at the bottom as the most primitive of the Enteropneustan series. Dr. Willey, however, regards its characters as due to degeneration, and considers the more elaborate _Balanoglossidæ_ as nearest the primitive type. The case in this view would have something in common with that of the _Larvacea_, which seems to be the primitive Tunicates, but which may have been produced by the degeneration of more complex forms. CHAPTER XXVI THE TUNICATES, OR ASCIDIANS =Structure of Tunicates.=--One of the most singular groups of animals is that known as Ascidians, or Tunicates. It is one of the most clearly marked yet most heterogeneous of all the classes of animals, and in no other are the phenomena of degeneration so clearly shown. Among them is a great variety of form and habit. Some lie buried in sand; some fasten themselves to rocks; some are imbedded in great colonies in a gelatinous matrix produced from their own bodies, and some float freely in long chains in the open sea. All agree in changing very early in their development from a free-swimming or fish-like condition to one of quiescence, remaining at rest or drifting with the current. Says Dr. John Sterling Kingsley: "Many of the species start in life with the promise of reaching a point high in the scale, but after a while they turn around and, as one might say, pursue a downward course which results in an adult which displays but few resemblances to the other vertebrates. Indeed, so different do they seem that the fact that they belong here was not suspected until about thirty-five years ago. Before that time, ever since the days of Cuvier, they were almost universally regarded as mollusks, and many facts were adduced to show that they belonged near the acephals (clams, oysters, etc.). In the later years when the facts of development began to be known, this association was looked on with suspicion, and by some they were placed for a short time among the worms. Any one who has watched the phases of their development cannot help believing that they belong here, the lowest of the vertebrate series." The following account of the structure and development of the Tunicate is taken, with considerable modification and condensation, from Professor Kingsley's chapter on the group in the Riverside Natural History. For the changes suggested I am indebted to the kindness of Professor William Emerson Ritter: The Tunicates derive their name from the fact that the whole body is invested with a tough envelope or "tunic." This tunic or test may be either gelatinous, cartilaginous, or leathery. In some forms it is perfectly transparent, in others it is translucent, allowing enough light to pass to show the colors of the viscera, while in still others it is opaque and variously colored. The tunic is everywhere only loosely attached to the body proper, except in the region of the two openings now to be mentioned. One of these openings occupies a more or less central position, while the other is usually at one side, or it may even be placed at the opposite end of the body. On placing one of the Ascidians in a glass dish and sprinkling a little carmine or indigo in the water, we can study some of the functions of the animal. As soon as the disturbance is over, the animals will open the two apertures referred to, when it will be seen that each is surrounded with blunt lobes, the number of which varies with the species. As soon as they are opened a stream of water will be seen to rush into the central opening, carrying with it the carmine, and a moment later a reddish cloud will be ejected from the other aperture. From this we learn that the water passes through the body. Why it does so is to be our next inquiry. On cutting the animal open we find that the water, after passing through the first-mentioned opening (which may be called the mouth) enters a spacious chamber, the walls of which are made up of fine meshes, the whole appearing like lattice-work. Taking out a bit of this network and examining it under the microscope, we find that the edges of the meshes are armed with strong cilia, which are in constant motion, forcing the water through the holes. Of course, the supply has to be made good, and hence more water flows in through the mouth. This large cavity is known as the branchial or pharyngeal chamber. It is, according to Professor Ritter, "as we know from the embryology of the animal, the greatly enlarged anterior end of the digestive tract; and as the holes, or stigmata, as they are technically called, are perforations of the wall for the passage of water for purposes of respiration, they are both morphologically and physiologically comparable with the gill openings of fishes." There can be no doubt, therefore, that the pharyngeal sac of Ascidians is homologous with the pharynx of fishes. Surrounding the mouth, or branchial orifice, just at its entrance into the branchial chamber is a circle of tentacles. These are simple in some genera, but elaborately branched in others. In close connection with the cerebral ganglion, which is situated between the two siphons, there is a large gland with a short trumpet-shaped duct opening into the branchial sac a little distance behind the mouth. The orifice of the duct is just within a ring consisting of a ciliated groove that extends around the mouth outside the circle of branchial tentacles. On the opposite side of the mouth from the gland the ciliated groove joins another groove which is both ciliated and glandular, and which runs backward along the upper floor of the pharyngeal sac to its posterior extremity. This organ, called the endostyle, is concerned in the transportation of the animal's food through the pharyngeal sac to the opening of the oesophagus. Comparative embryology makes it almost certain that the subneural gland with its duct, described above, is homologous with the hypophesis cerebri of true vertebrates, and that the endostyle is homologous with the thyroid glands of vertebrates. The water after passing through the branchial network is received into narrow passages and conducted to a larger cavity--the cloacal or atrial chamber. The general relations can he seen from our diagram, illustrating a vertical and horizontal section. From the atrial chamber the water flows out into the external world. Now we can readily see how in the older works naturalists were misled as to the affinities of the Tunicates. They regarded the tunic as the equivalent of the mantle of the mollusks, while the incurrent and excurrent openings corresponded to the siphons. In one genus, _Rhodosoma_, the resemblance was even stronger, for there the tunic is in two parts, united by a hinge line, and closed by an adductor muscle. How and why these views were totally erroneous will be seen when we come to consider the development of these animals. At the bottom of the pharnygeal sac is the narrow oesophagus surrounded with cilia, which force a current down into the digestive tract. The branchial meshes serve as a strainer for the water, and the larger particles which it contains fall down until they are within reach of the current going down the oesophagus. After passing through the throat, they come to the stomach, where digestion takes place, and then the ejectamenta are carried out through the intestine and poured into the bottom of the atrial cavity. The heart lies on the ventral side of the stomach and is surrounded by a well-developed pericardium. The most remarkable fact connected with the circulation is that the heart, after beating a short time, forcing the blood through the vessels, will suddenly stop for a moment and then resume its beats; but, strange to say, after the stoppage the direction of the circulation is reversed, the blood taking an exactly opposite course from that formerly pursued. This most exceptional condition was first seen in the transparent _Salpa_, but it may be witnessed in the young of most genera. We have already referred to the branchial chamber. The walls of this chamber, besides acting as a strainer, are also respiratory organs. The meshes of which they are composed are in reality tubes through which the blood circulates and thus is brought in contact with a constantly renewed supply of fresh water. The central nervous system in the adults of all except the _Larvacea_ is reduced to a single ganglion placed near the mouth thus indicating the dorsal side. In forms like _Cynthia_ it holds the same relative position with regard to the mouth, but by the doubling of the body (to be explained further on) it is also brought near the atrial aperture, where it is shown in our first diagram. =Development of Tunicates.=--The sexes are combined in the same individual, though usually the products ripen at different times. As a rule, the earlier stages of the embryo are passed inside the cloacal chamber, though in some the development occurs outside the body. As a type of the development we will consider that of one of the solitary forms, leaving the many curious modifications to be noticed in connection with the species in which they occur. This will be best, since these forms show the relationship to the other vertebrates in the clearest manner. [Illustration: FIG. 278.--Development of the larval Tunicate to the fixed condition. (From Seeliger, per Parker & Haswell.) _a_, larva; _b_, intermediate stage; _c_, adult.] The egg undergoes a total segmentation and a regular gastrulation. Soon a tail appears, and under the microscope the young embryo, which now begins its free life, appears much like the tadpole of the frog. It has a large oval body and a long tail which lashes about, forcing the animal forward with a wriggling motion. Nor is the resemblance superficial; it pervades every part of the structure, as may be seen from the adjacent diagram. The mouth is nearly terminal and communicates with a gill-chamber provided with gill-clefts. At the posterior end of the gill-chamber begins the alimentary tract, which pursues a convoluted course to the vent. In the tail, but not extending to any distance into the body, is an axial cylinder, the notochord, which here, as in all other vertebrates, arises from the hypoblast; and above it is the spinal cord (epiblastic in origin), which extends forward to the brain, above the gill-chamber. Besides, the animal is provided with organs of sight and hearing, which, however, are of peculiar construction and can hardly be homologized with the corresponding organs in vertebrates. So far the correspondence between the two types is very close, and if we knew nothing about the later stages, one would without doubt predict that the adult tunicate would reach a high point in the scale of vertebrates. These high expectations are never fulfilled; the animal, on the contrary, pursues a retrograde course, resulting in an adult whose relationship to the true vertebrates never would have been suspected had its embryology remained unknown. [Illustration: FIG. 279.--Anatomy of Tunicate. (After Herdman, per Parker & Haswell.)] After the stage described this retrograde movement begins. From various parts of the body lobes grow out, armed on their extremities with sucking-disks. These soon come in contact with some subaquatic object and adhere to it. Then the notochord breaks down, the spinal cord is absorbed, the tail follows suit, the intestine twists around, and the cloaca is formed, the result being much like the diagram near the head of this section. In forms like _Appendicularia_, little degeneration takes place, so far as is known, the tail, with its notochord and neural chord, persisting through life. =Reproduction of Tunicates.=--As to the reproduction of the Tunicates, Dr. Ritter writes: "In addition to the sexual method of reproduction, many tunicates reproduce asexually by budding. The capacity for bud reproduction appears to have been acquired by certain simple Ascidians in connection with, probably as a result of, their having given up the free-swimming life and become attached and consequently degenerate. "Instructive as the embryonic development of the creatures is from the standpoint of evolution, the bud method of development is scarcely less so from the same point of view. The development of the adult zooid from the simple bud has been conclusively shown to be by a process in many respects fundamentally unlike that by which the individual is developed from the egg. We have then in these animals a case in which practically the same results are reached by developmental processes that are, according to prevailing conceptions of animal organizations, fundamentally different. This fact has hardly a parallel in the animal kingdom." =Habits of Tunicates.=--The Tunicates are all marine, some floating or swimming freely, some attached to rocks or wharves, others buried in the sand. They feed on minute organisms, plants, or animals, occasional rare forms being found in their stomachs. Some of them possess a single median eye or eye-like structure which may not do more than recognize the presence of light. No fossil Tunicates are known, as they possess no hard parts, although certain Ostracoderms have been suspected, though on very uncertain grounds, to be mailed Tunicates, rather than mailed lampreys. It is not likely that this hypothesis has any sound foundation. The group is divided by Herdman and most other recent authorities into three orders, viz., the _Larvacea_, the _Ascidiacea_, and the _Thaliacea_. =Larvacea.=--In the most primitive order the animals are minute and free-swimming, never passing beyond the tadpole stage. The notochord and the nervous chord persist through life, the latter with ganglionic segmentations at regular intervals. The species mostly float in the open sea, and some of them form from their own secretions a transparent gelatinous envelope called a "house." This has two apertures and a long chamber "in which the tail has room to vibrate." The order consists of a single small family, _Appendiculariidæ_. The lowest type is known as _Kowalevskia_, a minute creature without heart or intestine found floating in the Mediterranean. It is in many respects the simplest in structure among _Chordate_ animals. _Oikopleura_ (Fig. 288) is another genus of this group. =Ascidiacea.=--In the _Ascidiacea_ the adult is usually attached to some object, and the two apertures are placed near each other by the obliteration of the caudal area. The form has been compared to a "leathern bottle with two spouts." [Illustration: FIG. 280.--_Ascidia adhærens_ Ritter. Glacier Bay, Alaska. (After Ritter.)] The suborder _Ascidiæ simplices_ includes the solitary Ascidians or "sea-squirts," common on our shores, as well as the social forms in which an individual is surrounded by its buds. The common name arises from the fact that when touched they contract, squirting water from both apertures. The _Ascidiidæ_ comprise the most familiar solitary forms, some of them the largest of the Tunicates and represented on most coasts. In the _Molgulidæ_ and most _Ascidiæ compositæ_ the young hatch out in the cloaca, from which "these tadpoles swim out as yellow atoms," while in a new genus, _Euherdmania_, described by Ritter, from the coast of California, the embryos are retained through their whole larval stage in the oviduct of the parent. They form, according to Kingsley, adhesive processes on the body, but those of _Molgula_ cannot use them in becoming attached to rocks, since they are entirely inclosed in a peculiar envelope. This envelope is after a while very adhesive, and if the little tadpole happens to touch any part of himself to a stone or shell he is fastened for life. Thus "I have frequently seen them adhere by the tail, while the anterior part was making the most violent struggles to escape. Soon, however, they settle down contentedly, absorb the tail, and in a few weeks assume the adult structure." In the family _Cynthiidæ_ the brightly-colored red and yellow species of _Cynthia_ are known as sea-peaches by the fishermen. The sea-pears, _Boltenia_, are fastened to long stalks. These have a leathery and wrinkled tunic, to which algæ and hydroids freely attach themselves. Into the gill-cavity of these forms small fishes, blennies, gobies, and pearl-fishes often retreat for protection. [Illustration: FIG. 281.--_Styela yacutatensis_ (Ritter), a simple Ascidian. Family _Molgulidæ_. Yakutat Bay, Alaska. (After Ritter.)] The social Ascidians constitute the _Clavellinidæ_. They are similar to the _Ascidiidæ_ in form, but each individual sends out a bud which forms a stern bearing another individual at the end. By this means large colonies may be formed. The suborder, _Ascidiæ compositæ_, contains the compound Ascidians or colonies enveloped in a common gelatinous "test." These colonies are usually attached to rock or seaweed, and the individuals are frequently regularly and symmetrically arranged. The bodies are sometimes complex in form. [Illustration: FIG. 282.--_Styela greeleyi_ Ritter. Family _Molgulidæ_. Lukanin, Pribilof Islands. (After Ritter.)] [Illustration: FIG. 283.--_Cynthia superba_ Ritter. A Tunicate from Puget Sound. Family _Cynthiidæ_. (After Ritter.)] In the _Botryllidæ_ and _Polystyelidæ_ the individuals are not segmented and in the former family are arranged in star-shaped groups about a common cloaca, into which the atrial siphons of the different individuals open. The group springs by budding from the tadpole, or larva, which has attached itself to some object. These forms are often brightly colored. _Botryllus gouldi_ is a species very common along our North Atlantic coast, forming gray star-shaped masses sometimes an inch across on eel-grass (_Zostera_) and on flat-leaved seaweeds. _Goodsiria dura_, a representative of the _Polystyelidæ_, is one of the most common Ascidians on the California coast southward, where the brick-red masses incrusting on seaweeds of various kinds, and on other Ascidians, are frequently thrown ashore in great quantities during heavy storms. [Illustration: FIG. 284.--_Botryllus magnus_ Ritter. A compound Ascidian. Shumagin Islands, Alaska. (After Ritter.)] In _Didemnidæ_ the body is more complex, of two parts, called the "thorax" and "abdomen." In _Amaroecium_, the "sea pork" of the fishermen, the body is in three parts and the individuals are very long. These sometimes form great masses a foot or more long, "colored like boiled salt pork, but more translucent." Other families of this type are the _Distomidæ_ and the _Polyclinidæ_. In the suborder _Luciæ_, including the family _Pyrosomidæ_, the colonies are thimble-shaped and hollow, the incurrent openings being on the outer surface of the thimble, the outgoing stream opening within. _Pyrosoma_ is highly phosphorescent. In the tropical seas some colonies reach a length of two or three feet. It is said that a description of a colony was once written by a naturalist on a page illumined by the colony's own light. "Each of the individuals has a number of cells near the mouth the function of which is to produce the light." =Thaliacea.=--In the order _Thaliacea_ the Tunicates have the two orifices at opposite ends of the body. All are free-swimming and perfectly transparent. The principal family is that of _Salpidæ_. The gill-cavity in Salpa is much altered, the gills projecting into it dividing it into two chambers. In these forms we have the phenomena of alternation of generations. A sexual female produces eggs, and from each hatches a tadpole larva which is without sex. This gives rise to buds, some at least of the individuals arising which in turn produce eggs. [Illustration: FIG. 285.--_Botryllus magnus_ Ritter. Part of colony. (After Ritter.)] In the family _Salpidæ_ two kinds of individuals occur, the solitary salpa, or female, and the chain salpa, or bisexual males. The latter are united together in long bands, each individual forming a link in the chain held together by spurs extending from one to the next. From each solitary individual a long process or cord grows out, this dividing to form the chain. Each chain salpa produces male reproductive organs and each develops as well a single egg. The egg is developed within the body attached by a sort of placenta, while the spermatozoa are cast into the sea to fertilize other eggs. From each egg develops the solitary salpa and from her buds the chain of bisexual creatures. Dr. W. K. Brooks regards these as nursing males, the real source of the egg being perhaps the solitary female. Of this extraordinary arrangement the naturalist-poet Chamisso, who first described it, said: "A salpa mother is not like its daughter or its own mother, but resembles its sister, its granddaughter, and its grandmother." But it is misleading to apply such terms taken from the individualized human relationship to the singular communal system developed by these ultra-degenerate and strangely specialized Chordates. [Illustration: FIG. 286.--_Botryllus magnus_ Ritter, a single Zooid. Shumagin Islands, Alaska. (After Ritter.)] [Illustration: FIG. 287.--_Aplidiopsis jordani_ Ritter, a compound Ascidian. Lukanin Beach, Pribilof Islands. (After Ritter.)] The Salpas abound in the warm seas, the chains often covering the water for miles. They are perfectly transparent, and the chains are often more than a foot in length. In Doliolum the body is barrel-shaped and the gills are less modified than in Salpa. The alternation of generations in this genus is still more complicated than in Salpa, for here we have not only a sexual and a non-sexual generation, the individuals of which differ from each other, but there is further a differentiation among the asexually produced individuals themselves; so that we have in all three instead of two sorts of animals in the complete life cycle. Besides the proliferating stolon situated on the ventral side, the bud-producing individual possesses a dorsal process larger than the stolon proper. The buds become completely severed from the true stolon at an early stage and actually crawl along the side of the parent up to the dorsal process, upon which they arrange themselves in three rows, two lateral and one median. The buds of the lateral rows become nutritive and respiratory zooids, while those of the median row, ultimately at least, give rise in turn to the egg-producing individuals. =Origin of Tunicates.=--There can be little doubt that the _Tunicata_ form an offshoot from the primitive Chordate stock, and the structure of their larva in connection with that of the lancelet throws a large light on the nature of their common parents. "We may conclude," says Dr. Arthur Willey, "that the proximate ancestor of the Vertebrates was a free-swimming animal intermediate in organization between an Ascidian tadpole and Amphioxus, possessing the dorsal mouth, hypophysis, and restricted notochord of the former and the myotomes, coelomic epithelium, and straight alimentary canal of the latter. The ultimate or primordial ancestor of the Vertebrates would, on the contrary, be a worm-like animal whose organization was approximately on a level with that of the bilateral ancestors of the Echinoderms." [Illustration: FIG. 288.--Adult Tunicate of the group Larvacea, Oikopleura. Family _Appendiculariidæ_. (After Fol, per Parker & Haswell.)] =Degeneration of Tunicates.=--There is no question, furthermore, Professor Ritter observes, "that most of the group has undergone great degeneration in its evolutionary course. Just what the starting-point was, however, is a matter on which there is considerable difference of opinion among authorities. According to one view, particularly championed by Professor W. K. Brooks, _Appendicularia_ is very near the ancestral form. The ancestor was consequently a small, marine, free-swimming creature. From this ancestor the Ascidiacea were evolved largely through the influence of the attached habit of life, and the tadpole stage in their development is a recapitulation of the ancestral form, just as the tadpole stage in the frog's life is a repetition of the fish ancestry of the frog. "According to the most common view _Appendicularia_ is not an ancestral form at all, but is the tadpole stage of the _Ascidiacea_ that has failed to undergo metamorphosis and has become sexually mature in the larval condition, as the larva of certain Amphibians and insects are known to never pass into the adult state but reproduce their kind sexually in the larval condition. By this view the tadpole of such Ascidian as _Ciona_, for example, represents more closely the common ancestor of the group than does any other form we know. This view is especially defended by Professor K. Heider and Dr. Arthur Willey." CHAPTER XXVII THE LEPTOCARDII, OR LANCELETS =The Lancelet.=--The lancelet is a vertebrate reduced to its very lowest terms. The essential organs of vertebrate life are there, but each one in its simplest form unspecialized and with structure and function feebly differentiated. The skeleton consists of a cartilaginous notochord inclosed in a membranous sheath. There is no skull. No limbs, no conspicuous processes, and no vertebræ are present. The heart is simply a long contractile tube, hence the name _Leptocardii_ (from ~leptos~, slender; ~kardia~, heart). The blood is colorless. There is a hepatic portal circulation. There is no brain, the spinal cord tapering in front as behind. The water for respiration passes through very many gill-slits from the pharynx into the atrium, from which it is excluded through the atripore in front of the vent. A large chamber, called the atrium, extends almost the length of the body along the ventral and lateral regions. It communicates with the pharynx through the gill-slits and with the exterior through a small opening in front of the vent, the atripore. The atrium is not found in forms above the lancelets. The reproductive organs consist of a series of pairs of segmentally arranged gonads. The excretory organs consist of a series of tubules in the region of the pharynx, connecting the body-cavity with the atrium. The mouth is a lengthwise slit without jaws, and on either side is a row of fringes. From this feature comes the name _Cirrostomi_, from cirrus, a fringe of hair, and ~stoma~, mouth. The body is lanceolate in form, sharp at either end. From this fact arises a third name, _Amphioxus_, from ~amphi~, both; ~oxys~, sharp. Dorsal and anal fins are developed as folds of the skin supported by very slender rays. There are no other fins. The alimentary canal is straight, and is differentiated into pharynx and intestine; the liver is a blind sac arising from the anterior end of the intestine. A pigment spot in the wall of the spinal cord has been interpreted as an eye. Above the snout is a supposed olfactory pit which some have thought to be connected with the pineal structure. The muscular impressions along the sides are very distinct and it is chiefly by means of the variation in numbers of these that the species can be distinguished. Thus in the common lancelet of Europe, _Branchiostoma lanceolatum_, the muscular bands are 35+14+12=61. In the common species of the Eastern coasts of America, _Branchiostoma caribæum_, these are 35+14+9=58, while in the California lancelet, _Branchiostoma californiense_, these are 44+16+9=69. =Habits of Lancelets.=--Lancelets are slender translucent worm-like creatures, varying from half an inch (_Asymmetron lucayanum_) to four inches (_Branchiostoma californiense_) in length. They live buried in sand in shallow waters along the coasts of warm seas. One species, _Amphioxides pelagicus_, has been taken at the depth of 1000 fathoms, but whether at the bottom or floating near the surface is not known. The species are very tenacious of life and will endure considerable mutilation. Some of them are found on almost every coast in semi-tropical and tropical regions. =Species of Lancelets.=--The Mediterranean species ranges northward to the south of England. Others are found as far north as Chesapeake Bay, San Diego, and Misaki in Japan, where is found a species called _Branchiostoma belcheri_. The sands at the mouth of San Diego Bay are noted as producing the largest of the species of lancelets, _Branchiostoma californiense_. From the Bahamas comes the smallest, the type of a distinct genus, _Asymmetron lucayanum_, distinguished among other things by a projecting tail. Other supposed genera are _Amphioxides_ (_pelagicus_), dredged in the deep sea off Hawaii and supposed to be pelagic, the mouth without cirri; _Epigonichthys_ (_cultellus_), from the East Indies, and _Heteropleuron_ (_bassanum_), from Bass Straits, Australia. These little animals are of great interest to anatomists as giving the clue to the primitive structure of vertebrates. While possibly these have diverged widely from their actual common ancestry with the fishes, they must approach near to these in many ways. Their simplicity is largely primitive, not, as in the Tunicates, the result of subsequent degradation. [Illustration: FIG. 289.--California Lancelet, _Branchiostoma californiense_ Gill. (From San Diego.)] The lancelets, less than a dozen species in all, constitute a single family, _Branchiostomidæ_. The principal genus, _Branchiostoma_, is usually called _Amphioxus_ by anatomists. But while the name _Amphioxus_, like lancelet, is convenient in vernacular use, it has no standing in systematic nomenclature. The name _Branchiostoma_ was given to lancelets from Naples in 1834, by Costa, while that of _Amphioxus_, given to specimens from Cornwall, dates from Yarrell's work on the British fishes in 1836. The name Amphioxus may be pleasanter or shorter or more familiar or more correctly descriptive than _Branchiostoma_, but if so the fact cannot be considered in science as affecting the duty of priority. The name _Acraniata_ (without skull) is often used for the lower Chordates taken collectively, and it is sometimes applied to the lancelets alone. It refers to those chordate forms which have no skull nor brain, as distinguished from the _Craniota_, or forms with a distinct brain having a bony or cartilaginous capsule for its protection. =Origin of Lancelets.=--It is doubtless true, as Dr. Willey suggests, that the Vertebrates became separated from their worm-like ancestry through "the concentration of the central nervous system along the dorsal side of the body and its conversion into a hollow tube." Besides this trait two others are common to all of them, the presence of the gill-slits and that of the notochord. The gill-slits may have served primarily to relieve the stomach of water, as in the lowest forms they enter directly into the body-cavity. The primitive function of the notochord is still far from clear, but its ultimate use of its structures in affording protection and in furnishing a fulcrum for the muscles and limbs is of the greatest importance in the processes of life. [Illustration: FIG. 289_a_.--Gill-basket of Lamprey.] CHAPTER XXVIII THE CYCLOSTOMES, OR LAMPREYS =The Lampreys.=--Passing upward from the lancelets and setting aside the descending series of Tunicates, we have a long step indeed to the next class of fish-like vertebrates. During the period this great gap represents in time we have the development of brain, skull, heart, and other differentiated organs replacing the simple structures found in the lancelet. The presence of brain without limbs and without coat-of-mail distinguishes the class of _Cyclostomes_, or lampreys (~kuklos~, round; ~stoma~, mouth). This group is also known as _Marsipobranchi_ (~marsipion~, pouch; ~branchos~, gill); _Dermopteri_ (~derma~, skin; ~pteron~, fin); and _Myzontes_ (~myzaô~, to suck). It includes the forms known as lampreys, slime-eels, and hagfishes. =Structure of the Lamprey.=--Comparing a Cyclostome with a lancelet we may see many evidences of specialization in structure. The Cyclostome has a distinct head with a cranium formed of a continuous body of cartilage modified to contain a fish-like brain, a cartilaginous skeleton of which the cranium is evidently a differentiated part. The vertebræ are undeveloped, the notochord being surrounded by its membranes, without bony or cartilaginous segments. The gills have the form of fixed sacs, six to fourteen in number, on each side, arranged in a cartilaginous structure known as "branchial basket" (fig. 289_a_), the elements of which are not clearly homologous with the gill-arches of the true fishes. Fish-like eyes are developed on the sides of the head. There is a median nostril associated with a pituitary pouch, which pierces the skull floor. An ear-capsule is developed. The brain is composed of paired ganglia in general appearance resembling the brain of the true fish, but the detailed homology of its different parts offers considerable uncertainty. The heart is modified to form two pulsating cavities, auricle and ventricle. The folds of the dorsal and anal fins are distinct, supported by slender rays. The mouth is a roundish disk, with rasping teeth over its surface and with sharper and stronger teeth on the tongue. The intestine is straight and simple. The kidney is represented by a highly primitive pronephros and no trace exists of an air-bladder or lung. The skin is smooth and naked, sometimes secreting an excessive quantity of slime. From the true fishes the Cyclostomes differ in the total absence of limbs and of shoulder and pelvic girdles, as well as of jaws. It has been thought by some writers that the limbs were ancestrally present and lost through degeneration, as in the eels. Dr. Ayers, following Huxley, finds evidence of the ancestral existence of a lower jaw. The majority of observers, however, regard the absence of limbs and jaws in Cyclostomes as a primitive character, although numerous other features of the modern hagfish and lamprey may have resulted from degeneration. There is no clear evidence that the class of Cyclostomes, as now known to us, has any great antiquity, and its members may be all degenerate offshoots from types of greater complexity of structure. =Supposed Extinct Cyclostomes.=--No species belonging to the class of Cyclostomes has been found fossil. We may reason theoretically that the earliest fish-like forms were acraniate or lancelet-like, and that lamprey-like forms would naturally follow these, but this view cannot be substantiated from the fossils. Lancelets have no hard parts whatever, and could probably leave no trace in any sedimentary deposit. The lampreys stand between lancelets and sharks. Their teeth and fins at least might occasionally be preserved in the rocks, but no structures certainly known to be such have yet been recognized. It is however reasonably certain that the modern lamprey and hagfish are descendants, doubtless degraded and otherwise modified from species which filled the gap between the earliest chordate animals and the jaw-bearing sharks. =Conodontes.=--Certain structures found as fossils have been from time to time regarded as Cyclostomes, but in all such cases there is doubt as to the real nature of the fossil relic in question or as to the proper interpretation of its relationship. Thus the _Conodontes_ of the Cambrian, Silurian, and Devonian have been regarded as lingual teeth of extinct Cyclostomes. The _Cycliæ_ of the Devonian have been considered as minute lampreys, although the vertebral segments are highly specialized, to a degree far beyond the condition seen in the lampreys of to-day. The Ostracophores have been regarded as monstrous lampreys in coat of mail, and the possibility of a lamprey origin even for Arthrodires has been suggested. The _Cycliæ_ and _Ostracophori_ were apparently without jaws or limbs, being in this regard like the _Cyclostomes_, but their ancestry and relationships are wholly problematical. [Illustration: FIG. 290.--_Polygnathus dubium_ Hinde. A Conodont from the New York Devonian. (After Hinde.)] The nature of the Conodontes is still uncertain. In form they resemble teeth, but their structure is different from that of the teeth of any fishes, agreeing with that of the teeth of annelid worms. Some have compared them to the armature of Trilobites. Some fifteen nominal genera are described by Pander in Russia, and by Hinde about Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Some of these, as _Drepaniodus_, are simple, straight or curved grooved teeth or tooth-like structures; others, as _Prioniodus_, have numerous smaller teeth or denticles at the base of the larger one. =Orders of Cyclostomes.=--The known Cyclostomes are naturally divided into two orders, the _Hyperotreta_, or hagfishes, and the _Hyperoartia_, or lampreys. These two orders are very distinct from each other. While the two groups agree in the general form of the body, they differ in almost every detail, and there is much pertinence in Lankester's suggestions that each should stand as a separate class. The ancestral forms of each, as well as the intervening types if such ever existed, are left unrecorded in the rocks. =The Hyperotreta, or Hagfishes.=--The _Hyperotreta_ (~hyperôa~, palate; ~tretos~, perforate), or hagfishes, have the nostril highly developed, a tube-like cylinder with cartilaginous rings penetrating the palate. In these the eyes are little developed and the species are parasitic on other fishes. In _Polistotrema stouti_, the hagfish of the coast of California, is parasitic on large fishes, rockfishes, or flounders. It usually fastens itself at the throat or isthmus of its host and sometimes at the eyes. Thence it works very rapidly to the inside of the body. It there devours all the muscular part of the fish without breaking the skin or the peritoneum, leaving the fish a living hulk of head, skin, and bones. It is especially destructive to fishes taken in gill-nets. The voracity of the Chilean species _Polistotrema dombeyi_ is equally remarkable. Dr. Federico T. Delfin finds that in seven hours a hagfish of this species will devour eighteen times its own weight of fish-flesh. The intestinal canal is a simple tube, through which most of the food passes undigested. The eggs are large, each in a yellowish horny case, at one end of which are barbed threads by which they cling together and to kelp or other objects. In the California hagfish, _Polistotrema stouti_, great numbers of these eggs have been found in the stomachs of the males. [Illustration: FIG. 291.--California Hagfish, _Polistotrema stouti_ Lockington.] Similar habits are possessed by all the species in the two families, _Myxinidæ_ and _Eptatretidæ_. In the _Myxinidæ_ the gill-openings are apparently single on each side, the six gills being internal and leading by six separate ducts to each of the six branchial sacs. The skin is excessively slimy, the extensible tongue is armed with two cone-like series of strong teeth. About the mouth are eight barbels. Of _Myxine_, numerous species are known--_Myxine glutinosa_, in the north of Europe; _Myxine limosa_, of the West Atlantic; _Myxine australis_, and several others about Cape Horn, and _Myxine garmani_ in Japan. All live in deep waters and none have been fully studied. It has been claimed that the hagfish is male when young, many individuals gradually changing to female, but this conclusion lacks verification and is doubtless without foundation. In the _Eptatretidæ_ the gill-openings, six to fourteen in number, are externally separate, each with its own branchial sac as in the lampreys. The species of the genus _Eptatretus_ (_Bdellostoma_, _Heptatrema_, and _Homea_, all later names for the same group) are found only in the Pacific, in California, Chile, Patagonia, South Africa, and Japan. In general appearance and habits these agree with the species of _Myxine_. The species with ten to fourteen gill-openings (_dombeyi_: _stouti_) are sometimes set off as a distinct genus (_Polistotrema_), but in other regards the species differ little, and frequent individual variations occur. _Eptatretus burgeri_ is found in Japan and _Eptatretus forsteri_ in Australia. =The Hyperoartia, or Lampreys.=--In the order _Hyperoartia_, or lampreys, the single nostril is a blind sac which does not penetrate the palate. The seven gill-openings lead each to a separate sac, the skin is not especially covered with mucus, the eyes are well developed in the adult, and the mouth is a round disk armed with rasp-like teeth, the comb-like teeth on the tongue being less developed than in the hagfishes. The intestine in the lampreys has a spiral valve. The eggs are small and are usually laid in brooks away from the sea, and in most cases the adult lamprey dies after spawning. According to Thoreau, "it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period, a tragic feature in the scenery of the river-bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare's description of the sea-floor." This account is not far from the truth, as recent studies have shown. The lampreys of the northern regions constitute the family of _Petromyzonidæ_. The larger species (_Petromyzon_, _Entosphenus_) live in the sea, ascending rivers to spawn, and often becoming land-locked and reduced in size by living in rivers only. Such land-locked marine lampreys (_Petromyzon marinus unicolor_) breed in Cayuga Lake and other lakes in New York. The marine forms reach a length of three feet. Smaller lampreys of other genera six inches to eighteen inches in length remain all their lives in the rivers, ascending the little brooks in the spring, clinging to stones and clods of earth till their eggs are deposited. These are found throughout northern Europe, northern Asia, and the colder parts of North America, belonging to the genera _Lampetra_ and _Ichthyomyzon_. Other and more aberrant genera from Chile and Australia are _Geotria_ and _Mordacia_, the latter forming a distinct family, _Mordaciidæ_. In _Geotria_, a large and peculiar gular pouch is developed at the throat. In _Macrophthalmia_ _chilensis_ from Chile the eyes are large and conspicuous. =Food of Lampreys.=--The lampreys feed on the blood and flesh of fishes. They attach themselves to the sides of the various species, rasp off the flesh with their teeth, sucking the blood till the fish weakens and dies. Preparations made by students of Professor Jacob Reighard in the University of Michigan show clearly that the lamprey stomach contains muscular tissue as well as the blood of fishes. The river species do a great deal of mischief, a fact which has been the subject of a valuable investigation by Professor H. A. Surface, who has also considered the methods available for their destruction. The flesh of the lamprey is wholesome, and the larger species, especially the great sea lamprey of the Atlantic, _Petromyzon marinus_, are valued as food. The small species, according to Prof. Gage, never feed on fishes. [Illustration: FIG. 292.--Lamprey, _Petromyzon marinus_ L. Woods Hole, Mass.] =Metamorphosis of Lampreys.=--All lampreys, so far as known, pass through a distinct metamorphosis. The young, known as the _Ammocoetes_ form, are slender, eyeless, and with the mouth narrow and toothless. From Professor Surface's paper on "The Removal of Lampreys from the Interior Waters of New York" we have the following extracts (slightly condensed): [Illustration: FIG. 293.--_Petromyzon marinus unicolor_ (De Kay). Mouth of Lake Lamprey, Cayuga Lake. (After Gage.)] [Illustration: FIG. 294.--_Lampetra wilderi_ Jordan & Evermann. Larval Brook Lamprey in its burrow in a glass filled with sand. (After Gage.)] [Illustration: FIG. 295.--_Lampetra wilderi_ Jordan & Evermann. Mouth of Brook Lamprey. Cayuga Lake. (After Gage.)] "In the latter part of the fall the young lampreys, _Petromyzon marinus unicolor_, the variety land-locked in the lakes of Central New York, metamorphose and assume the form of the adult. They are now about six or eight inches long. The externally segmented condition of the body disappears. The eyes appear to grow out through the skin and become plainly visible and functional. The mouth is no longer filled with vertical membranous sheets to act as a sieve, but it contains nearly one hundred and fifty sharp and chitinous teeth, arranged in rows that are more or less concentric and at the same time presenting the appearance of circular radiation. These teeth are very strong, with sharp points, and in structure each has the appearance of a hollow cone of chitin placed over another cone or papilla. A little below the center of the mouth is the oral opening, which is circular and contains a flattened tongue which bears finer teeth of chitin set closely together and arranged in two interrupted (appearing as four) curved rows extending up and down from the ventral toward the dorsal side of the mouth. Around the mouth is a circle of soft membrane finally surrounded by a margin of fimbriæ or small fringe. This completes the apparatus with which the lamprey attaches itself to its victims, takes its food, carries stones, builds and tears down its nest, seizes its mate, holds itself in position in a strong current, and climbs over falls." =Mischief Done by Lampreys.=--"The most common economic feature in the entire life history of these animals is their feeding habits in this (spawning) stage, their food now consisting wholly of the blood (and flesh) of fishes. A lamprey is able to strike its suctorial mouth against a fish, and in an instant becomes so firmly attached that it is very rarely indeed that the efforts of the fish will avail to rid itself of its persecutor. When a lamprey attaches itself to a person's hand in the aquarium, it can only be freed by lifting it from the water. As a rule it will drop the instant it is exposed to the open air, although often it will remain attached for some time even in the open air, or may attach itself to an object while out of water. "Nearly all lampreys that are attached to fish when they are caught in nets will escape through the meshes of the nets, but some are occasionally brought ashore and may hang on to their victim with bulldog pertinacity. "The fishes that are mostly attacked are of the soft-rayed species, having cycloid scales, the spiny-rayed species with ctenoid scales being most nearly immune from their attacks. We think there may be three reasons for this: 1st, the fishes of the latter group are generally more alert and more active than those of the former, and may be able more readily to dart away from such enemies; 2d, their scales are thicker and stronger and appear to be more firmly imbedded in the skin, consequently it is more difficult for the lampreys to hold on and cut through the heavier coat-of-mail to obtain the blood of the victim; 3d, since the fishes of the second group are wholly carnivorous and in fact almost exclusively fish-eating when adult, in every body of water they are more rare than those of the first group, which are more nearly omnivorous. According to the laws and requirements of nature the fishes of the first group must be more abundant, as they become the food for those of the second, and it is on account of their greater abundance that the lampreys' attacks on them are more observed. "There is no doubt that the bullhead, or horned pout (_Ameiurus nebulosus_), is by far the greatest sufferer from lamprey attacks in Cayuga Lake. This may be due in part to the sluggish habits of the fish, which render it an easy victim, but it is more likely due to the fact that this fish has no scales and the lamprey has nothing to do but to pierce the thick skin and find its feast of blood ready for it. There is no doubt of the excellency of the bullhead as a food-fish and of its increasing favor with mankind. It is at present the most important food- and market-fish of the State (New York), being caught by bushels in the early part of June when preparing to spawn. As we have observed at times more than ninety per cent. of the catch attacked by lampreys, it can readily be seen how very serious are the attacks of this terrible parasite which is surely devastating our lakes and streams." =Migration or "Running" of Lampreys.=--"After thus feeding to an unusual extent, their reproductive elements (gonads) become mature and their alimentary canals commence to atrophy. This duct finally becomes so occluded that from formerly being large enough to admit a lead-pencil of average size when forced through it, later not even liquids can pass through, and it becomes nearly a thread closely surrounded by the crowding reproductive organs. When these changes commence to ensue, the lampreys turn their heads against the current and set out on their long journeys to the sites that are favorable for spawning, which here may be from two to eight miles from the lake. In this migration they are true to their instincts and habits of laziness in being carried about, as they make use of any available object, such as a fish, boat, etc., that is going in their direction, fastening to it with their suctorial mouths and being borne along at their ease. During this season it is not infrequent that as the Cornell crews come in from practice and lift their shells from the water, they find lampreys clinging to the bottoms of the boats, sometimes as many as fifty at one time. They are likely to crowd up all streams flowing into the lake, inspecting the bed of the stream as they go. They do not stop until they reach favorable spawning sites, and if they find unsurmountable obstacles in their way, such as vertical falls or dams, they turn around and go down-stream until they find another, up which they go. This is proved every spring by the number of adult lampreys which are seen temporarily in Pall Creek and Cascadilla Creek. In each of these streams, about a mile from its mouth, there is a vertical fall over thirty feet in height which the lampreys cannot surmount, and in fact they have never been seen attempting to do so. After clinging with their mouths to the stones at the foot of the falls for a few days, they work their way down-stream, carefully inspecting all the bottom for suitable spawning sites. They do not spawn in these streams because there are too many rocks and no sand, but finally enter the only stream (the Cayuga Lake inlet) in which they find suitable and accessible spawning sites. [Illustration: FIG. 296.--Kamchatka Lamprey, _Lampetra camtschatica_ (Tilesius). Kamchatka.] "The three-toothed lampreys (_Entosphenus tridentatus_) of the West Coast climb low falls or rapids by a series of leaps, holding with their mouths to rest, then jumping and striking again and holding, thus leap by leap gaining the entire distance. "The lampreys here have never been known to show any tendency or ability to climb, probably because there are no rapids or mere low falls in the streams up which they would run. In fact, as the inlet is the only stream entering Cayuga Lake in this region which presents suitable spawning conditions and no obstructions, it can be seen at once that all the lampreys must spawn in this stream and its tributaries. [Illustration: FIG. 297.--Oregon Lamprey, _Entosphenus tridentatus_, ascending a brook. (Modified from a photograph by Dr. H. M. Smith. Published by Prof. H. A. Surface.) Willamette River, Oregon.] "In 'running' they move almost entirely at night, and if they do not reach a suitable spawning site by daylight, they will cling to roots or stones during the day and complete their journey the next night. This has been proven by the positive observation of individuals. Of the specimens that run up early in the season, about four-fifths are males. Thus the males do not exactly precede the females, because we have found the latter sex represented in the stream as early in the season as the former, but in the earlier part of the season the number of the males certainly greatly predominates. This proportion of males gradually decreases, until in the middle of the spawning season the sexes are about equally represented, and toward the latter part of the season the females continue to come until they in turn show the greater numbers. Thus it appears very evident in general that the reproductive instinct impels the most of the males to seek the spawning ground before the most of the females do. However, it should be said that neither the males nor the females show all of the entirely sexually mature features when they first run up-stream in the beginning of the season, but later they are perfectly mature and 'ripe' in every regard when they first appear in the stream. When they migrate, they stop at the site that seems to suit their fancy, many stopping near the lake, others pushing on four or five miles farther up-stream. We have noted, however, that later in the season the lower courses become more crowded, showing that the late comers do not attempt to push up-stream as far as those that came earlier. Also it thus follows, from what was just said about late-running females, that in the latter part of the season the lower spawning beds are especially crowded with females. In fact, during the early part of the month of June we have found, not more than half a mile above the lowest spawning bed, as many as five females on a spawning nest with but one male; and in that immediate vicinity many nests indeed were found at that time with two or three females and but one male. "Having arrived at a shoal which seems to present suitable conditions for a spawning nest, the individual or pair commences at once to move stones with its mouth from the centre to the margin of an area one or two feet in diameter. When many stones are thus placed, especially at the upper edge, and they are cleaned quite free of sediment and algæ, both by being moved and by being fanned with the tail, and when the proper condition of sand is found in the bottom of the basin thus formed, it is ready to be used as a spawning bed or nest. A great many nests are commenced and deserted. This has been left as a mystery in publications on the subject, but we are well convinced that it is because the lampreys do not find the requisites or proper conditions of bottom (rocks, sand, etc., as given below) to supply all their needs and fulfill all conditions for ideal sites. This desertion of half-constructed nests is just what would be expected and anticipated in connection with the explanation of 'Requisite Conditions for Spawning,' given below, because some shallows contain more sand and fewer stones, and others contain many larger stones but no sand, while others contain pebbles lying over either rocks or sand. The lampreys remove some of the material, and if they do not find all the essentials for a spawning nest, the site is deserted and the creatures move on." =Requisite Conditions for Spawning with Lampreys.=--"For a spawning site two conditions are immediately essential--proper conditions of water and suitable stream bed or bottom. Of course with these it is essential that no impassable barriers (dam or falls) exist between the lake and the spawning sites to prevent migration at the proper 'running' season. Lampreys will not spawn where there is no sand lying on the bottom between the rocks, as sand is essential in covering the eggs (see remarks on the 'Spawning Process'); neither will they spawn where the bottom is all sand and small gravel, as they cannot take hold of this material with their mouths to construct nests or to hold themselves in the current, and they would not find here pebbles and stones to carry over the nest while spawning, as described elsewhere. It can thus be seen that, as suggested above, the reason they do not spawn in Fall Creek and Cascadilla Creek, between the lake and the falls, is that the beds of these streams are very rocky, being covered only with large stones and no sand. There is no doubt that the lampreys find here suitable conditions of water, but they do not remain to spawn on account of the absence of the proper conditions of stream bed. Again, they do not spawn in the lower course of the inlet for a distance of nearly two miles from the lake, because near the lake the bed of the stream is composed of silt, while for some distance above this (up-stream) there is nothing but sand. Farther up-stream are found pebbles and stones commingled with sand, which combination satisfies the demands of the lampreys for material in constructing nests and covering eggs. The accessibility of these sites, together with their suitable conditions, render the inlet the great and perhaps the only spawning stream of the lake; and, doubtless, all the mature lampreys come here to spawn, excepting a few which spawn in the lower part of Six-mile Creek, a tributary of the inlet. "As the course of the stream where the beds abound is divided into pools, separated by stony ripples or shallows, the nests must be made at the ends of the pools. Of the spawning beds personally observed during several seasons, nine-tenths of the entire number were formed just above the shallows at the lower ends of the pools, while only a few were placed below them. An advantage in forming the nest above the shoals rather than below it is that in the former place the water runs more swiftly over the lower and middle parts of such a bed than at its upper margin, since the velocity decreases in either direction from the steeper part of the shallows; and any organic material or sediment that would wash over the upper edge of the nest is thus carried on rather than left as a deposit. When formed below the shallows, owing to the decreased velocity at the lower part of the nest compared with that at the upper, the sediment is likely to settle in the hollow of the nest, and, through the process of decay of the organic material, prove disastrous or unfavorable for the developing embryos. "The necessity of sand in the spawning bed indicates the explanation of why we see so many shallows which have no spawning lampreys upon them, while there are others in the same vicinity that are crowded. There will be no nests formed if there is too little or too much sand, not enough or too many stones, or stones that are all too small or all too large. The stones must vary from the size of an egg to the size of a man's hand, and must be intermingled with sand without mud or rubbish. "The lampreys choose to make their spawning nests just where the water flows so swiftly that it will carry the sand a short distance, but will not sweep it out of the nest. This condition furnishes not only force to wash the sand over the eggs when laid, but also keeps the adult lampreys supplied with an abundance of fresh water containing the dissolved air needed for their very rapid respiration. Of course in such rapid water the eggs are likely to be carried away down-stream, but Nature provides against this by the fact that they are adhesive, and the mating lampreys stir up the sand with their tails, thus weighing down the freshly laid eggs and holding them in the nest. Hence the necessity of an abundance of sand at the spawning site." =The Spawning Process with Lampreys.=--"There is much interest in the study of the spawning process, as it is for the maintenance of the race that the lampreys risk and end their lives; and as they are by far the lowest form of vertebrates found within the United States, a consideration of their actions and apparent evidences of instinct becomes of unusual attraction. Let us consider one of those numerous examples in which the male migrates before the female. When he comes to that portion of the stream where the conditions named above are favorable, he commences to form a nest by moving and clearing stones and making a basin with a sandy bottom about the size of a common wash-bowl. Several nests may be started and deserted before perfect conditions are found for the completion of one. The male may be joined by a female either before or after the nest is completed. There is at once harmony in the family; but if another male should attempt to intrude, either before or after the coming of the female, he is likely to be summarily dealt with and dismissed at once by the first tenant. As soon as the female arrives she too commences to move pebbles and stones with her mouth. "Sometimes the nest is made large enough to contain several pairs, or often unequal numbers of males and females; or they may be constructed so closely together as to form one continuous ditch across the stream, just above the shallows. Many stones are left at the sides and especially at the upper margin of the nest, and to these both lampreys often cling for a few minutes as though to rest. While the female is thus quiet, the male seizes her with his mouth at the back of her head, clinging as to a fish. He presses his body as tightly as possible against her side, and loops his tail over her near the vent and down against the opposite side of her body so tightly that the sand, accidentally coming between them, often wears the skin entirely off of either or both at the place of closest contact. In most observed instances the male pressed against the right side of the female, although there is no unvarying rule as to position. The pressure of the male thus aids to force the eggs from the body of the female, which flow very easily when ripe. The vents of the two lampreys are thus brought into close proximity, and the conspicuous genital papilla of the male serves to guide the milt directly to the issuing spawn. There appears to be no true intromission, although definite observation of this feature is quite difficult, and, in fact, impossible. During the time of actual pairing, which lasts but a few seconds, both members of the pair exhibit tremendous excitement, shaking their bodies in rapid vibrations and stirring up such a cloud of sand with their tails that their eggs are at once concealed and covered. As the eggs are adhesive and non-buoyant, the sand that is stirred up adheres to them immediately and covers most of them before the school of minnows in waiting just below the nest can dart through the water and regale themselves upon the eggs of these enemies of their race; but woe to the eggs that are not at once concealed. We would suggest that the function of the characteristic anal fin, which is possessed only by the female, and only at this time of year, may be to aid in this vastly important process of stirring up the sand as the eggs are expelled; and the explanation of the absence of such a fin from the ventral side of the tail of the male may be found in the fact that it could not be used for the same purpose at the instant when most needed, since the male is just then using his tail as a clasping organ to give him an essential position in pairing. As soon as they shake together they commence to move stones from one part of the nest to another, to bring more loose sand down over their eggs. They work at this from one to five minutes, then shake again, thus making the intervals between mating from one to five minutes, with a general average of about three and a half minutes. "Although their work of moving stones does not appear to be systematic in reference to the placing of the pebbles, or as viewed from the standpoint of man, it does not need to be so in order to perfectly fulfill all the purposes of the lampreys. As shown above in the remarks on the spawning habits of the brook lampreys, the important end which they thus accomplish is the loosening and shifting of the sand to cover their eggs; and the more the stones are moved, even in the apparently indiscriminate manner shown, the better is this purpose achieved. Yet, in general, they ultimately accomplish the feat of moving to the lower side of the nest all the stones they have placed or left at the upper margin. At the close of the spawning season when the nest is seen with no large pebbles at its upper margin, but quite a pile of stones below, it can be known that the former occupants completed their spawning process there; but if many small stones are left at the upper edge and at the sides, and a large pile is not formed at the lower edge, it can be known that the nest was forsaken or the lampreys removed before the spawning process was completed. The stones they move are often twice as heavy as themselves, and are sometimes even three or four times as heavy. Since they are not attempting to build a stone wall of heavy material, there is no occasion for their joining forces to remove stones of extraordinary size, and they rarely do so, although once during the past spring (1900) we saw two lake lampreys carrying the same large stone down-stream across their nest. Although this place was occupied by scores of brook lampreys, there were but three pairs of lake lampreys seen here. It is true that one of these creatures often moves the same stone several times, and many even attempt many times to move a stone that has already been found too heavy for it; but sooner or later the rock may become undermined so that the water will aid them, and they have no way of knowing what they can do under such circumstances until they try. Also, the repeated moving of one stone may subserve the same purpose for the lamprey in covering its eggs with sand as would the less frequent removal of many. "When disturbed on the spawning nest, either of the pair will return to the same nest if its mate is to be found there; but if its mate is in another place, it will go to it, and if its mate is removed or killed, it is likely to go to any part of the stream to another nest. When disturbed, they often start up-stream for a short distance, but soon dart down-stream with a velocity that is almost incredible. They can swim faster than the true fishes, and after they get a start are generally pretty sure to make good their escape, although we have seen them dart so wildly and frantically down-stream that they would shoot clear out on the bank and become an easy victim of the collector. This peculiar kind of circumstance is most likely to happen with those lampreys that are becoming blinded from long exposure to the bright light over the clear running water. If there is a solitary individual on a nest when disturbed, it may not return to that nest, but to any that has been started, or it may stay in the deep pool below the shallows until evening and then move some distance up-stream. When the nest is large and occupied by several individuals, those that are disturbed may return to any other such nest. We have never seen evidence of one female driving another female out of a spawning-nest; and from the great number of nests in which we have found the numbers of the females exceeding those of the males, we would be led to infer that the former live together in greater harmony than do the males. "Under the subject of the number of eggs laid, we should have said that at one shake the female spawns from twenty to forty. We once caught in fine gauze twenty-eight eggs from a female at one spawning instant. In accordance with the frequency of spawning stated, and the number of eggs contained in the body of one female, the entire length of time given to the spawning process would be from two to four days. This agrees with the observed facts, although the lampreys spend much time in moving stones and thoroughly covering the nests with sand. Even after the work of spawning and moving stones is entirely completed, they remain clinging to rocks in various parts of the stream, until they are weakened by fungus and general debility, when they gradually drift down-stream. "In forming nests there is a distinct tendency to utilize those sites that are concealed by overhanging bushes, branches, fallen tree-tops, or grass or weeds, probably not only for concealment, but also to avoid the bright sunlight, which sooner or later causes them to go blind, as it does many fishes when they have to live in water without shade. Toward the end of the spawning season, it is very common to see blind lampreys clinging helplessly to any rocks on the bottom, quite unable to again find spawning-beds. However, at such times they are generally spent and merely awaiting the inevitable end. "As with the brook lamprey, the time of spawning and duration of the nesting period depend upon the temperature of the water, as does also the duration of the period of hatching or development of the embryo. They first run up-stream when the water reaches a temperature of 45° or 48° Fahr., and commence spawning at about 50°. A temperature of 60° finds the spawning process in its height, and at 70° it is fairly completed. It is thus that the rapidity with which the water becomes heated generally determines the length of time the lampreys remain in the stream. This may continue later in the season for those that run later, but usually it is about a month or six weeks from the time the first of this species is seen on a spawning-nest until the last is gone." =What becomes of Lampreys after Spawning?=--"There has been much conjecture as to the final end of the lampreys, some writers contending that they die after spawning, others that they return to deep water and recuperate, and yet others compromise these two widely divergent views by saying that some die and others do not. The fact is that the spawning process completely wears out the lampreys, and leaves them in a physical condition from which they could never recover. They become stone-blind; the alimentary canal suffers complete atrophy; their flesh becomes very green from the katabolic products, which find the natural outlet occluded; they lose their rich yellow color and plump, symmetrical appearance; their skin becomes torn, scratched, and worn off in many places, so that they are covered with sores, and they become covered with a parasitic or sarcophytic fungus, which forms a dense mat over almost their entire bodies, and they are so completely debilitated and worn out that recovery is entirely out of the question. What is more, the most careful microscopical examination of ovaries and testes has failed to reveal any evidence of new gonads or reproductive bodies. This is proof that reproduction could not again ensue without a practical rebuilding of the animals, even though they should regain their vitality. A. Mueller, in 1865, showed that all the ova in the lamprey were of the same size, and that after spawning no small reproductive bodies remained to be developed later. This is strong evidence of death after once spawning. "One author writes that an argument against the theory of their dying after spawning can be found in the fact that so few dead ones have been found by him. However, many can be found dead if the investigator only knows how and where to look for them. We should not anticipate finding them in water that is shallow enough for the bottom to be plainly seen, as there the current is strong enough to move them. It is in the deep, quiet, pools where sediment is depositing that the dead lampreys are dropped by the running water, and there they sink into the soft ooze. "The absence of great numbers of dead lampreys from visible portions of the stream cannot be regarded as important evidence against the argument that they die soon after spawning once, as the bodies are very soon disintegrated in the water. In the weir that we maintained in 1898, a number of old, worn-out, and fungus-covered lampreys were caught drifting down-stream; some were dead, some alive, and others dying and already insensible, but none were seen going down that appeared to be in condition to possibly regain their strength." [Illustration: FIG. 297_a_.--Brook Lamprey, _Lampetra Wilderi_. (After Gage.)] CHAPTER XXIX THE CLASS ELASMOBRANCHII OR SHARK-LIKE FISHES =The Sharks.=--The gap between the lancelets and the lampreys is a very wide one. Assuming the primitive nature of both groups, this gap must represent the period necessary for the evolution of brain, skull, and elaborate sense organs. The interspace between the lampreys and the nearest fish-like forms which follow them in an ascending scale is not less remarkable. Between the lamprey and the shark we have the development of paired fins with their basal attachments of shoulder-girdle and pelvis, the formation of a lower jaw, the relegation of the teeth to the borders of the mouth, the development of separate vertebræ along the line of the notochord, the development of the gill-arches, and of an external covering of enameled points or placoid scales. These traits of progress separate the Elasmobranchs from all lower vertebrates. For those animals which possess them, the class name of _Pisces_ or fishes has been adopted by numerous authors. If this term is to be retained for technical purposes, it should be applied to the aquatic vertebrates above the lampreys and lancelets. We may, however, regard fish as a popular term only, rather than to restrict the name to members of a class called _Pisces_. From the bony fishes, on the other hand, the sharks are distinguished by the much less specialization of the skeleton, both as regards form and substance, by the lack of membrane bones, of air-bladder, and of true scales, and by various peculiarities of the skeleton itself. The upper jaw, for example, is formed not of maxillary and premaxillary, but of elements which in the lower fishes would be regarded as belonging to the palatine and pterygoid series. The lower jaw is formed not of several pieces, but of a cartilage called Meckel's cartilage, which in higher fishes precedes the development of a separate dentary bone. These structures are sometimes called primary jaws, as distinguished from secondary jaws or true jaws developed in addition to those bones in the _Actinopteri_ or typical fishes. In the sharks the shoulder-girdle is attached, not to the skull, but to a vertebra at some distance behind it, leaving a distinct neck, such as is possessed or retained by the vertebrate higher than fishes. The shoulder-girdle itself is a continuous arch of cartilage, joining its fellow at the breast of the fish. Other peculiar traits will be mentioned later. =Characters of Elasmobranchs.=--The essential character of the Elasmobranchs as a whole are these: The skeleton is cartilaginous, the skull without sutures, and the notochord more or less fully replaced or inclosed by vertebral segments. The jaws are peculiar in structure, as are also the teeth, which are usually highly specialized and found on the jaws only. There are no membrane bones; the shoulder-girdle is well developed, each half of one piece of cartilage, and the ventral fins, with the pelvic-girdle, are always present, always many-rayed, and abdominal in position. The skin is covered with placoid scales, or shagreen, or with bony bucklers, or else it is naked. It is never provided with imbricated scales. The tail is diphycercal, heterocercal, or else it degenerates into a whip-like organ, a form which has been called leptocercal. The gill-arches are 5, 6, or 7 in number, with often an accessory gill-slit or spiracle. The ventral fins in the males (except perhaps in certain primitive forms) are provided with elaborate cartilaginous appendages or claspers. The brain is elongate, its parts well separated, the optic nerves interlacing. The heart has a contractile arterial cone containing several rows of valves; the intestine has a spiral valve; the eggs are large, hatched within the body, or else deposited in a leathery case. =Classification of Elasmobranchs.=--The group of sharks and their allies, rays, and Chimæras, is usually known collectively as _Elasmobranchii_ (~elasmos~, blade or plate; ~branchos~, gill). Other names applied to all or a part of this group are these: _Selachii_ (~selachos~, a cartilage, the name also used by the Greeks for the gristle-fishes or sharks); _Plagiostomi_ (~plagios~, oblique; ~stoma~, mouth); _Chondropterygii_ (~chondros~, cartilage; ~pteryx~, fin); and _Antacea_ (~antakaios~, sturgeon). They represent the most primitive known type of jaw-bearing vertebrates, or _Gnathostomi_ (~gnathos~, jaw; ~stoma~, mouth), the Chordates without jaws being sometimes called collectively _Agnatha_ (~a-gnathos~, without jaws). These higher types of fishes have been also called collectively _Lyrifera_, the form of the two shoulder-girdles taken together being compared to that of a lyre. Through shark-like forms all the higher vertebrates must probably trace their descent. Sharks' teeth and fin-spines are found in all rocks from the Upper Silurian deposits to the present time, and while the majority of the genera are now extinct, the class has had a vigorous representation in all the seas, later Palæozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, as well as in recent times. Most of the Elasmobranchs are large, coarse-fleshed, active animals feeding on fishes, hunting down their prey through superior strength and activity. But to this there are many exceptions, and the highly specialized modern shark of the type of the mackerel-shark or man-eater is by no means a fair type of the whole great class, some of the earliest types being diminutive, feeble, and toothless. =Subclasses of Elasmobranchs.=--With the very earliest recognizable remains it is clear that the Elasmobranchs are already divided into two great divisions, the sharks and the _Chimæras_. These groups we may call subclasses, the _Selachii_ and the _Holocephali_, or Chismopnea. The _Selachii_, or sharks and rays, have the skull hyostylic, that is, with the quadrate bone grown fast to the palate which forms the upper jaw, the hyomandibular, acting as suspensorium to the lower jaw, being articulated directly to it. The palato-quadrate apparatus, the front of which forms the upper jaw in the shark, is not fused to the cranium, although it is sometimes articulated with it. There are as many external gill-slits as there are gill-arches (5, 6, or 7), and the gills are adnate to the flesh of their own arches, without free tips. The cerebral hemispheres are grown together. The teeth are separated and usually strongly specialized, being primitively modified from the prickles or other defences of the skin. There is no frontal holder or bony hook on the forehead of the male. The subclass _Holocephali_, or _Chimæras_, differ from the sharks in all this series of characters, and its separation as a distinct group goes back to the Devonian or even farther, the earliest known sharks having little more in common with Chimæras than the modern forms have. =The Selachii.=--There have been many efforts to divide the sharks and rays into natural orders. Most writers have contented themselves with placing the sharks in one order (_Squali_ or _Galei_ or _Pleurotremi_) having the gill-openings on the side, and the rays in another (_Rajæ_, _Batoidei_, _Hypotrema_) having the gill-openings underneath. Of far more importance than this superficial character of adaptation are the distinctions drawn from the skeleton. Dr. Gill has used the attachment of the palato-quadrate apparatus as the basis of a classification. The _Opistharthri_ (_Hexanchidæ_) have this structure articulated with the postorbital part of the skull. In the _Prosarthri_ (_Heterodontidæ_) it is articulated with the preorbital part of the skull, while in the other sharks (_Anarthri_) it is not articulated at all. But these characters do not appear to be always important. _Chlamydoselachus_, for example, differs in this regard from _Heptranchias_, which in other respects it closely resembles. Yet, in general, the groups thus characterized are undoubtedly natural ones. [Illustration: FIG. 298.--Fin-spine of _Onchus tenuistriatus_ Agassiz. (After Zittel.)] =Hasse's Classification of Elasmobranchs.=--In 1882, Professor Carl Hasse proposed to subdivide the sharks on the basis of the structure of the individual vertebræ. In the lowest group, a hypothetical order of _Polyospondyli_, possibly represented by the fossil spines called _Onchus_, an undivided notochord, perhaps swollen at regular intervals, is assumed to have represented the vertebral column. In the _Diplospondyli_ (_Hexanchidæ_) the imperfectly segmented vertebræ are joined in pairs, each pair having two neural arches. In the _Asterospondyli_ or ordinary sharks each vertebra has its calcareous lamella radiating star-like from the central axis. In the _Cyclospondyli_ (_Squalidæ_, etc.) the calcareous part forms a single ring about the axis, and in the _Tectospondyli_ (_Squatina_, rays, etc.) it forms several rings. These groups again are natural and correspond fairly with those based on other characters. At the same time there is no far-reaching difference between _Cyclospondyli_ and _Tectospondyli_, and the last-named section includes both sharks and rays. [Illustration: FIG. 299.--Section of vertebræ of sharks, showing calcification. (After Hasse.) 1. _Cyclospondyli_ (_Squalus_); 2. _Tectospondyli_ (_Squatina_); 3. _Asterospondyli_ (_Carcharias_).] Nothing is known of the _Polyospondyli_, and they may never have existed at all. The _Diplospondyli_ do not differ very widely from the earlier _Asterospondyli_ (_Cestraciontes_) which, as a matter of fact, have preceded the _Diplospondyli_ in point of time, if we can trust our present knowledge of the geological record. =Other Classifications of Elasmobranchs.=--Characters more fundamental may be drawn from the structure of the pectoral fin. In this regard four distinct types appear. In _Acanthoessus_ this fin consists of a stout, stiff spine, with a rayless membrane attached behind it. In _Cladoselache_ the fin is low, with a very long base, like a fold of skin (_ptychopterygium_), and composed of feeble rays. In _Pleuracanthus_ it is a jointed axis of many segments, with a fringe of slender fin-rays, corresponding in structure to all appearance to the pectoral fin of Dipnoans and Crossopterygians, the type called by Gegenbaur _archipterygium_ on the hypothesis that it represents the primitive vertebrate limb. In most sharks the fin has a fan-shape, with three of the basal segments larger than the others. Of these the mesopterygium is the central one, with the propterygium before it and the metapterygium behind. In the living sharks of the family of _Heterodontidæ_, this form of fin occurs and the teeth of the same general type constitute the earliest remains distinctly referable to sharks in the Devonian rocks. =Primitive Sharks.=--Admitting that these four types of pectoral fin should constitute separate orders, we have next to consider which form is the most primitive and what is the line of descent. In this matter we have, in the phrase of Hæckel, only the "three ancestral documents, Palæontology, Morphology, and Ontogeny." Unfortunately the evidence of these documents is incomplete and conflicting. So far as Palæontology is concerned, the fin of _Cladoselache_, with that of _Acanthoessus_, which may be derived from it, appears earliest, but the modern type of pectoral fin with the three basal segments is assumed to have accompanied the teeth of Psammodonts and Cochliodonts, while the fin of the Chimæra must have been developed in the Devonian. The jointed fin of _Cladodus_ and _Pleuracanthus_ may be a modification or degradation of the ordinary type of shark-fin. Assuming, however, that the geological record is not perfect and that the fin of _Cladoselache_ is not clearly shown to be primitive, we have next to consider the evidence drawn from morphology. Those who with Balfour and others (see page 69) accept the theory that the paired fins are derived from a vertebral fold, will regard with Dean the fin of _Cladoselache_ as coming nearest the theoretical primitive condition. The pectoral fin in _Acanthoessus_ Dean regards as a specialized derivative from a fin like that of _Cladoselache_, the fin-rays being gathered together at the front and joined together to form the thick spine characteristic of _Acanthoessus_. This view of the morphology of the fin of _Acanthoessus_ is not accepted by Woodward, and several different suggestions have been recorded. If with Gegenbaur we regard the paired fins as derived from the septa between the gill-slits, or with Kerr regard them as modified external gills, the whole theoretical relation of the parts is changed. The archipterygium of _Pleuracanthus_ would be the nearest approach to the primitive pectoral limb, and from this group and its allies all the other sharks are descended. This central jointed axis of _Pleuracanthus_ is regarded by Traquair as the equivalent of the metapterygium in ordinary sharks. (See Figs. 44, 45, 46.) According to Traquair: "The median stern [of the archipterygium], simplified, shortened up and losing all its radials on the postaxial side, except in sometimes a few near the tip, becomes the metapterygium, while the mesopterygium and propterygium are formed by the fusion into two pieces of the basal joints of a number of preaxial radials, which have reached and become attached to the shoulder-girdle in front of the metapterygium." According to Dr. Traquair, the pectoral fin in _Cladodus neilsoni_, a shark from the Coal Measures of Scotland, is "apparently a veritable uniserial archipterygium midway between the truly biserial one of _Pleuracanthus_ and the pectoral fin of ordinary sharks." Other authors look on these matters differently, and Dr. Traquair admits that an opposite view is almost equally probable. Cope and Dean would derive the tribasal pectoral of ordinary sharks directly from the ptychopterygium or fan-like fold of _Cladoselache_, while Fritsch and Woodward would look upon it as derived in turn from the _Ceratodus_-like fin of _Pleuracanthus_, itself derived from the ptychopterygium or remains of a lateral fin-fold. If the Dipnoans are descended from the Crossopterygians, as Dollo has tried to show, the archipterygium of _Pleuracanthus_ has had a different origin from the similar-appearing limb of the Dipnoans, _Dipterus_ and _Ceratodus_. In such case the archipterygium would not be the primitive pectoral limb, but a structure which may have been independently evolved in two different groups. In the view of Gegenbaur, the Crossopterygians and Dipnoans with all the higher vertebrates and the bony fishes would arise from the same primitive stock, ancestors, or allies of the _Ichthyotomi_, which group would also furnish the ancestors of the _Chimæras_. In support of this view, the primitive protocercal or diphycercal tail of _Pleuracanthus_ may be brought in evidence as against the apparently more specialized heterocercal tail of _Cladoselache_. But this is not conclusive, as the diphycercal tail may arise separately in different groups through degeneration, as Dollo and Boulenger have shown. The matter is one mainly of morphological interpretation, and no final answer can be given. On page 68 a summary of the various arguments may be found. Little light is given by embryology. The evidence of Palæontology, so far as it goes, certainly favors the view of Balfour. Omitting detached fin-spines and fragments of uncertain character, the earliest identifiable remains of sharks belong to the lower Devonian. These are allies of _Acanthoessus_. _Cladoselache_ comes next in the Upper Devonian. _Pleuracanthus_ appears with the teeth and spines supposed to belong to Cestraciont sharks, in the Carboniferous Age. The primitive-looking _Notidani_ do not appear before the Triassic. For this reason the decision as to which is the most primitive type of shark must therefore rest unsettled for the present and perhaps for a long time to come. The weight of authority at present seems to favor the view of Balfour, Wiedersheim, Boulenger, and Dean, that the pectoral limb has arisen from a lateral fold of skin. But weight of authority is not sufficient when evidence is confessedly lacking. For our purpose, without taking sides in this controversy, we may follow Dean in allowing _Cladoselache_ to stand as the most primitive of known sharks, thus arranging the Elasmobranchs and rays, recent and fossil, in six orders of unequal value--_Pleuropterygii_, _Acanthodei_, _Ichthyotomi_, _Notidani_, _Asterospondyli_, and _Tectospondyli_. Of these orders the first and second are closely related, as are also the fourth and fifth, the sixth being not far remote. The true sharks form the culmination of one series, the rays of another, while from the _Ichthyotomi_ the Crossopterygians and their descendants may be descended. But this again is very hypothetical, or perhaps impossible; while, on the other hand, the relation of the Chimæras to the sharks is still far from clearly understood. =Order Pleuropterygii.=--The order of _Pleuropterygii_ of Dean (~pleuron~, side; ~pteryx~, fin), called by Parker and Haswell _Cladoselachea_, consists of sharks in which the pectoral and ventral fins have each a very wide horizontal base (ptychopterygium), without jointed axis and without spine. There are no spines in any of the fins. The dorsal fin is low, and there were probably two of them. The notochord is persistent, without intercalary cartilage, such as appear in the higher sharks. The caudal fin is short, broad, and strongly heterocercal. Apparently the ventral fin is without claspers. The gill-openings were probably covered by a dermal fold. The teeth are weak, being modified denticles from the asperities of the skin. The lateral line is represented by an open groove. The family of _Cladoselachidæ_ consists of a single genus _Cladoselache_ from the Cleveland shale or Middle Devonian of Ohio. _Cladoselache fyleri_ is the best-known species, reaching a length of about two feet. Dean regards this as the most primitive of the sharks, and the position of the pectorals and ventrals certainly lend weight to Balfour's theory that they were originally derived from a lateral fold of skin. I am recently informed by Dr. Dean that he has considerable evidence that in _Cladoselache_ the anus was _subterminal_. If this statement is verified, it would go far to establish the primitive character of _Cladoselache_. [Illustration: FIG. 300.--_Cladoselache fyleri_ (Newberry), restored. Upper Devonian of Ohio. (After Dean.)] =Order Acanthodei.=--Near the _Pleuropterygii_, although much more highly developed, we may note the strange group of _Acanthodei_ (~akanthôdês~, spinous). These armed fishes were once placed among the Crossopterygians, but there seems no doubt that Woodward is right in regarding them as a highly specialized aberrant offshoot of the primitive sharks. In this group the paired fins consist each of a single stout spine, nearly or quite destitute of other rays. A similar spine is placed in front of the dorsal fin and one in front of the anal. According to Dean these spines are each produced by the growing together of all the fin-rays normally belonging to the fin, a view of their morphology not universally accepted. [Illustration: FIG. 301.--_Cladoselache fyleri_ (Newberry), restored. Ventral view. (After Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 302.--Teeth of _Cladoselache fyleri_ (Newberry). (After Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 303.--_Acanthoessus wardi_ (Egerton). Carboniferous. Family _Acanthoessidæ_. (After Woodward.)] The dermal covering is highly specialized, the shagreen denticles being much enlarged and thickened, often set in little squares suggesting a checker-board. The skull is covered with small bony plates and membrane bones form a sort of ring about the eye. The teeth are few, large, and "degenerate in their fibrous structure." Some of the species have certainly no teeth at all. The tail is always heterocercal, or bent upward at tip as in the _Cladoselache_, not diphycercal, tapering and horizontal as in the _Ichthyotomi_. The lower Acanthodeans, according to Woodward, "are the only vertebrates in which there are any structures in the adult apart from the two pairs of fins which may be plausibly interpreted as remnants of once continuous lateral folds. In _Climatius_, one of the most primitive genera (see Fig. 305), there exists, according to Woodward, and as first noticed by Cope, between the pectoral and pelvic (or ventral) fins a close and regular series of paired spines, in every respect identical with those supporting the appendages that presumably correspond to the two pairs of fins in the higher genera. They may even have supported fin membranes, though specimens sufficiently well preserved to determine this point have not yet been discovered. However, it is evident that dermal calcifications attained a greater development in the _Acanthodei_ than in any of the more typical Elasmobranchs, and we may look for much additional information on the subject when the great fishes to which the undetermined _Ichthyodorulites_ pertained became known." (See Fig. 305.) The _Acanthodei_ constitute three families. In the _Acanthoessidæ_ there is but one short dorsal fin opposite the anal, and clavicular bones are absent. The gill-openings being provided with "frills" or collar-like margins, perhaps resembled those of the living genus _Chlamydoselachus_, the frilled shark. The pectoral spine is very strong, and about the eye is a ring of four plates. The body is elongate, tapering, and compressed. _Acanthoessus_ of Agassiz, the name later changed by its author to _Acanthodes_, is the principal genus, found in the Devonian and Carboniferous. The species of _Acanthoessus_ are all small fishes rarely more than a foot long, with very small teeth or none, and with the skin well armed with a coat-of-mail. _Acanthoessus bronni_ is the one longest known. In the earliest species known, from the Devonian, the ventral fins are almost as large as the pectorals and nearly midway between pectorals and anal. In the later species the pectoral fins become gradually larger and the ventrals move forward. In the Permian species the pectorals are enormous. _Traquairia pygmæa_, from the Permian of Bohemia, is a diminutive sharklet three or four inches long with large scales, slender spines, and apparently no ventral fins. In the genus _Cheiracanthus_ the dorsal fin is placed before the anal. In _Acanthodopsis_ the teeth are few, large, and triangular, and the fin-spines relatively large. The _Ischnacanthidæ_ have no clavicles, and two dorsal fins. _Ischnacanthus gracilis_ of the Devonian has a few large conical teeth with small cusps between them. The _Diplacanthidæ_, with two dorsal fins, possess bones interpreted as clavicles. The teeth are minute or absent. In _Diplacanthus striatus_ and _Diplacanthus longispinus_ of the Lower Devonian stout spines are attached to the shoulder-girdle between the pectoral spines below. [Illustration: FIG. 304.--_Diplacanthus crassissimus_ Duff. Devonian. Family _Diplacanthidæ_. (After Nicholson). (Restoration of jaws and gill-openings; after Traquair.)] In the very small sharks called _Climatius_ the fin-spines are very strong, and a series of several free spines occurs, as above stated, on each side between the pectoral and ventral fins, a supposed trace of a former lateral fold. In _Paraxus_ the first dorsal spine is enormously enlarged in size, the other spines remaining much as in _Climatius_. =Dean on Acanthodei.=--In his latest treatise on these fishes, "The Devonian Lamprey," Dr. Dean unites the _Pleuropterygii_ and _Acanthodei_ in a single order under the former name, regarding _Acanthoessus_ as an ally and perhaps descendant of the primitive _Cladoselache_. Dr. Dean observes: "In the foregoing classification it will be noted that the Acanthodia are regarded as included under the first order of sharks, _Pleuropterygii_. To this arrangement Smith Woodward has already objected that the spines of Acanthodians cannot be regarded as the homologues of the radial elements of the Cladoselachian fin (which by a process of concrescence have become fused in its interior margin), since he believes the structure to be entirely dermal in origin. His criticism, however, does not seem to me to be well grounded, for, although all will admit that Acanthodian spines have become incrusted, and deeply incrusted, with a purely dermal calcification, it does not follow that the interior of the spine has not had primitively a non-dermal core. That the concrescence of the radial supporting elements of the fin took place _pari passu_ with the development of a strengthening dermal support of the fin margin was the view expressly formulated in my previous paper on this subject. It is of interest in this connection to recall that the earliest types of Acanthodian spines were the widest, and those which, in spite of their incasing dermal calcification, suggest most clearly the parallel elements representing the component radial supports. There should also be recalled the many features in which the Acanthodians have been shown to resemble _Cladoselache_." [Illustration: FIG. 305.--_Climatius scutiger_ Egerton, restored. Family _Diplacanthidæ_. (After Powrie, per Zittel.)] From these primitive extinct types of shark we may proceed to those forms which have representatives among living fishes. From _Cladoselache_ a fairly direct series extends through the _Notidani_ and _Cestraciontes_, culminating in the Lamnoid and Galeoid sharks. Still another series, destitute of anal fin, probably arising near the _Acanthodei_, reaches its highest development in the side branch of the _Batoidei_ or rays. The _Holocephali_ and _Dipneusti_ must also find their origin in some of these primitive types, certainly not in any form of more highly specialized sharks. [Illustration: FIG. 306.--_Pleuracanthus decheni_ Goldfuss. Family _Pleuracanthidæ_. (After Roemer, per Zittel.)] Woodward prefers to place the _Tectospondyli_ next to the _Ichthyotomi_, leaving the specialized sharks to be treated later. There is, however, no linear system which can interpret natural affinities, and we follow custom in placing the dogfishes and rays at the end of the shark series. [Illustration: FIG. 307.--_Pleuracanthus decheni_, restored. (After Brongniart.) The anterior anal very hypothetical.] [Illustration: FIG. 308.--Head-bones and teeth of _Pleuracanthus decheni_ Goldfuss. (After Davis, per Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 309.--Teeth of _Didymodus bohemicus_ Quenstadt. Carboniferous. Family _Pleuracanthidæ_. (After Zittel)] =Order Ichthyotomi.=--In the order _Ichthyotomi_ (~ichthys~, fish; ~tomos~, cutting; named by Cope from the supposed segmentation of the cranium; called by Parker and Haswell _Pleuracanthea_) the very large pectoral fins are developed each as an archipterygium. Each fin consists of a long segmented axis fringed on one or both sides with fin-rays. The notochord is very simple, scarcely or never constricted, the calcifications of its sheath "arrested at the most primitive or rhachitomous stage, except in the tail." This is the best defined of the orders of sharks, and should perhaps rank rather as a subclass, as the _Holocephali_. Two families of _Ichthyotomi_ are recognized by Woodward, the _Pleuracanthidæ_ and the _Cladodontidæ_. In the _Pleuracanthidæ_ the dorsal fin is long and low, continuous from head to tail, and the pectoral rays are in two rows. There is a long barbed spine with two rows of serrations at the nape. The body is slender, not depressed, and probably covered with smooth skin. The teeth have two or more blunt cusps, sometimes with a smaller one between and a blunt button behind. The interneural cartilages are more numerous than the neural spines. The genera are imperfectly known, the skeleton of _Pleuracanthus decheni_ only being well preserved. This is the type of the genus called _Xenacanthus_ which, according to Woodward, is identical with _Pleuracanthus_, a genus otherwise known from spines only. The denticles on the spine are straight or hooked backward, in _Pleuracanthus_ (_lævissimus_), the spine being flattened. In _Orthacanthus_ (_cylindricus_), the spine is cylindrical in section. The species called _Dittodus_ and _Didymodus_ are known from the teeth only. These resemble the teeth of _Chlamydoselachus_. It is not known that _Dittodus_ possesses the nuchal spine, although detached spines like those of _Pleuracanthus_ lie about in remains called _Didymodus_ in the Permian rocks of Texas. In _Dicranodus texensis_ the palato-quadrate articulates with the postorbital process of the cranium, as in the _Hexanchidæ_, and the hyomandibular is slender. [Illustration: FIG. 310.--Shoulder-girdle and pectoral fins of _Cladodus neilsoni_ Traquair.] A genus, _Chondrenchelys_, from the sub-Carboniferous of Scotland, is supposed to belong to the _Pleuracanthidæ_, from the resemblance of the skeleton. It has no nuchal spine, and no trace of paired fins is preserved. The _Cladodontidæ_ differ in having the "pectoral fin developed in the form of a uniserial archipterygium intermediate between the truly biserial one of _Pleuracanthus_ and the pectoral fin of modern sharks." The numerous species are known mainly from detached teeth, especially abundant in America, the earliest being in the Lower Carboniferous. One species, _Cladodus nelsoni_ (Fig. 310), described by Traquair, from the sub-Carboniferous of Scotland shows fairly the structure of the pectoral fin. [Illustration: FIG. 311.--Teeth of _Cladodus striatus_ Agassiz. (After Davis.) Carboniferous.] In _Cladodus mirabilis_ the teeth are very robust, the crown consisting of a median principal cone and two or three large lateral cones on each side. The cones are fairly striate. In _Lambdodus_ from Illinois there are no lateral cones. Other genera are _Dicentrodus_, _Phoebodus_, _Carcharopsis_, and _Hybocladodus_. CHAPTER XXX THE TRUE SHARKS =Order Notidani.=--We may recognize as a distinct order, a primitive group of recent sharks, a group of forms finding its natural place somewhere between the _Cladoselachidæ_ and _Heterodontidæ_, both of which groups long preceded it in geological time. The name _Notidani_ (_Notidanus_, ~nôtidanos~, dry back, an old name of one of the genera) may be retained for this group, which corresponds to the _Diplospondyli_ of Hasse, the _Opistharthri_ of Gill, and the _Protoselachii_ of Parker and Haswell. The _Notidani_ are characterized by the primitive structure of the spinal column, which is without calcareous matter, the centra being imperfectly developed. There are six or seven branchial arches, and in the typical forms (not in _Chlamydoselachus_) the palato-quadrate or upper jaw articulates with the postorbital region of the skull. The teeth are of primitive character, of different forms in the same jaw, each with many cusps. The fins are without spines, the pectoral fin having the three basal cartilages (mesopterygium with propterygium and metapterygium) as usual among sharks. [Illustration: FIG. 312.--Griset or Cow-shark, _Hexanchus griseus_ (Gmelin). Currituck Inlet, N. C.] The few living forms are of high interest. The extinct species are numerous, but not very different from the living species. =Family Hexanchidæ.=--The majority of the living Notidanoid sharks belong to the family of _Hexanchidæ_. These sharks have six or seven gill-openings, one dorsal fin, and a relatively simple organization. The bodies are moderately elongate, not eel-shaped, and the palato-quadrate articulates with the postorbital part of the skull. The six or eight species are found sparsely in the warm seas. The two genera, _Hexanchus_, with six, and _Heptranchias_, with seven vertebræ, are found in the Mediterranean. The European species are _Hexanchus griseus_, the cow-shark, and _Heptranchias cinereus_. The former crosses to the West Indies. In California, _Heptranchias maculatus_ and _Hexanchus corinus_ are occasionally taken, while _Heptranchias deani_ is the well known Aburazame or oil shark of Japan. _Heptranchias indicus_, a similar species, is found in India. [Illustration: FIG. 313.--Teeth of _Heptranchias indicus_ Gmelin.] Fossil _Hexanchidæ_ exist in large numbers, all of them referred by Woodward to the genus _Notidanus_ (which is a later name than _Hexanchus_ and _Heptranchias_ and intended to include both these genera), differing chiefly in the number of gill-openings, a character not ascertainable in the fossils. None of these, however, appear before Cretaceous time, a fact which may indicate that the simplicity of structure in _Hexanchus_ and _Heptranchias_ is a result of degeneration and not altogether a mark of primitive simplicity. The group is apparently much younger than the Cestraciontes and little older than the Lamnoids, or the Squaloid groups. _Heptranchias microdon_ is common in English Cretaceous rocks, and _Heptranchias primigenius_ and other species are found in the Eocene. =Family Chlamydoselachidæ.=--Very great interest is attached to the recent discovery by Samuel Garman of the frilled shark, _Chlamydoselachus anguineus_, the sole living representative of the _Chlamydoselachidæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 314.--Frill-shark, _Chlamydoselachus anguineus_ Garman. From Misaki, Japan. (After Günther.)] This shark was first found on the coast of Japan, where it is rather common in deep water. It has since been taken off Madeira and off the coast of Norway. It is a long, slender, eel-shaped shark with six gill-openings and the palato-quadrate not articulated to the cranium. The notochord is mainly persistent, in part replaced by feeble cyclospondylic vertebral centra. Each gill-opening is bordered by a broad frill of skin. There is but one dorsal fin. The teeth closely resemble those of _Dittodus_ or _Didymodus_ and other extinct _Ichthyotomi_. The teeth have broad, backwardly extended bases overlapping, the crown consisting of three slender curved cusps, separated by rudimentary denticles. Teeth of a fossil species, _Chlamydoselachus lawleyi_, are recorded by J. W. Davis from the Pliocene of Tuscany. =Order Asterospondyli.=--The order of _Asterospondyli_ comprises the typical sharks, those in which the individual vertebræ are well developed, the calcareous lamellæ arranged so as to radiate, star-fashion, from the central axis. All these sharks possess two dorsal fins and one anal fin, the pectoral fin is normally developed, with the three basal cartilages; there are five gill-openings, and the tail is heterocercal. [Illustration: FIG. 315.--Bullhead-shark, _Heterodontus francisci_ (Girard). San Pedro, Cal.] =Suborder Cestraciontes.=--The most ancient types may be set off as a distinct suborder under the name of _Cestraciontes_ or _Prosarthri_. [Illustration: FIG. 316.--Lower jaw of _Heterodontus philippi_. From Australia. Family _Heterodontidæ_. (After Zittel.)] These forms find their nearest allies in the _Notidani_, which they resemble to some extent in dentition and in having the palato-quadrate articulated to the skull although fastened farther forward than in the _Notidani_. Each of the two dorsal fins has a strong spine. [Illustration: FIG. 317.--Teeth of Cestraciont Sharks. (After Woodward.) _d_, _Synechodus dubrisianus_ Mackie; _e_, _Heterodontus canaliculatus_ Egerton; _f_, _Hybodus striatulus_ Agassiz. (After Woodward.)] [Illustration: FIG. 318.--Egg of Port Jackson Shark, _Heterodontus philippi_ (Lacépède). (After Parker & Haswell.)] =Family Heterodontidæ.=--Among recent species this group contains only the family of _Heterodontidæ_, the bullhead sharks, or Port Jackson sharks. In this family the head is high, with usually projecting eyebrows, the lateral teeth are pad-like, ridged or rounded, arranged in many rows, different from the pointed anterior teeth, the fins are large, the coloration is strongly marked, and the large egg-cases are spirally twisted. All have five gill-openings. The living species of _Heterodontidæ_ are found only in the Pacific, the Port Jackson shark of Australia, _Heterodontus philippi_, being longest known. Other species are _Heterodontus francisci_, common in California, _Heterodontus japonicus_, in Japan, and _Heterodontus zebra_, in China. These small and harmless sharks at once attract attention by their peculiar forms. In the American species the jaws are less contracted than in the Asiatic species, called _Heterodontus_. For this reason Dr. Gill has separated the former under the name of _Gyropleurodus_. The differences are, however, of slight value. The genus _Heterodontus_ first appears in the Jurassic, where a number of species are known, one of the earliest being _Heterodontus falcifer_. Three families of _Cestraciontes_ are recognized by Hay. The most primitive of these is the group of _Orodontidæ_. _Orodus_, from the Lower Carboniferous, has the teeth with a central crown, its surface wrinkled. Of the _Heterodontidæ_, _Hybodus_, of the Carboniferous and Triassic, is one of the earliest and largest genera, characterized by elongate teeth of many cusps, different in different parts of the jaw, somewhat as in the _Hexanchidæ_, the median points being, however, always longest. The dorsal fins are provided with long spines serrated behind. The vertebræ with persistent notochord show qualities intermediate between those of _Hexanchidæ_ and _Heterodontidæ_, and the same relation is shown by the teeth. In this genus two large hooked half-barbed dermal spines occur behind each orbit. [Illustration: FIG. 319.--Tooth of _Hybodus delabechei_ Charlesworth. (After Woodward.)] [Illustration: FIG. 320.--Fin-spine of _Hybodus basanus_ Egerton. Cretaceous. Family _Heterodontidæ_. (After Nicholson.)] [Illustration: FIG. 321.--Fin-spine of _Hybodus reticulatus_ Agassiz. (After Zittel.)] _Palæospinax_, with short stout spines and very large pectoral fins, formerly regarded as a dogfish, is placed near _Heterodontus_ by Woodward. _Acrodus_, from the Triassic, shows considerable resemblance to _Heterodontus_. Its teeth are rounded and without cusps. Most of these species belong to the Carboniferous, Triassic, and Jurassic, although some fragments ascribed to Cestraciont sharks occur in the Upper Silurian. _Asteracanthus_, known only from fin-spines in the Jura, probably belongs here. It is a singular fact first noted by Dr. Hay, that with all the great variety of sharks, ten families in the Carboniferous age, representatives of but one family, _Heterodontidæ_, are found in the Triassic. This family may be the parent of all subsequent sharks and rays, six families of these appearing in the Jurassic and many more in the Cretaceous. =Edestus and its Allies.=--Certain monstrous structures, hitherto thought to be fin-spines, are now shown by Dr. Eastman and others to be coalescent teeth of Cestraciont sharks. [Illustration: Fig. 322.--Fin-spine of _Hybodus canaliculatus_ Agassiz.] [Illustration: Fig. 323.--Teeth of Cestraciont Sharks. (After Woodward.) _a_, _Hybodus lævis_ Woodward (after Woodward); _b_, _Heterodontus rugosus_ Agassiz; _c_, _Hybodus delabechei_ Charlesworth.] [Illustration: Fig. 324.--_Edestus vorax_ Leidig, supposed to be a whorl of teeth. (After Newberry.)] These remarkable _Ichthyodorulites_ are characteristic structures of sharks of unknown nature, but probably related to the _Heterodontidæ_. Of these the principal genera are _Edestus_, _Helicoprion_, and _Campyloprion_. Karpinsky regards these ornate serrated spiral structures as whorls of unshed teeth cemented together and extending outside the mouth, "sharp, piercing teeth which were never shed but became fused in whorls as the animals grew." Dr. Eastman has, however, shown that these supposed teeth of _Edestus_ are much like those of the _Cochliodontidæ_, and the animals which bore them should doubtless find their place among the Cestraciont sharks, perhaps within the family of _Heterodontidæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 325.--_Helicoprion bessonowi_ Karpinsky. Teeth from the Permian of Krasnoufimsk, Russia. (After Karpinsky.)] =Onchus.=--The name _Onchus_ was applied by Agassiz to small laterally compressed spines, their sides ornamented with smooth or faintly crenulated longitudinal ridges, and with no denticles behind. Very likely these belonged to extinct Cestraciont sharks. _Onchus murchisoni_ and _Onchus tenuistriatus_ occur in the Upper Silurian rocks of England, in the lowest strata in which sharks have been found. To a hypothetical group of primitive sharks Dr. Hasse has given the name of _Polyospondyli_. In these supposed ancestral sharks the vertebræ were without any ossification, a simple notochord, possibly swollen at intervals. The dorsal fin was single and long, a fold of skin with perhaps a single spine as an anterior support. The teeth must have been modified dermal papillæ, each probably with many cusps. Probably seven gill-openings were developed, and the tail was diphycercal, ending in a straight point. The finely striated fin-spines not curved upward at tip, called _Onchus_ from the Upper Silurian of the Ludlow shales of England and elsewhere, are placed by Hasse near his Polyspondylous sharks. Such spines have been retained by the group of _Chimæras_, supposed to be derived from the ancestors of _Onchus_, as well as by the _Heterodontidæ_ and _Squalidæ_. =Family Cochliodontidæ.=--Another ancient family known from teeth alone is that of _Cochliodontidæ_. These teeth resemble those of the _Heterodontidæ_, but are more highly specialized. The form of the body is unknown, and the animals may have been rays rather than sharks. Eastman leaves them near the _Petalodontidæ_, which group of supposed rays shows a similar dentition. The teeth are convex in form, strongly arched, hollowed at base, and often marked by ridges or folds, being without sharp cusps. In each jaw is a strong posterior tooth with smaller teeth about. The elaborate specialization of these ancient teeth for crushing or grinding shells is very remarkable. The species are chiefly confined to rocks of the Carboniferous age. Among the principal genera are _Helodus_, _Psephodus_, _Sandalodus_, _Venustodus_, _Xystrodus_, _Deltodus_, _Poecilodus_, and _Cochliodus_. [Illustration: FIG. 326.--Lower jaw of _Cochliodus contortus_ Agassiz. Carboniferous. (After Zittel.)] Concerning the teeth of various fossil sharks, Dr. Dean observes: "Their general character appears to have been primitive, but in structural details they were certainly specialized. Thus their dentition had become adapted to a shellfish diet, and they had evolved defensive spines at the fin margins, sometimes at the sides of the head. In some cases the teeth remain as primitive shagreen cusps on the rim of the mouth, but become heavy and bluntish behind; in other forms the fusion of tooth clusters may present the widest range in their adaptations for crushing; and the curves and twistings of the tritoral surfaces may have resulted in the most specialized forms of dentition which are known to occur, not merely in sharks but among all vertebrates." In this neighborhood belongs, perhaps, the family of _Tamiobatidæ_, known from the skull of a single specimen, called _Tamiobatis vetustus_, from the Devonian in eastern Kentucky. The head has the depressed form of a ray, but it is probably a shark and one of the very earliest known. =Suborder Galei.=--The great body of recent sharks belong to the suborder _Galei_, or _Euselachii_, characterized by the asterospondylous vertebræ, each having a star-shaped nucleus, and by the fact that the palato-quadrate apparatus or upper jaw is not articulated with the skull. The sharks of this suborder are the most highly specialized of the group, the strongest and largest and, in general, the most active and voracious. They are of three types and naturally group themselves about the three central families _Scyliorhinidæ_, _Lamnidæ_, and _Carchariidæ_ (_Galeorhinidæ_). The _Asterospondyli_ are less ancient than the preceding groups, but the modern families were well differentiated in Mesozoic times. Among the _Galei_ the dentition is less complex than with the ancient forms, although the individual teeth are more highly specialized. The teeth are usually adapted for biting, often with knife-like or serrated edges; only the outer teeth are in function; as they are gradually lost, the inner teeth are moved outward, gradually taking the place of these. We may place first, as most primitive, the forms without nictitating membrane. =Family Scyliorhinidæ.=--The most primitive of the modern families is doubtless that of the _Scyliorhinidæ_, or cat-sharks. This group includes sharks with the dorsal fins both behind the ventrals, the tail not keeled and not bent upward, the spiracles present, and the teeth small and close-set. The species are small and mostly spotted, found in the warm seas. All of them lay their eggs in large cases, oblong, and with long filaments or strings at the corners. The cat-sharks, or roussettes, _Scyliorhinus canicula_ and _Catulus stellaris_, abound in the Mediterranean. Their skin is used as shagreen or sandpaper in polishing furniture. The species of swell-sharks (_Cephaloscylium_) (_C. uter_, in California; _C. ventriosus_, in Chile; _C. laticeps_, in Australia; _C. umbratile_, in Japan) are short, wide-bodied sharks, which have the habit of filling the capacious stomach with air, then floating belly upward like a globefish. Other species are found in the depths of the sea. _Scyliorhinus_, _Catulus_, and numerous other genera are found fossil. The earliest is _Palæoscyllium_, in the Jurassic, not very different from _Scyliorhinus_, but the fins are described as more nearly like those of _Ginglymostoma_. Close to the _Scyliorhinidæ_ is the Asiatic family, _Hemiscylliidæ_, which differs in being ovoviviparous, the young, according to Mr. Edgar R. Waite, hatched within the body. The general appearance is that of the _Scyliorhinidæ_, the body being elongate. _Chiloscyllium_ is a well-known genus with several species in the East Indies. _Chiloscyllium modestum_ is the dogfish of the Australian fishermen. The _Orectolobidæ_ are thick-set sharks, with large heads provided with fleshy fringes. _Orectolobus barbatus_ (_Crossorhinus_ of authors) abounds from Japan to Australia. Another family, _Ginglymostomidæ_, differs mainly in the form of the tail, which is long and bent abruptly upward at its base. These large sharks, known as nurse-sharks, are found in the warm seas. _Ginglymostoma cirrhatum_ is the common species with _Orectolobus_. _Stegostoma tigrinum_, of the Indian seas and north to Japan, one of several genera called tiger-sharks, is remarkable for its handsome spotted coloration. The extinct genus _Pseudogaleus_ (_voltai_) is said to connect the _Scyliorhinoid_ with the _Carcharioid_ sharks. =The Lamnoid or Mackerel Sharks.=--The most active and most ferocious of the sharks, as well as the largest and some of the most sluggish, belong to a group of families known collectively as Lamnoid, because of a general resemblance to the mackerel-shark, or _Lamna_, as distinguished from the blue sharks and white sharks allied to _Carcharias_ (_Carcharhinus_). The Lamnoid sharks agree with the cat-sharks in the absence of nictitating membrane or third eyelid, but differ in the anterior insertion of the first dorsal fin, which is before the ventrals. Some of these sharks have the most highly specialized teeth to be found among fishes, most effective as knives or as scissors. Still others have the most highly specialized tails, either long and flail-like, or short, broad, and muscular, fitting the animal for swifter progression than is possible for any other sharks. The Lamnoid families are especially numerous as fossils, their teeth abounding in all suitable rock deposits from Mesozoic times till now. Among the Lamnoid sharks numerous families must be recognized. The most primitive is perhaps that of the _Odontaspididæ_ (called _Carchariidæ_ by some recent authors), now chiefly extinct, with the tail unequal and not keeled, and the teeth slender and sharp, often with smaller cusps at their base. _Odontaspis_ and its relatives of the same genus are numerous, from the Cretaceous onward, and three species are still extant, small sharks of a voracious habit, living on sandy shores. _Odontaspis littoralis_ (also known as _Carcharias littoralis_) is the common sand-shark of our Atlantic coast. _Odontaspis taurus_ is a similar form in the Mediterranean. =Family Mitsukurinidæ, the Goblin-sharks.=--Closely allied to _Odontaspis_ is the small family of _Mitsukurinidæ_, of which a single living species is known. The teeth are like those of _Odontaspis_, but the appearance is very different. The goblin-shark, or Tenguzame, _Mitsukurina owstoni_, is a very large shark rarely taken in the Kuro Shiwo, or warm "Black Current" of Japan. It is characterized by the development of the snout into a long flat blade, extending far beyond the mouth, much as in _Polyodon_ and in certain Chimæras. Several specimens are now known, all taken by Capt. Alan Owston of Yokohama in Sagami Bay, Japan. The original specimen, a young shark just born, was presented by him to Professor Kakichi Mitsukuri of the University of Tokyo. From this our figure was taken. The largest specimen now known is in the United States National Museum and is fourteen feet in length. In the Upper Cretaceous is a very similar genus, _Scapanorhynchus_ (_lewisi_, etc.), which Professor Woodward thinks may be even generically identical with _Mitsukurina_, though there is considerable difference in the form of the still longer rostral plate, and the species of _Scapanorhynchus_ differ among themselves in this regard. [Illustration: FIG. 327.--Goblin-shark (Tenguzame), _Mitsukurina owstoni_ Jordan. From a young specimen in the Imperial University of Tokyo.] _Mitsukurina_, with _Heterodontus_, _Heptranchias_, and _Chlamydoselache_, is a very remarkable survival of a very ancient form. It is an interesting fact that the center of abundance of all these relics of ancient life is in the Black Current, or Gulf Stream, of Japan. [Illustration: FIG. 328.--_Scapanorhynchus lewisi_ Davis. Family _Mitsukurinidæ_. Under side of snout. (After Woodward.)] =Family Alopiidæ, or Thresher Sharks.=--The related family of _Alopiidæ_ contains probably but one recent species, the great fox-shark, or thresher, found in all warm seas. In this species, _Alopias vulpes_, the tail is as long as the rest of the body and bent upward from the base. The snout is very short, and the teeth are small and close-set. The species reaches a length of about twenty-five feet. It is not especially ferocious, and the current stories of its attacks on whales probably arise from a mistake of the observers, who have taken the great killer, _Orca_, for a shark. The killer is a mammal, allied to the porpoise. It attacks the whale with great ferocity, clinging to its flesh by its strong teeth. The whale rolls over and over, throwing the killer into the air, and sailors report it as a thresher. As a matter of fact the thresher very rarely if ever attacks any animal except small fish. It is said to use its tail in rounding up and destroying schools of herring and sardines. Fossil teeth of thresher-sharks of some species are found from the Miocene. =Family Pseudotriakidæ.=--The _Pseudotriakidæ_ consist of two species. One of these is _Pseudotriakis microdon_, a large shark with a long low tail, long and low dorsal fin, and small teeth. It has been only twice taken, off Portugal and off Long Island. The other, the mute shark, _Pseudotriakis acrales_, a large shark with the body as soft as a rag, is in the museum of Stanford University, having been taken by Mr. Owston off Misaki. =Family Lamnidæ.=--To the family of _Lamnidæ_ proper belong the swiftest, strongest, and most voracious of all sharks. The chief distinction lies in the lunate tail, which has a keel on either side at base, as in the mackerels. This form is especially favorable for swift swimming, and it has been independently developed in the mackerel-sharks, as in the mackerels, in the interest of speed in movement. [Illustration: FIG. 329.--Tooth of _Lamna cuspidata_ Agassiz. Oligocene. Family _Lamnidæ_. (After Nicholson.)] The porbeagle, _Lamna cornubica_, known as salmon-shark in Alaska, has long been noted for its murderous voracity. About Kadiak Island it destroys schools of salmon, and along the coasts of Japan, and especially of Europe and across to New England, it makes its evil presence felt among the fishermen. Numerous fossil species of _Lamna_ occur, known by the long knife-like flexuous teeth, each having one or two small cusps at its base. [Illustration: FIG. 330.--Mackerel-shark, _Isuropsis dekayi_ Gill. Pensacola, Fla.] In the closely related genus, _Isurus_, the mackerel-sharks, this cusp is wanting, while in _Isuropsis_ the dorsal fin is set farther back. In each of these genera the species reach a length of 20 to 25 feet. Each is strong, swift, and voracious. _Isurus oxyrhynchus_ occurs in the Mediterranean, _Isuropsis dekayi_, in the Gulf of Mexico, and _Isuropsis glauca_, from Hawaii and Japan westward to the Red Sea. =Man-eating Sharks.=--Equally swift and vastly stronger than these mackerel-sharks is the man-eater, or great white shark, _Carcharodon carcharias_. This shark, found occasionally in all warm seas, reaches a length of over thirty feet and has been known to devour men. According to Linnæus, it is the animal which swallowed the prophet Jonah. "Jonam Prophetum," he observes, "ut veteris Herculem trinoctem, in hujus ventriculo tridui spateo bæsisse, verosimile est." [Illustration: FIG. 331.--Tooth of _Isurus hastalis_ (Agassiz). Miocene. Family _Lamnidæ_. (After Nicholson.)] It is beyond comparison the most voracious of fish-like animals. Near Soquel, California, the writer obtained a specimen in 1880, with a young sea-lion (_Zalophus_) in its stomach. It has been taken on the coasts of Europe, New England, Carolina, California, Hawaii, and Japan, its distribution evidently girdling the globe. The genus _Carcharodon_ is known at once by its broad, evenly triangular, knife-like teeth, with finely serrated edges, and without notch or cusp of any kind. But one species is now living. Fossil teeth are found from the Eocene. One of these, _Carcharodon megalodon_ (Fig. 332), from fish-guano deposits in South Carolina and elsewhere, has teeth nearly six inches long. The animal could not have been less than ninety feet in length. These huge sharks can be but recently extinct, as their teeth have been dredged from the sea-bottom by the _Challenger_ in the mid-Pacific. Fossil teeth of _Lamna_ and _Isurus_ as well as of _Carcharodon_ are found in great abundance in Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks. Among the earlier species are forms which connect these genera very closely. The fossil genus _Otodus_ must belong to the _Lamnidæ_. Its massive teeth with entire edges and blunt cusps at base are common in Cretaceous and Tertiary deposits. The teeth are formed much as in _Lamna_, but are blunter, heavier, and much less effective as instruments of destruction. The extinct genus _Corax_ is also placed here by Woodward. [Illustration: FIG. 332.--_Carcharodon megalodon_ Charlesworth. Miocene. Family _Lamnidæ_. (After Zittel.)] =Family Cetorhinidæ, or Basking Sharks.=--The largest of all living sharks is the great basking shark (_Cetorhinus maximus_), constituting the family of _Cetorhinidæ_. This is the largest of all fishes, reaching a length of thirty-six feet and an enormous weight. It is a dull and sluggish animal of the northern seas, almost as inert as a sawlog, often floating slowly southward in pairs in the spring and caught occasionally by whalers for its liver. When caught, its huge flabby head spreads out wide on the ground, its weight in connection with the great size of the mouth-cavity rendering it shapeless. Although so clumsy and without spirit, it is said that a blow with its tail will crush an ordinary whaleboat. The basking shark is known on all northern coasts, but has most frequently been taken in the North Sea, and about Monterey Bay in California. From this locality specimens have been sent to the chief museums of Europe. In its external characters the basking shark has much in common with the man-eater. Its body is, however, relatively clumsy forward; its fins are lower, and its gill-openings are much broader, almost meeting under the throat. The great difference lies in the teeth, which in _Cetorhinus_ are very small and weak, about 200 in each row. The basking shark, also called elephant-shark and bone-shark, does not pursue its prey, but feeds on small creatures to be taken without effort. Fossil teeth of _Cetorhinus_ have been found from the Cretaceous, as also fossil gill-rakers, structures which in this shark are so long as to suggest whalebone. [Illustration: FIG. 333.--Basking Shark, _Cetorhinus maximus_ (Gunner). France.] =Family Rhineodontidæ.=--The whale-sharks, _Rhineodontidæ_, are likewise sluggish monsters with feeble teeth and keeled tails. From _Cetorhinus_ they differ mainly in having the last gill-opening above the pectorals. There is probably but one species, _Rhineodon typicus_, of the tropical Pacific, straying northward to Florida, Lower California, and Japan. =The Carcharioid Sharks, or Requins.=--The largest family of recent sharks is that of _Carchariidæ_ (often called _Galeorhinidæ_, or _Galeidæ_), a modern offshoot from the Lamnoid type, and especially characterized by the presence of a third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, which can be drawn across the eye from below. The heterocercal tail has no keel; the end is bent upward; both dorsal fins are present, and the first is well in front of the ventral fins; the last gill-opening over the base of the pectoral, the head normally formed; these sharks are ovoviviparous, the young being hatched in a sort of uterus, with or without placental attachment. Some of these sharks are small, blunt-toothed, and innocuous. Others reach a very large size and are surpassed in voracity only by the various _Lamnidæ_. The genera _Cynias_ and _Mustelus_, comprising the soft-mouthed or hound-sharks, have the teeth flat and paved, while well-developed spiracles are present. These small, harmless sharks abound on almost all coasts in warm regions, and are largely used as food by those who do not object to the harsh odor of shark's flesh. The best-known species is _Cynias canis_ of the Atlantic. By a regular gradation of intermediate forms, through such genera as _Rhinotriacis_ and _Triakis_ with tricuspid teeth, we reach the large sharp-toothed members of this family. _Galeus_ (or _Galeorhinus_) includes large sharks having spiracles, no pit at the root of the tail, and with large, coarsely serrated teeth. One species, the soup-fin shark (_Galeus zyopterus_), is found on the coast of California, where its fins are highly valued by the Chinese, selling at from one to two dollars for each set. The delicate fin-rays are the part used, these dissolving into a finely flavored gelatine. The liver of this and other species is used in making a coarse oil, like that taken from the dogfish. Other species of _Galeus_ are found in other regions, _Galeus galeus_ being known in England as tope, _Galeus japonicus_ abounding in Japan. [Illustration: FIG. 334.--Soup-fin Shark, _Galeus zyopterus_ (Jordan & Gilbert). Monterey.] _Galeocerdo_ differs mainly in having a pit at the root of the tail. Its species, large, voracious, and tiger-spotted, are found in warm seas and known as tiger-sharks (_Galeocerdo maculatus_ in the Atlantic, _Galeocerdo tigrinus_ in the Pacific). The species of _Carcharias_ (_Carcharhinus_ of Blainville) lack the spiracles. These species are very numerous, voracious, armed with sharp teeth, broad or narrow, and finely serrated on both edges. Some of these sharks reach a length of thirty feet. They are very destructive to other fishes, and often to fishery apparatus as well. They are sometimes sought as food, more often for the oil in their livers, but, as a rule, they are rarely caught except as a measure for getting rid of them. Of the many species the best known is the broad-headed _Carcharias lamia_, or cub-shark, of the Atlantic. This the writer has taken with a great hook and chain from the wharves at Key West. These great sharks swim about harbors in the tropics, acting as scavengers and occasionally seizing arm or leg of those who venture within their reach. One species (_Carcharias nicaraguensis_) is found in Lake Nicaragua, the only fresh-water shark known, although some run up the brackish mouth of the Ganges and into Lake Pontchartrain. _Carcharias japonicus_ abounds in Japan. [Illustration: FIG. 335.--Cub-shark, _Carcharias lamia_ Rafinesque. Florida.] A closely related genus is _Prionace_, its species _Prionace glauca_, the great blue shark, being slender and swift, with the dorsal farther back than in _Carcharias_. Of the remaining genera the most important is _Scoliodon_, small sharks with oblique teeth which have no serrature. One of these, _Scoliodon terræ-novæ_, is the common sharp-nosed shark of our Carolina coast. Fossil teeth representing nearly all of these genera are common in Tertiary rocks. Probably allied to the _Carchariidæ_ is the genus _Corax_, containing large extinct sharks of the Cretaceous with broadtriangular serrate teeth, very massive in substance, and without denticles. As only the teeth are known, the actual relations of the several species of _Corax_ are not certainly known, and they may belong to the _Lamnidæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 336.--Teeth of _Corax pristodontus_.] =Family Sphyrnidæ, or Hammer-head Sharks.=--The _Sphyrnidæ_, or hammer-headed sharks, are exactly like the _Carchariidæ_ except that the sides of the head are produced, so as to give it the shape of a hammer or of a kidney, the eye being on the produced outer edge. The species are few, but mostly widely distributed; rather large, voracious sharks with small sharp teeth. The true hammer-head, _Sphyrna zygæna_, Fig. 337, is common from the Mediterranean to Cape Cod, California, Hawaii, and Japan. The singular form of its head is one of the most extraordinary modifications shown among fishes. The bonnet-head (_Sphyrna tiburo_) has the head kidney-shaped or crescent-shaped. It is a smaller fish, but much the same in distribution and habits. Intermediate forms occur, so that with all the actual differences we must place the _Sphyrnidæ_ all in one genus. Fossil hammer-heads occur in the Miocene, but their teeth are scarcely different from those of _Carcharias_. _Sphyrna prisca_, described by Agassiz, is the primeval species. =The Order of Tectospondyli.=--The sharks and rays having no anal fin and with the calcareous lamellæ arranged in one or more rings around a central axis constitute a natural group to which, following Woodward, we may apply the name of _Tectospondyli_. The _Cyclospondyli_ (_Squalidæ_, etc.) with one ring only of calcareous lamellæ may be included in this order, as also the rays, which have tectospondylous vertebræ and differ from the sharks as a group only in having the gill-openings relegated to the lower side by the expansion of the pectoral fins. The group of rays and Hasse's order of _Cyclospondyli_ we may consider each as a suborder of _Tectospondyli_. The origin of this group is probably to be found in or near the _Cestraciontes_, as the strong dorsal spines of the _Squalidæ_ resemble those of the _Heterodontidæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 337.--Hammer-head Shark, _Sphyrna zygæna_ L. Hindustan. (After Day.)] =Suborder Cyclospondyli.=--In this group the vertebræ have the calcareous lamellæ arranged in a single ring about the central axis. The anal fin, as in all the tectospondylous sharks and rays, is wanting. In all the asterospondylous sharks, as in the _Ichthyotomi_, _Acanthodei_, and _Chimæras_, this fin is present. It is present in almost all of the bony fishes. All the species have spiracles, and in all are two dorsal fins. None have the nictitating membrane, and in all the eggs are hatched internally. Within the group there is considerable variety of form and structure. As above stated, we have a perfect gradation among _Tectospondyli_ from true sharks, with the gill-openings lateral, to rays, which have the gill-opening on the ventral side, the great expansion of the pectoral fins, a character of relatively recent acquisition, having crowded the gill-openings from their usual position. =Family Squalidæ.=--The largest and most primitive family of _Cyclospondyli_ is that of the _Squalidæ_, collectively known as dogfishes or skittle-dogs. In the _Squalidæ_ each dorsal fin has a stout spine in front, the caudal is bent upward and not keeled, and the teeth are small and varied in form, usually not all alike in the same jaw. [Illustration: FIG. 338.--Dogfish, _Squalus acanthias_ L. Gloucester, Mass.] The genus _Squalus_ includes the dogfishes, small, greedy sharks abundant in almost all cool seas and in some tropical waters. They are known by the stout spines in the dorsal fins and by their sharp, squarish cutting teeth. They are largely sought by fishermen for the oil in their livers, which is used to adulterate better oils. Sometimes 20,000 have been taken in one haul of the net. They are very destructive to herrings and other food-fishes. Usually the fishermen cut out the liver, throwing the shark overboard to die or to be cast on the beach. In northern Europe and New England _Squalus acanthias_ is abundant. _Squalus sucklii_ replaces it in the waters about Puget Sound, and _Squalus mitsukurii_ in Japan and Hawaii. Still others are found in Chile and Australia. The species of _Squalus_ live near shore and have the gray color usual among sharks. Allied forms perhaps hardly different from _Squalus_ are found in the Cretaceous rocks and have been described as _Centrophoroides_. Other genera related to _Squalus_ live in greater depths, from 100 to 600 fathoms, and these are violet-black. Some of the deep-water forms are the smallest of all sharks, scarcely exceeding a foot in length. _Etmopterus spinax_ lives in the Mediterranean, and teeth of a similar species occur in the Italian Pliocene rocks. _Etmopterus lucifer_,[150] a deep-water species of Japan, has a brilliant luminous glandular area along the sides of the belly. Other small species of deeper waters belong to the genera _Centrophorus_, _Centroscymnus_, and _Deania_. In some of these species the scales are highly specialized, pedunculate, or having the form of serrated leaves. Some species are Arctic, the others are most abundant about Misaki in Japan and the Madeira Islands, two regions especially rich in semi-bathybial types. Allied to the _Squalidæ_ is the small family of _Oxynotidæ_ with short bodies and strong dorsal spine. _Oxynotus centrina_ is found in the Mediterranean, and its teeth occur in the Miocene. [Illustration: FIG. 339.--_Etmopterus lucifer_ Jordan & Snyder. Misaki, Japan.] =Family Dalatiidæ.=--The _Dalatiidæ_, or scymnoid sharks, differ from the _Squalidæ_ almost solely in the absence of dorsal spines. The smaller species belonging to _Dalatias_ (_Scymnorhinus_, or _Scymnus_), _Dalatias licha_, etc., are very much like the dogfishes. They are, however, nowhere very common. The teeth of _Dalatias major_ exist in Miocene rocks. In the genus _Somniosus_ the species are of very much greater size, _Somniosus microcephalus_ attaining the length of about twenty-five feet. This species, known as the sleeper-shark or Greenland shark, lives in all cold seas and is an especial enemy of the whale, from which it bites large masses of flesh with a ferocity hardly to be expected from its clumsy appearance. From its habit of feeding on fish-offal, it is known in New England as "gurry-shark." Its small quadrate teeth are very much like those of the dogfish, their tips so turned aside as to form a cutting edge. The species is stout in form and sluggish in movement. It is taken for its liver in the north Atlantic on both coasts in Puget Sound and Bering Sea, and I have seen it in the markets of Tokyo. In Alaska it abounds about the salmon canneries feeding on the refuse. =Family Echinorhinidæ.=--The bramble-sharks, _Echinorhinidæ_, differ in the posterior insertion of the very small dorsal fins, and in the presence of scattered round tubercles, like the thorns of a bramble instead of shagreen. The single species, _Echinorhinus spinosus_ reaches a large size. It is rather scarce on the coasts of Europe, and was once taken on Cape Cod. The teeth of an extinct species, _Echinorhinus richardi_, are found in the Pliocene. [Illustration: FIG. 340.--Brain of Monkfish, _Squatina squatina_ L. (After Duméril.)] =Suborder Rhinæ.=--The suborder _Rhinæ_ includes those sharks having the vertebræ tectospondylous, that is, with two or more series of calcified lamellæ, as on the rays. They are transitional forms, as near the rays as the sharks, although having the gill-openings rather lateral than inferior, the great pectoral fins being separated by a notch from the head. The principal family is that of the angel-fishes, or monkfishes (_Squatinidæ_). In this group the body is depressed and flat like that of a ray. The greatly enlarged pectorals form a sort of shoulder in front alongside of the gill-openings, which has suggested the bend of the angel's wing. The dorsals are small and far back, the tail is slender with small fins, all these being characters shared by the rays. But one genus is now extant, widely diffused in warm seas. The species if really distinct are all very close to the European _Squatina squatina_. This is a moderate-sized shark of sluggish habit feeding on crabs and shells, which it crushes with its small, pointed, nail-shaped teeth. Numerous fossil species of _Squatina_ are found from the Triassic and Cretaceous, _Squatina alifera_ being the best known. [Illustration: FIG. 341.--Saw-shark, _Pristiophorus japonicus_ Günther. Specimen from Nagasaki.] =Family Pristiophoridæ, or Saw-sharks.=--Another highly aberrant family is that of the sawsharks, _Pristiophoridæ_. These are small sharks, much like the _Dalatiidæ_ in appearance, but with the snout produced into a long flat blade, on either side of which is a row of rather small sharp enameled teeth. These teeth are smaller and sharper than in the sawfish (_Pristis_), and the whole animal is much smaller than its analogue among the rays. This saw must be an effective weapon among the schools of herring and anchovies on which the sawsharks feed. The true teeth are small, sharp, and close-set. The few species of sawsharks are marine, inhabiting the shores of eastern Asia and Australia. _Pristiophorus japonicus_ is found rather sparsely along the shores of Japan. The vertebræ in this group are also tectospondylous. Both the _Squatina_ and _Pristiophorus_ represent a perfect transition from the sharks and rays. We regard them as sharks only because the gill-openings are on the side, not crowded downward to the under side of the body-disk. As fossil, _Pristiophorus_ is known only from a few detached vertebræ found in Germany. =Suborder Batoidei, or Rays.=--The suborder of _Batoidei_, _Rajæ_, or _Hypotrema_, including the skates and rays, is a direct modern offshoot from the ancestors of tectospondylous sharks, its characters all specialized in the direction of life on the bottom with a food of shells, crabs, and other creatures less active than fishes. The single tangible distinctive character of the rays as a whole lies in the position of the gill-openings, which are directly below the disk and not on the side of the neck in all the sharks. This difference in position is produced by the anterior encroachment of the large pectoral fins, which are more or less attached to the side of the head. By this arrangement, which aids in giving the body the form of a flat disk, the gill-openings are limited and forced downward. In the _Squatinidæ_ (angel-fishes) and the _Pristiophoridæ_ (sawsharks) the gill-openings have an intermediate position, and these families might well be referred to the _Batoidei_, with which group they agree in the tectospondylous vertebræ. Other characters of the rays, appearing progressively, are the widening of the disk, through the greater and greater development of the fins, the reduction of the tail, which in the more specialized forms becomes a long whip, the reduction, more and more posterior insertion, and the final loss of the dorsal fins, which are always without spine, the reduction of the teeth to a tessellated pavement, then finally to flat plates and the retention of the large spiracle. Through this spiracle the rays breathe while lying on the bottom, thus avoiding the danger of introducing sand into their gills, as would be done if they breathed through the mouth. In common with the cyclospondylous sharks, all the rays lack the anal fin. The rays rarely descend to great depths in the sea. The different members have varying relations, but the group most naturally divides into thick-tailed rays or skates (_Sarcura_) and whip-tailed rays or sting-rays (_Masticura_). The former are much nearer to the sharks and also appear earliest in geological times. =Pristididæ, or Sawfishes.=--The sawfishes, _Pristididæ_, are long, shark-like rays of large size, having, like the sawsharks, the snout prolonged into a very long and strong flat blade, with a series of strong enameled teeth implanted in sockets along either side of it. These teeth are much larger and much less sharp than in the sawsharks, but they are certainly homologous with these, and the two groups must have a common descent, distinct from that of the other rays. Doubtless when taxonomy is a more refined art they will constitute a small suborder together. This character of enameled teeth on the snout would seem of more importance than the position of the gill-openings or even the flattening and expansion of the body. The true teeth in the sawfishes are blunt and close-set, pavement-like as befitting a ray. (See Fig. 152.) [Illustration: FIG. 342.--Sawfish, _Pristis pectinatus_ Latham. Pensacola, Fla.] The sawfishes are found chiefly in river-mouths of tropical America and West Africa: _Pristis pectinatus_ in the West Indies; _Pristis zephyreus_ in western Mexico; and _Pristis pectinatus_ in the Senegal. They reach a length of ten to twenty feet, and with their saws they make great havoc among the schools of mullets and sardines on which they feed. The stories of their attacks on the whale are without foundation. The writer has never found any of the species in the open sea. They live chiefly in the brackish water of estuaries and river-mouths. Fossil teeth of sawfishes occur in abundance in the Eocene. Still older are vertebræ from the Upper Cretaceous at Maestricht. In _Propristis schweinfurthi_ the tooth-sockets are not yet calcified. In _Sclerorhynchus atavus_, from the Upper Cretaceous, the teeth are complex in form, with a "crimped" or stellate base and a sharp, backward-directed enameled crown. =Rhinobatidæ, or Guitar-fishes.=--The _Rhinobatidæ_ (guitar-fishes) are long-bodied, shovel-nosed rays, with strong tails; they are ovoviviparous, hatching the eggs within the body. The body, like that of the shark or sawfish, is covered with nearly uniform shagreen. The numerous species abound in all warm seas; they are olive-gray in color and feed on small animals of the seabottoms. The length of the snout differs considerably in different species, but in all the body is relatively long and strong. Most of the species belong to _Rhinobatus_. The best-known American species are _Rhinobatus lentiginosus_ of Florida and _Rhinobatus productus_ of California. The names guitar-fish, fiddler-fish, etc., refer to the form of the body. Numerous fossil species, allied to the recent forms, occur from the Jurassic. Species much like _Rhinobatus_ occur in the Cretaceous and Eocene. _Tamiobatis vetustus_, lately described by Dr. Eastman from a skull found in the Devonian of eastern Kentucky, the oldest ray-like fish yet known, is doubtless the type of a distinct family, _Tamiobatidæ_. It is more likely a shark however than a ray, although the skull has a flattened ray-like form. [Illustration: FIG. 343.--Guitar-fish, _Rhinobatus lentiginosus_ Garman. Charleston, S. C.] Closely related to the _Rhinobatidæ_ are the _Rhinidæ_ (_Rhamphobatidæ_), a small family of large rays shaped like the guitar-fishes and found on the coast of Asia. _Rhina ancylostoma_ extends northward to Japan. In the extinct family of _Astrodermidæ_, allied to the _Rhinobatidæ_, the tail has two smooth spines and the skin is covered with tubercles. In _Belemnobatis sismondæ_ the tubercles are conical; in _Astrodermus platypterus_ they are stellate. =Rajidæ, or Skates.=--The _Rajidæ_, skates, or rays, inhabit the colder waters of the globe and are represented by a large number of living species. In this family the tail is stout, with two-rayed dorsal fins and sometimes a caudal fin. The skin is variously armed with spines, there being always in the male two series of specialized spinous hooks on the outer edge of the pectoral fin. There is no serrated spine or "sting," and in all the species the eggs are laid in leathery cases, which are "wheelbarrow-shaped," with a projecting tube at each of the four angles. The size of this egg-case depends on the size of the species, ranging from three to about eight inches in length. In some species more than one egg is included in the same case. Most of the species belong to the typical genus _Raja_, and these are especially numerous on the coasts of all northern regions, where they are largely used as food. The flesh, although rather coarse and not well flavored, can be improved by hot butter, and as "raie au beurre noir" is appreciated by the epicure. The rays of all have small rounded teeth, set in a close pavement. [Illustration: FIG. 344.--Common Skate, _Raja erinacea_ Mitchill. Woods Hole, Mass.] Some of the species, known on our coasts as "barn-door skates," reach a length of four or five feet. Among these are _Raja lævis_ and _Raja ocellata_ on our Atlantic coast, _Raja binoculata_ in California, and _Raja tengu_ in Japan. The small tobacco-box skate, brown with black spots, abundant on the New England coast, is _Raja erinacea_. The corresponding species in California is _Raja inornata_, and in Japan _Raja kenojei_. Numerous other species, _Raja batis_, _clavata_, _circularis_, _fullonica_, etc., occur on the coasts of Europe. Some species are variegated in color, with eye-like spots or jet-black marblings. Still others, living in deep waters, are jet-black with the body very soft and limp. For these Garman has proposed the generic name _Malacorhinus_, a name which may come into general use when the species are better known. In the deep seas rays are found even under the equator. In the south-temperate zone the species are mostly generically distinct, _Psammobatis_ being a typical form, differing from _Raja_. _Discobatus sinensis_, common in China and Japan, is a shagreen-covered form, looking like a _Rhinobatus_. It is, however, a true ray, laying its eggs in egg-cases, and with the pectorals extending on the snout. Fossil _Rajidæ_, known by the teeth and bony tubercles, are found from the Cretaceous onward. They belong to _Raja_ and to the extinct genera _Dynatobatis_, _Oncobatis_, and _Acanthobatis_. The genus _Arthropterus_ (_rileyi_) from the Lias, known from a large pectoral fin, with distinct cylindrical-jointed rays, may have been one of the _Rajidæ_, or perhaps the type of a distinct family, _Arthropteridæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 345.--Numbfish, _Narcine brasiliensis_ Henle, showing electric cells. Pensacola, Fla.] =Narcobatidæ, or Torpedoes.=--The torpedoes, or electric rays (_Narcobatidæ_), are characterized by the soft, perfectly smooth skin, by the stout tail with rayed fins, and by the ovoviviparous habit, the eggs being hatched internally. In all the species is developed an elaborate electric organ, muscular in its origin and composed of many hexagonal cells, each filled with soft fluid. These cells are arranged under the skin about the back of the head and at the base of the pectoral fin, and are capable of benumbing an enemy by means of a severe electric shock. The exercise of this power soon exhausts the animal, and a certain amount of rest is essential to recovery. The torpedoes, also known as crampfishes or numbfishes, are peculiarly soft to the touch and rather limp, the substance consisting largely of watery or fatty tissues. They are found in all warm seas. They are not often abundant, and as food they have not much value. Perhaps the largest species is _Tetronarce occidentalis_, the crampfish of our Atlantic coast, black in color, and said sometimes to weigh 200 pounds. In California _Tetronarce californica_ reaches a length of three feet and is very rarely taken, in warm sandy bays. _Tetronarce nobiliana_ in Europe is much like these two American species. In the European species, _Narcobatus torpedo_, the spiracles are fringed and the animal is of smaller size. To _Narcine_ belong the smaller numbfish, or "entemedor," of tropical America. These have the spiracles close behind the eyes, not at a distance as in _Narcobatus_ and _Tetronarce_. _Narcine brasiliensis_ is found throughout the West Indies, and _Narcine entemedor_ in the Gulf of California. _Astrape_, a genus with but one dorsal fin, is common in southern Japan. Fossil _Narcobatus_ and _Astrape_ occur in the Eocene, one specimen of the former nearly five feet long. Vertebræ of _Astrape_ occur in Prussia in the amber-beds. [Illustration: FIG. 346.--Teeth of _Janassa linguæformis_ Atthey. Carboniferous. Family _Petalodontidæ_. (After Nicholson.)] =Petalodontidæ.=--Near the _Squatinidæ_, between the sharks and the rays, Woodward places the large extinct family of _Petalodontidæ_, with coarsely paved teeth each of which is elongate with a central ridge and one or more strong roots at base. The best-known genera are _Janassa_ and _Petalodus_, widely distributed in Carboniferous time. _Janassa_ is a broad flat shark, or, perhaps, a skate, covered with smooth shagreen. The large pectoral fins are grown to the head; the rather large ventral fins are separated from them. The tail is small, and the fins, as in the rays, are without spines. The teeth bear some resemblance to those of _Myliobatis_. _Janassa_ is found in the coal-measures of Europe and America, and other genera extend upward from the Subcarboniferous limestones, disappearing near the end of Carboniferous time. _Petalodus_ is equally common, but known only from the teeth. Other widely distributed genera are _Ctenoptychius_ and _Polyrhizodus_. [Illustration: FIG. 347.--_Polyrhizodus radicans_ Agassiz. Family _Petalodontidæ_. Carboniferous of Ireland. (After McCoy.)] These forms may be intermediate between the skates and the sting-rays. In dentition they resemble most the latter. Similar to these is the extinct family of _Pristodontidæ_ with one large tooth in each jaw, the one hollowed out to meet the other. It is supposed that but two teeth existed in life, but that is not certain. Nothing is known of the rest of the body in _Pristodus_, the only genus of the group. =Dasyatidæ, or Sting-rays.=--In the section _Masticura_ the tail is slender, mostly whip-like, without rayed dorsal or caudal fins, and it is usually armed with a very long spine with saw-teeth projecting backward. In the typical forms this is a very effective weapon, being wielded with great force and making a jagged wound which in man rarely heals without danger of blood-poisoning. There is no specific poison, but the slime and the loose cuticle of the spine serve to aggravate the irregular cut. I have seen one sting-ray thrust this spine through the body of another lying near it in a boat. Occasionally two or three of these spines are present. In the more specialized forms of sting-rays this spine loses its importance. It becomes very small and not functional, and is then occasionally or even generally absent in individuals. The common sting-rays, those in which the caudal spine is most developed, belong to the family of _Dasyatidæ_. This group is characterized by the small skate-like teeth and by the non-extension of the pectoral rays on the head. The skin is smooth or more or less rough. These animals lie flat on the sandy bottoms in nearly all seas, feeding on crabs and shellfish. All hatch the eggs within the body. The genus _Urolophus_ has a rounded disk, and a stout, short tail with a caudal fin. It has a strong spine, and for its size is the most dangerous of the sting-rays. _Urolophus halleri_, the California species, was named for a young man who was stung by the species at the time of its first discovery at San Diego in 1863. _Urolophus jamaicensis_ abounds in the West Indies, _Urolophus mundus_ at Panama, and _Urolophus fuscus_ in Japan. None of the species reach Europe. The true sting-ray (stingaree, or clam-cracker), _Dasyatis_, is more widely diffused and the species are very closely related. In these species the body is angular and the tail whip-like. Some of the species reach a length of ten or twelve feet. None have any economic value, and all are disliked by fishermen. _Dasyatis pastinaca_ is common in Europe, _Dasyatis centrura_ along our Atlantic coast, _Dasyatis sabina_ ascends the rivers of Florida, and _Dasyatis dipterura_ abounds in the bay of San Diego. Other species are found in tropical America, while still others (_Dasyatis akajei_, _kuhlii_, _zugei_, etc.) swarm in Japan and across India to Zanzibar. [Illustration: FIG. 348.--Sting-ray, _Dasyatis sabina_ Le Sueur. Galveston.] _Pteroplatea_, the butterfly-ray, has the disk very much broader than long, and the trivial tail is very short, its little spine more often lost than present. Different species of this genus circle the globe: _Pteroplatea maclura_, on our Atlantic coast; _Pteroplatea marmorata_, in California; _Pteroplatea japonica_, in Japan; and _Pteroplatea altavela_, in Europe. They are all very much alike, olive, with the brown upper surface pleasingly mottled and spotted. Sting-rays of various types, _Tæniura_, _Urolophus_, etc., occur as fossils from the Eocene onward. A complete skeleton called _Xiphotrygon acutidens_, distinguished from _Dasyatis_ by its sharp teeth, is described by Cope from the Eocene of Twin Creek in Wyoming. Vertebræ of _Urolophus_ are found in German Eocene. _Cyclobatis_ (_oligodactylus_), allied to _Urolophus_, with a few long pectoral rays greatly produced, extending over the tail and forming a rayed wreath-like projection over the snout, is known from the Lower Cretaceous. =Myliobatidæ.=--The eagle-rays, _Myliobatidæ_, have the pectoral fins extended to the snout, where they form a sort of rayed pad. The teeth are very large, flat, and laid in mosaic. The whip-like tail is much like that in the _Dasyatidæ_, but the spine is usually smaller. The eagle-like appearance is suggested by the form of the skull. The eyes are on the side of the head with heavy eyebrows above them. The species are destructive to clams and oysters, crushing them with their strong flat teeth. In _Aëtobatus_ the teeth are very large, forming but one row. The species _Aëtobatus narinari_ is showily colored, brown with yellow spots, the body very angular, with long whip-like tail. It is found from Brazil to Hawaii and is rather common. In _Myliobatis_ the teeth are in several series. The species are many, and found in all warm seas. _Myliobatis aquila_ is the eagle-ray of Europe, _Myliobatis californicus_ is the batfish of California, and _Myliobatis tobijei_ takes its place in Japan. In _Rhinoptera_ the snout is notched and cross-notched in front so that it appears as if ending in four lobes at the tip. These "cow-nosed rays," or "whipparees," root up the soft bottoms of shallow bays in their search for clams, much as a drove of hogs would do it. The common American species is _Rhinopterus bonasus_. _Rhinoptera steindachneri_ lives in the Gulf of California. Teeth and spines of all these genera are common as fossils from the Eocene onwards, as well as many of the extinct genus, _Ptychodus_, with cyclospondylous vertebræ. _Ptychodus mammilaris_, _rugosus_, and _decurrens_ are characteristic of the Cretaceous of England. _Myliobatis dixoni_ is common in the European Eocene, as is also _Myliobatis toliapicus_ and _Aëtobatis irregularis_. _Apocopodon seriacus_ is known from the Cretaceous of Brazil. [Illustration: FIG. 349.--Eagle-ray, _Aëtobatis narinari_ (Euphrasen). Cedar Keys, Fla.] =Family Psammodontidæ.=--The _Psammodontidæ_ are known only from the teeth, large, flat, or rounded and finely dotted or roughened on the upper surface, as the name _Psammodus_ (~psammos~, sand; ~odous~, tooth) would indicate. The way in which the jaws lie indicates that these teeth belonged to rays rather than sharks. Numerous species have been described, mostly from the Subcarboniferous limestones. _Archæobatis gigas_, perhaps, as its name would indicate, the primeval skate, is from the Subcarboniferous limestone of Greencastle, Indiana. Teeth of numerous species of _Psammodus_ and _Copodus_ are found in many rocks of Carboniferous age. _Psammodus rugosus_ common in Carboniferous rocks of Europe. [Illustration: FIG. 350.--Devil-ray or Sea-devil, _Manta birostris_ (Walbaum). Florida.] =Family Mobulidæ.=--The sea-devils, _Mobulidæ_, are the mightiest of all the rays, characterized by the development of the anterior lobe of the pectorals as a pair of cephalic fins. These stand up like horns or cars on the upper part of the head. The teeth are small and flat, tubercular, and the whip-like tail is with or without spine. The species are few, little known, and inordinately large, reaching a width of more than twenty feet and a weight, according to Risso, of 1250 pounds. When harpooned it is said that they will drag a large boat with great swiftness. The manta, or sea-devil, of tropical America is _Manta birostris_. It is said to be much dreaded by the pearl-fishers, who fear that it will devour them "after enveloping them in its vast wings." It is not likely, however, that the manta devours anything larger than the pearl-oyster itself. _Manta hamiltoni_ is a name given to a sea-devil of the Gulf of California. The European species _Mobula edentula_ reaches a similarly enormous size, and _Mobula hypostoma_ has been scantily described from Jamaica and Brazil. _Mobula japonica_ occurs in Japan. A foetus in my possession from a huge specimen taken at Misaki is nearly a foot across. In _Mobula_ (_Cephaloptera_) there are teeth in both jaws, in _Manta_ (_Ceratoptera_) in the lower jaw only. In _Ceratobatis_ from Jamaica (_C. robertsi_) there are teeth in the upper jaw only. Otherwise the species of the three genera are much alike, and from their huge size are little known and rarely seen in collections. Of _Mobulidæ_ no extinct species are known. FOOTNOTES: [150] Dr. Peter Schmidt has made a sketch of this little shark at night from a living example, using its own light. CHAPTER XXXI THE HOLOCEPHALI, OR CHIMÆRAS =The Chimæras.=--Very early in geological times, certainly as early as the middle Silurian, the type of _Chimæras_ diverged from that of the sharks. Hasse derives them directly from his hypothetical primitive _Polyospondyli_, by way of the _Acanthodei_ and _Ichthyotomi_. In any event the point of divergence must be placed very early in the evolution of sharks, and this suggestion is as likely as any other. The chief character of Chimæras is found in the autostylic skull, which is quite different from the hyostylic skull of the sharks. In the sharks and in all higher fishes the mandible is joined to the skull by a suspensorium of bones or cartilages (quadrate, symplectic, and hyomandibular bones in the Teleost fishes). To this arrangement the name hyostylic is given. In the Chimæra there is no suspensorium, the mandible being directly attached to the cranium, of which the hyomandibular and quadrate elements form an integral part, this arrangement being called autostylic. The palato-quadrate apparatus, of which the upper jaw is the anterior part, is immovably fused with the cranium, instead of being articulated with it. This fact, gives the name to the subclass _Holocephali_ (~holos~, whole or solid; ~kephalê~, head). Other characters are found in the incomplete character of the back-bone, which consists of a scarcely segmented notochord differing from the most primitive condition imagined only in being surrounded by calcareous rings, no lime entering into the composition of the notochord itself. The tail is diphycercal and usually prolonged in a filament (leptocercal). The shoulder-girdle, as in the sharks, is free from the skull. The pectoral fins are short and broad, without segmented axis or archipterygium and without recognizable analogue of the three large cartilages seen in the sharks, the propterygium, mesopterygium, and metapterygium. In the mouth, instead of teeth, are developed flat, bony plates called tritors or grinders, set endwise in the front of the jaws. The gills are fringe-like, free at the tips as in ordinary fishes, and there is a single external opening for them all as in true fishes, and they are covered with a flap of skin. These structures are, however, quite different from those of the true fishes and are doubtless independently developed. There is no spiracle. The skin is smooth or rough. In the living forms and most of the extinct species there is a strong spine in the dorsal fin. The ventral fin in the male has complex, usually trifid, claspers, and an analogous organ, the cephalic holder, is developed on the front of the head, in the adult male. This is a bony hook with a brush of glistening enameled teeth at the end. The eggs are large, and laid in oblong or elliptical egg-cases, provided with silky filaments. The eggs are fertilized after they are extruded. Mucous channels and lateral line are highly developed, being most complex about the head. The brain is essentially shark-like, the optic nerves form a chiasma, and the central hemispheres are large. The teeth of the Chimæras are thus described by Woodward, vol. 2, pp. 36, 37: "In all the known families of Chimæroids, the dentition consists of a few large plates of vascular dentine, of which certain areas ('tritors') are specially hardened by the deposition of calcareous salts within and around groups of medullary canals, which rise at right angles to the functional surface. In most cases there is a single pair of such plates in the lower jaw, meeting at the symphysis, while two pairs are arranged to oppose these above. As a whole, the dentition thus closely resembles that of the typical Dipnoi (as has often been pointed out); and the upper teeth may be provisionally named palatine and vomerine until further discoveries shall have revealed their precise homologies. The structures are sometimes described as 'jaws,' and regarded as dentaries, maxillæ, and premaxillæ, but the presence of a permanent pulp under each tooth is conclusive proof of their bearing no relation to the familiar membrane-bones thus named in higher fishes." =Relationship of Chimæras.=--As to the origin of the Chimæras and their relation to the sharks, Dr. Dean has this recent ("The Devonian Lamprey") and interesting word: "The Holocephali have always been a doubtful group, anatomy and palæontology contributing but imperfect evidence as to their position in the gnathostome phylum. Their embryology, however, is still undescribed, except in a brief note by T. J. Parker, and it is reasonably looked to to contribute evidence as to their line of descent. The problem of the relationships of the Chimæroids has long been of especial interest to me, and it has led me to obtain embryonic material of a Pacific species of one of these forms. It may be of interest in this connection to state that the embryology of this form gives the clearest evidence that the wide separation of the Selachii and Holocephali is not tenable. The entire plan of development in _Chimæra colliei_ is clearly like that of a shark. The ovulation is closely like that of certain of the rays and sharks: the eggs are large, the segmentation is distinctly shark-like; the circular blastoderm overgrows the yolk in an elasmobranchian manner. The early embryos are shark-like; and the later ones have, as T. J. Parker has shown, external gills, and I note further that these arise, precisely as in shark-embryos, from the posterior margin of the gill-bar. A spiracle also is present. A further and most interesting developmental feature is the fact that the autostylism in _Chimæra_ is purely of secondary nature and is at the most of ordinal value. It is found that in a larva of _Chimæra_ measuring 45 mm. in length, the palato-quadrate cartilage is still separated from the skull by a wide fissure. This becomes gradually reduced by the confluence of the palato-quadrate cartilage with the skull, the fusion taking place at both the anterior and posterior ends of the mesal rim of the cartilage. The remains of the fissure are still well marked in the young _Chimæra_, four inches in length; and a rudiment of it is present in the adult skull as a passage-way for a nerve. Regarding the dentition: it may also be noted in the present connection that the growth of the dental plates in _Chimæra_ suggests distinctly elasmobranchian conditions. Thus on the roof of the mouth the palatine plates are early represented by a series of small more or less conical elements which resemble outwardly, at least, the 'anlagen' of the pavement teeth in cestraciont sharks." [Illustration: FIG. 351.--Skeleton of _Chimæra monstrosa_ Linnæus. (After Dean.)] =Family Chimæridæ.=--The existing Chimæras are known also as spookfishes, ratfishes, and elephant-fishes. These are divided by Garman into three families, and in the principal family, the _Chimæridæ_, the snout is blunt, the skin without plates, and the dorsal fin is provided with a long spine. The flat tritors vary in the different genera. The single genus represented among living fishes is _Chimæra_, found in cold seas and in the oceanic depths. The best-known species, _Chimæra colliei_, the elephant-fish, or chimæra of California, abounds in shallow waters of ten to twenty fathoms from Sitka to San Diego. It is a harmless fish, useless except for the oil in its liver, and of special interest to anatomists as the only member of the family to be found when desired for dissection. This species was first found at Monterey by Mr. Collie, naturalist of Captain Beechey's ship, the _Blossom_. It is brown in color, with whitish spots, and reaches a length of 2-1/2 feet. As a shallow-water form, with certain differences in the claspers and in the tail, _Chimæra colliei_ is sometimes placed in a distinct genus, _Hydrolagus_. Other species inhabit much greater depths and have the tail produced into a long filament. Of these, _Chimæra monstrosa_, the sea-cat of the north Atlantic, has been longer known than any other Chimæra. _Chimæra affinis_ has been dredged in the Gulf Stream and off Portugal. _Chimæra phantasma_ and _Chimæra mitsukurii_ are frequently taken in Japan, and the huge jet-black _Chimæra purpurascens_ in Hawaii and Japan. None of these species are valued as food, but all impress the spectator with their curious forms. [Illustration: FIG. 352.--Elephant-fish, _Chimæra colliei_ Lay & Bennett. Monterey.] The fossil _Chimæridæ_, although numerous from Triassic times and referred to several genera, are known chiefly by their teeth with occasional fin-spines, frontal holders, or impressions of parts of the skeleton. The earliest of _chimæroid_ remains has been described by Dr. Charles D. Walcott[151] from Ordovician or Lower Silurian rocks at Cañon City, Colorado. Of the species called _Dictyorhabdus priscus_, only parts supposed to be the sheath of the notochord have been preserved. Dr. Dean thinks this more likely to be part of the axis of a cephalopod shell. The definitely known _Chimæridæ_ are mainly confined to the rocks of the Mesozoic and subsequent eras. _Ischyodus priscus_ (_avitus_) of the lower Jura resembles a modern chimæra. _Granodus oweni_ is another extinct chimæra, and numerous fin-spines, teeth, and other fragments in the Cretaceous and Eocene of America and Europe are referred to _Edaphodon_. A species of _Chimæra_ has been recorded from the Pliocene of Tuscany, and one of _Callorhynchus_ from the greensand of New Zealand. Other American Cretaceous genera of chimæroids are _Mylognathus_, _Bryactinus_, _Isotænia_, _Leptomylus_, and _Sphagepoea_. Dental plates called _Rhynchodus_ are found in the Devonian. =Rhinochimæridæ.=--The most degenerate of existing chimæras belong to the family of _Rhinochimæridæ_, characterized by the long flat soft blade in which the snout terminates. This structure resembles that seen in the deep-sea shark, _Mitsukurina_, and in _Polyodon_. In _Rhinochimæra pacifica_ of Japan the teeth in each jaw form but a single plate. In _Harriotta raleighana_, of the Gulf Stream, they are more nearly as in _Chimæra_. Both are bathybial fishes, soft in texture, and found in great depths. The family of _Callorhynchidæ_, or Antarctic Chimæras, includes the bottle-nosed Chimæra (_Callorhynchus callorhynchus_) of the Patagonian region. In this species the snout is also produced, a portion being turned backward below in front of the mouth, forming a sensory pad well supplied with nerves. =Extinct Chimæroids.=--According to Woodward, three other families are recognizable among the extinct forms. The _Ptyctodontidæ_ are known from the teeth only, a single pair of large, laterally compressed dental plates in each jaw, with a few hard tritoral areas. These occur in Silurian and Devonian rocks. _Ptyctodus obliquus_ from the Devonian of Russia is the best-known species. Other genera are _Rhynchodus_ and _Palæomylus_. The _Squalorajidæ_ have the head depressed and the snout produced in a flat rostrum, as in _Harriotta_. There is no dorsal spine, and the teeth are a few thin curved plates. The frontal holder of the male is well developed. The few species occur in the Lias. _Squaloraja dolichognathos_ is known from numerous fragments from the Triassic in England and Scotland. _Chalcodus permianus_ is found in German Permian. The _Myriacanthidæ_ have the body elongate, with dermal plates on the head and a long straight spine in the dorsal fin. The frontal holder is large. The species, few in number, are found in Mesozoic rocks. _Myriacanthus paradoxus_ is the best-known species. Of another species, _Chimæropsis paradoxa_, a skeleton about three feet long has been found which shows a number of peculiar traits. The skin is covered with ribbed shagreen scales. The dorsal fin has a large spine with retrorse serrations behind. The tail is slim, and the pectoral and ventral fins are very large. Bony plates with conical spines protect the neck. The teeth are large and angular, of peculiar form. =Ichthyodorulites.=--The term ichthyodorulite (~ichthys~, fish; ~dory~, lance; ~lithos~, stone) is applied to detached fin-spines, dermal spines, and tubercles belonging to unrecognized species of sharks and chimæras. Some of these are serrated, others entire, some straight, some curved, and some with elaborate armature or sculpture. Some doubtless belong to _Cestraciontes_, others to _Pleuracanthidæ_; some to _Squalidæ_, some to chimæras, and others, perhaps, to forms still altogether unknown. FOOTNOTES: [151] Bulletin Geol. Soc. America, 1892. CHAPTER XXXII THE CLASS OSTRACOPHORI[152] =Ostracophores.=--Among the earliest vertebrates actually recognized as fossils belongs the group known as _Ostracophori_ (~ostrakos~, a box; ~phoreô~, to bear). These are most extraordinary creatures, jawless, apparently limbless, and enveloped in most cases anteriorly in a coat of mail. In typical forms the head is very broad, bony, and horseshoe-shaped, attached to a slender body, often scaly, with small fins and ending in a heterocercal tail. What the mouth was like can only be guessed, but no trace of jaws has yet been found in connection with it. The most remarkable distinctive character is found in the absence of jaws and limbs in connection with the bony armature. The latter is, however, sometimes obsolete. The back-bone, as usual in primitive fishes, is developed as a persistent notochord imperfectly segmented. The entire absence of jaw structures, as well as the character of the armature, at once separates them widely from the mailed _Arthrodires_ of a later period. But it is by no means certain that these structures were not represented by soft cartilage, of which no traces have been preserved in the specimens known. =Nature of the Ostracophores.=--The Ostracophores are found in the Ordovician or Lower Silurian rocks, in the Upper Silurian, and in the Devonian. After the latter period they disappear. The species are very numerous and varied. Their real affinities have been much disputed. Zittel leaves them with the Ganoids, where Agassiz early placed them, but they show little homology in structure with the true Ganoids. Some have regarded them as aberrant Teleosts, possibly as freakish catfishes. Cope saw in them a huge mailed group of archaic Tunicates, while Patten has soberly and with considerable plausibility urged their affinity[153] to the group of spiders, especially to the horseshoe-crabs (_Limulus_) and their palæozoic ancestors, the _Eurypteridæ_ and _Merostomata_. The best guess as to the affinities of the Ostracophores is perhaps that given by Dr. Ramsey H. Traquair ("Fossil Fishes of the Silurian Rocks of the South of Scotland," 1899). Traquair regards them as highly aberrant sharks, or, more exactly, as being derived, like the Chimæras, from a primitive Elasmobranch stock. In favor of this view is the character of their armature, the bony plates themselves to be regarded as formed by the fusion of shagreen grains or scales. According to Traquair: "Specialization from the most specialized form, _Lanarkia_, has been accompanied by (1) fusion of the spinelets (_Lanarkia_) or shagreen grains (_Thelodus_) into plates, scutes, and rhombic scales, supported by hard matter developed in a deeper layer of skin, and (2) alterations in the pectoral fin-flaps, which, becoming covered up by the postero-lateral plates in _Drepanaspis_, are finally no longer recognizable in the _Pteraspidæ_." [Illustration: FIG. 353.--_Odontotodus schrencki_ (Pander) (_Tremataspis_), ventral side. Island of Oesel. (After Patten.)] [Illustration: FIG. 354.--_Odontotodus schrencki_ (Pander) (_Tremataspis_), dorsal side. Island of Oesel. (After Patten.)] Woodward leaves their exact relationship undefined, while others have regarded them as mailed lampreys, at any rate to be excluded from the _Gnathostomi_, or jaw-bearing series. The apparent absence of true jaws, true limbs, and limb-girdles certainly seems to separate them widely from true fishes, but these characters are negative only, perhaps due to degeneration, and at any rate they are not yet absolutely determined. Certainly they offer no positive proof of affinity with the modern Cyclostomes. Dr. Traquair regards the _Heterostraci_ or most primitive _Ostracophores_ as most certainly derived from the Elasmobranchs. Other writers have attacked the integrity of the group of Ostracophores, questioning the mutual relationship of its component parts. Reiss, for example, regards the association of the _Osteostraci_ with the _Heterostraci_ as "unbegründet" and "unheilvoll," while Ray Lankester, as quoted by Traquair, affirms that "there is absolutely no reason for regarding _Cephalaspis_ as allied to _Pteraspis_ beyond that the two genera occur in the same rocks, and still less for concluding that either has any connection with _Pterichthys_." Elsewhere Lankester states that the _Heterostraci_ are associated at present with the _Osteostraci_, "because they have, like _Cephalaspis_, a large head-shield, and because there is nothing else with which to associate them." Patten, on the other hand, seems inclined to deny the rank of _Heterostraci_ and _Osteostraci_ as even separate orders, regarding them as very closely related to each other as also to their supposed spider-like ancestors. [Illustration: FIG. 355.--Head of _Odontotodus schrencki_ Pander, from the side. (After Patten.)] But the consensus of opinion favors the belief that the four orders usually included under this head are distinct and at the same time are really related one to another. For our purposes, then, we may regard the _Ostracophori_ as a distinct class of vertebrates. By placing it after the Elasmobranchs we may indicate its probable descent from a primitive shark-like stock. [Illustration: FIG. 356.--The Horseshoe Crab or King-crab, _Limulus polyphemus_ Linnæus. Supposed by Professor Patten to be an ally of the Ostracophores; usually regarded as related to the Spiders.] On this subject Dr. Dean remarks: "The entire problem of the homology of the dermal plates and 'scales' in the Ostracophores and Arthrognaths is to the writer by no means as clear as previous writers have conceded. From the histological standpoint, admitting the craniote nature of the vasodentine and cancellous layers in the dermal plates, it nevertheless does not follow that they have been derived from the actual conditions of the dermal denticles of the ancestral Gnathostome, as were unquestionably the dermal plates of Teleostomes and Dipnoans. It seems equally if not more probable, on the other hand, that the dermal armoring of the distinct groups may have had an altogether different mode of origin, the product of a crude evolution which aimed to strengthen the skin by a general deposition of calcareous matter throughout its entire thickness. The tuberculation of plates thus acquired might have become an important step in the development of a more superficial type of armoring which is most preferably represented by the dermal denticles of Selachians. Nor, in passing, need the presence of a mucus-canal system in the early plated forms be of greater morphological importance than a foreshadowing of the conditions of Gnathostomes, for this system of organs might serve as well as evidence, in a general way, of relationship with Marsipobranchs. Nor is this evidence the more conclusive when we reflect that _no known type of Gnathostome, recent or fossil, possesses open sensory grooves in distinct dermal plates_. The presence, furthermore, of a dorsal fin and a 'truly piscine heterocercal tail,' as noted by Traquair, is by no means as Gnathostome-like as these structures at first glimpse appear. For they lack not merely the characteristic radial supports of fishes, but even actinotrichia. Their mode of support, on the other hand, as Smith Woodward points out, is of a more generalized nature, bent scales, homologous with those of the adjacent body region, taking the place of the piscine external supports." The actual position in the system to be finally assigned to the Ostracophores is therefore still uncertain. =Orders of Ostracophores.=--Four orders of _Ostracophori_ are now usually recognized, known in the systems of Woodward and Traquair as _Heterostraci_, _Osteostraci_, _Antiarcha_, and _Anaspida_. The former is the most primitive and perhaps the most nearly allied to the sharks, the second is not very remote from it, the last two aberrant in very different directions. Hay places the _Antiarcha_ with the _Arthrodira_ under the superorder of _Placodermi_. =Order Heterostraci.=--The _Heterostraci_ (~heteros~], different; ~ostrakos~, box) have no bone-corpuscles in the coat of mail. This typically consists of a few pieces above, firmly united and traversed by dermal sense-organs or "lateral lines." The ventral shield is simple. Four families are recognized by Traquair as constituting the _Heterostraci_, these forming a continuous series from shark-like forms to the carapace-covered _Pteraspis_. In the most primitive family, the _Thelodontidæ_,[154] the head and trunk are covered with small scales or tubercles of dentine and not fused into large plates. The tail is slender and heterocercal, the caudal fin deeply forked. Until lately these tubercles were regarded as belonging to sharks, and they are still regarded by Traquair as evidence of the affinity of the _Heterostraci_ with the _Acanthodei_. Dr. Traquair thinks that a flap or lappet-like projection behind the head may be a pectoral fin. The three known genera are _Thelodus_, _Lanarkia_, and _Ateleaspis_. In _Thelodus_ the scales consist of a base and a crown separated by a constriction or neck. _Thelodus scoticus_, _Thelodus pagei_, and _Thelodus planus_ are found in the Silurian rocks of Scotland. Other species, as _Thelodus tulensis_ of Russia, extend to the Upper Devonian. In _Lanarkia_ the large sharp scales have an expanded base like the mouth of a trumpet. _Lanarkia horrida_ and _L. spinulosa_ are found in the shire of Lanark in Scotland. In _Ateleaspis_ (_tesselatus_) the skin is covered with small polygonal plates. The lateral flaps or possibly fins take the form of flat rhombic sculptured scales. In this genus the eyes seem to be on the top of the head. [Illustration: FIG. 357.--_Lanarkia spinosa_ Traquair. Upper Silurian. Family _Thelodontidæ_. (After Traquair.)] In the _Psammosteidæ_ of the Devonian the head is covered with large plates which are not penetrated by the sense-organs. These plates are covered with minute, close-set tubercles, covered with brilliant ganoid enamel and with finely crimped edges. According to Dr. Traquair, these tubercles are shagreen granules which have coalesced and become united to plates formed in a deeper layer of the skin, as in _Ateleaspis_ the minute scales have run together into polygonal plates. These creatures have been considered as "armored sharks," and Dr. Traquair regards them as really related to the acanthodean sharks. Nevertheless they are not really sharks at all, and they find their place with the _Pteraspis_ and other longer known Heterostracans. The family of _Drepanaspidæ_ consists of a single recently known species, _Drepanaspis gmundenensis_, found in a pyritized condition in purple roofing-slate in Gmünden, Germany. This fish, which reaches a length of about two feet, has a broad head, with eyes on its outer margin, with a slender body and heterocercal tail. The head has a broad median plate and smaller polygonal ones. The flaps, supposed to represent the pectoral fins, are here cased in immovable bone. No trace of internal skeleton is found by Traquair, who has given the restoration of this species, but the mouth has been outlined. [Illustration: FIG. 358.--_Drepanaspis gmundenensis_ Schlüter. Upper Silurian, Gmünden, Germany. (After Traquair.)] The best known of the Heterostracan families is that of _Pteraspidæ_. In this family the plates of the head are coalesced in a large carpace, the upper part originally formed of seven coalesced pieces. A stout dorsal spine fits into a notch of the carapace. The slender body is covered with small scales and ends in a heterocercal tail. The dermal sense-organs are well developed. _Pteraspis rostrata_ occurs in the Lower Devonian. Other genera are _Palæaspis_ and _Cyrthaspis_. [Illustration: FIG. 359.--_Pteraspis rostrata_ Agassiz. Devonian. Family _Pteraspidæ_. (After Nicholson.)] =Order Osteostraci.=--The Osteostraci (~osteon~, bone; ~ostrakos~, box) (called _Aspidocephali_ by Rohon) have bone-corpuscles in the shields, and the shield of the back is in one piece without lateral-line channels or sense-organs. Ventral shield single. The order includes three families. The _Cephalaspidæ_ have the shields tuberculate, the one between the eyes fixed, and the anterior body-shields are not fused into a continuous plate. The best known of the numerous species is _Cephalaspis lyelli_ from the Lower Devonian of England. _Hemicyclaspis murchisoni_ occurs in the Upper Silurian of England, and the extraordinary _Cephalaspis dawsoni_ in the Lower Devonian of Gaspé, Canada. _Eukeraspis pustulifera_ has the head-shield very slender and armed with prickles. In the _Thyestidæ_ the anterior body-scales are fused into a continuous plate. _Thyestis_ and _Didymaspis_ are genera of this type. The _Odontotodontidæ_ (_Tremataspidæ_) have the shield truncate behind, its surface finely punctate, and the piece between the eyes not fixed. _Odontotodus[155] schrenki_ is found in the Upper Silurian of the Island of Oesel in company with species of _Thyestes_. The _Euphaneropidæ_ are represented in the Devonian of Quebec. [Illustration: FIG. 360.--_Cephalaspis lyelli_ Agassiz, restored. (After Agassiz.)] =Order Antiarcha.=--The Antiarcha (~anti~, opposite; ~archos~, anus) have also bone-corpuscles in the plates, which are also enameled. The sense-organs occupy open grooves, and the dorsal and ventral shields are of many pieces. The head is jointed on the trunk, and jointed to the head are paddle-like appendages, covered with bony plates and resembling limbs. There is no evidence that these erectile plates are real limbs. They seem to be rather jointed appendages of the head-plate, erectile on a hinge like a pectoral spine. There are traces of ear-cavities, gill-arches, and other fish-like structures, but nothing suggestive of mouth or limbs. This group contains one family, the _Asterolepidæ_, with numerous species, mostly from Devonian rocks. The best known genus is _Pterichthyodes_,[156] in which the anterior median plate of the back is overlapped by the posterior dorso-lateral. _Pterichthyodes milleri_ from the Lower Devonian, named by Agassiz for Hugh Miller, is the best known species, although numerous others, mostly from Scottish quarries, are in the British Museum. _Asterolepis maximus_ is a very large species from the same region, known from a single plate. _Bothriolepis canadensis_ is from the Upper Devonian of Scaumenac Bay near Quebec, numerous specimens and fragments finely preserved having been found. [Illustration: FIG. 361.--_Cephalaspis dawsoni_ Lankester. Lower Devonian of Canada. Family _Cephalaspidæ_. (After Woodward.) In the square a portion of the tubercular surface is shown.] _Microbrachium dicki_ with the pectoral appendages small occurs in the Devonian of Scotland. The earliest remains of _Ostracophori_ are found in Ordovician or Lower Silurian rocks of the Trenton horizon at Cañon City, Colorado. These consist of enormous numbers of small fragments of bones mixed with sand. With these is a portion of the head carapace of a small Ostracophore which has been named by Dr. Walcott _Asteraspis desiderata_ and referred provisionally to the family of _Asterolepidæ_, which belongs otherwise to the Lower Devonian. [Illustration: FIG. 362.--_Pterichthyodes testudinarius_ (Agassiz), restored. Lower Devonian Family _Asterolepidæ_. (After Traquair and others.)] With these remains are found also scales possibly belonging to a Crossopterygian fish (_Eriptychius_). These remains make it evident that the beginning of the fish series lies far earlier than the rocks called Silurian, although fishes in numbers are not elsewhere known from rocks earlier than the Ludlow shales of the Upper Silurian, corresponding nearly to the Niagara period in America. In the Ludlow shales we find the next appearance of the Ostracophores, two families, _Thelodontidæ_ and _Birkeniidæ_, being there represented. [Illustration: FIG. 363.--_Pterichthyodes testudinarius_ Agassiz, side view. (After Zittel, etc.)] [Illustration: FIG. 364.--_Birkenia elegans_ Traquair. Upper Silurian. (After Traquair.)] =Order Anaspida.=--Recently a fourth order, _Anaspida_ (~a~, without; ~aspis~, shield), has been added to the _Ostracophori_ through the researches of Dr. Traquair. This group occurs in the Upper Silurian in the south of Scotland. It includes the single family _Birkeniidæ_, characterized by the fusiform body, bluntly rounded head, bilobate, heterocercal tail, and a median row of hooked spinous scales along the ventral margin. No trace of jaws, teeth, limbs, or internal skeleton has been found. Unlike other Ostracophores, _Birkenia_ has no cranial buckler with orbits on the top, nor have the scales and tubercles the microscopic structure found in other Ostracophores. In the genus _Birkenia_ the head and body are completely covered by tubercular scutes. The gill-openings seem to be represented by a series of small perforations on the sides. A dorsal fin is present. _Birkenia elegans_ is from the Ludlow and Downstonian rocks of southern Scotland. _Lasianius problematicus_ from the same rocks is very similar, but is scaleless. It has a row of ventral plates like those of _Birkenia_, the only other hard parts it possesses being a number of parallel rods behind the head, homologous with the lateral series of _Birkenia_. _Lasianius_ is therefore a specialized and degenerate representation of _Birkenia_, differing somewhat as "the nearly naked _Phanerosteon_ differs from other _Palæoniscidæ_ whose bodies are covered with osseous scales." [Illustration: FIG. 365.--_Lasianius problematicus_ Traquair. Upper Silurian. (After Traquair.)] FOOTNOTES: [152] This group was first called by Cope _Ostracodermi_--a name preoccupied for the group of bony trunkfishes, _Ostracidæ_. The still earlier name of _Placodermi_, chosen by McCoy (1848), was intended to include Arthrodires as well as Ostracophores. Rohon (1892) calls the group _Protocephali_, and to the two orders he assigns the names _Aspidorhini_ and _Aspidocephali_. These groups correspond to _Heterostraci_ and _Osteostraci_ of Woodward. Another name of early date is that of _Aspidoganoidei_, given by Professor Gill in 1876, but not defined until 1896. These fishes are, however, not "Ganoids" and the name _Ostracophori_ seems to receive general preference. The group _Peltacephalata_ of Patten corresponds essentially to _Ostracophori_, as does also the order _Hypostomata_ of Gadow. [153] According to Professor Patten's view, the close resemblance of the shields of _Pteraspis_ to those of contemporaneous _Eurypterids_ indicates real affinity. But the _Eurypterids_ are related to the spiders and to _Limulus_. The only reason for thinking that _Pteraspis_ is a fish at all lies in its resemblance to _Cephalaspis_, which is in several ways fish-like, although its head shield is much like that of _Limulus_. All these resemblances in Patten's view indicate real affinity. Patten considers the _Pteraspids_ as derived from primitive arachnid or spider-like forms having a bony carapace as _Limulus_ has. From _Pteraspis_ he derives the other Ostracophores, and from these the sharks and other vertebrates, all of which appear later in time than the earliest Ostracophores. This view of the origin of vertebrates is recently urged with much force by Professor Patten (Amer. Nat., 1904, 1827). Most naturalists regard such resemblances in specialized structures on the outside of an animal as parallelisms due to likeness in conditions of life. The external structure in forms of really different nature is often similarly modified. Thus certain catfishes, pipefishes, sea-moths, and agonoid fishes are all provided with bony plates not unlike those of ganoid fishes, although indicative of no real affinity with them. Commonly the ancestry of vertebrates is traced through enteropneustans to soft-bodied worms which have left no trace in the rocks. In the same connection, Professor Patten suggests that the lateral fold from which many writers have supposed that the limbs or paired fins of vertebrates is evolved is itself a resultant of the fusion of the fringing appendages on the sides of the body. Such appendages are found in the primitive mailed arachnoids and in _Limulus_. They are shown very plainly in Patten's restoration of _Cephalaspis_. About thirty of them of a bony nature and jointed to the body occur on either side between the gill opening and the vent. [154] Called _Coelolepidæ_ by Pander and Traquair, but _Coelolepis_ is a later synonym of _Thelodus_. [155] This name, inappropriate or meaningless, is older than _Tremataspis_. [156] The earlier name of _Pterichthys_ has been already used for a genus of living fishes. CHAPTER XXXIII ARTHRODIRES =The Arthrodires.=--Another large group of extinct fishes mailed and helmeted is included under the general name of _Arthrodira_[157] (~arthros~, joint; ~deira~, neck), or _Arthrognathi_ (~arthros~, ~gnathos~, jaw), the latter term recently framed by Dr. Dean with a somewhat broader application than the former. These fishes differ from the Ostracophores, on the one hand, in the possession of jaws and in the nature of their armored covering. On the other hand, the nature of these jaws, the lack of differentiation of the skeleton, and the uncertain character of the limbs separate them still more widely from the true fishes. Their place in the system is still unknown, but their origin seems as likely to be traceable to Ostracophores as to any other group. The head in all the species is covered with a great bony helmet. Behind this on the nape is another large shield, and between the two is usually a huge joint which Dr. Dean compares to the hinge of a spring-beetle (_Elater_). As to the presence of limbs, no trace of pectoral fin or anterior limb has been found. Dean denies the existence of any structures corresponding to either limb, but Woodward figures a supposititious posterior limb in _Coccosteus_, finding traces of basal bones which may belong to it. These monstrous creatures have been considered by Woodward and others as mailed Dipnoans, but their singular jaws are quite unlike those of the _Dipneusti_, and very remote from any structures seen in the ordinary fish. The turtle-like mandibles seem to be formed of dermal elements, in which there lies little homology to the jaws of a fish and not much more with the jaws of Dipnoan or shark. The relations with the Ostracophores are certainly remote, though nothing else seems to be any nearer. They have no affinity with the true Ganoids, to which vaguely limited group many writers have attached them. Nor is there any sure foundation to the view adopted by Woodward, that they are to be considered as armored offshoots of the Dipnoans. According to Dean we might as well refer the Arthrodires to the sharks as to the Dipnoans. Dean further observes ("Fishes Living and Fossil"): [Illustration: FIG. 366.--_Coccosteus cuspidatus_ Agassiz, restored. Lower Devonian. (After Traquair, per Woodward.)] "The puzzling characters of the Arthrodirans do not seem to be lessened by a more definite knowledge of their different forms. The tendency, as already noted, seems to be at present to regard the group provisionally as a widely modified offshoot of the primitive Dipnoans, basing this view upon their general structural characters, dermal plates, dentition, autostylism. But only in the latter regard could they have differed more widely from the primitive Elasmobranch or Teleostome, if it be admitted that in the matter of dermal structures they may be clearly separated from the Chimæroid. It certainly is difficult to believe that the articulation of the head of Arthrodirans could have been evolved after dermal bones had come to be formed, or that a Dipnoan could become so metamorphosed as to lose not only its body armoring, but its pectoral appendages as well. The size of the pectoral girdle is, of course, little proof that an anterior pair of fins must have existed, since this may well have been evolved in relation to the muscular supports of plastron, carapace, trunk, and head. The intermovement of the dental plates, seen especially in _Dinichthys_, is a further difficulty in accepting their direct descent from the Dipnoans." [Illustration: FIG. 367.--Jaws of _Dinichthys hertzeri_ Newberry. Upper Devonian. Ohio. (After Newberry.)] =Occurrence of Arthrodires.=--These fishes occur in abundance from the Silurian times to the Mesozoic. In the Devonian their gigantic size and thick armor gave them the leading position among the hosts of the sea. Among the genera there occurred "series of forms most interesting as to their evolution." "It is found more and more evident," says Dr. Dean ("Fishes, Living and Fossil," pp. 135, 136) "that the Arthrodirans may have represented the dominant group in the Devonian period, as were the sharks in the Carboniferous, or as are the Teleosts in modern times. There were forms which, like _Coccosteus_, had eyes at the notches of the head-buckler; others, like _Macropetalichthys_, in which orbits were well centralized; some, like _Dinichthys_ and _Titanichthys_, with the pineal foramen present; some with pectoral spines(?); some with elaborately sculptured dermal plates. Among their forms appear to have been those whose shape was apparently subcylindrical, adapted for swift swimming; others (_Mylostoma_) whose trunk was depressed to almost ray-like proportions. In size they varied from that of the perch to that of a basking shark. In dentition they presented the widest range in variation, from the formidable shear-like jaws of _Dinichthys_ to the lip-like mandibles of _Titanichthys_, the tearing teeth of _Trachosteus_, the wonderfully forked tooth-bearing jaw-tips of _Diplognathus_, to the Cestraciont type, _Mylostoma_. The latter form has hitherto been known only from its dentition, but now proves to be, as Newberry and Smith Woodward suggested, a typical Arthrodiran." =Classification of Arthrodira.=--Our knowledge of the systematic relations of the Arthrodira is mostly of recent origin. Woodward refers most of the remains to the best known genus _Coccosteus_, and recognizes as families the _Coccosteidæ_, _Mylostomidæ_, _Asterosteidæ_, and _Phyllolepidæ_. [Illustration: FIG. 368.--An Arthrodire, _Dinichthys intermedius_ Newberry, restored. Devonian, Ohio. (After Dean.)] Dr. Bashford Dean in different papers has treated these fishes in great detail. In a recent paper on the "Relationships of the _Arthrognathi_"[158] he recognizes the group as a class coordinate with _Cyclostomi_ and _Elasmobranchii_. This class, which he calls _Arthrognathi_, is first divided into two suborders, _Anarthrodira_, without joint at the neck, and _Arthrodira_, with such a joint. The former comprises one order, _Stegothalami_, and the latter two orders, _Temnothoraci_ and _Arthrothoraci_. The following is Dr. Dean's definition of these orders and their component families: =Arthrognathi.=--"Chordates whose anterior body region is encased in dermal elements, and divisible by a more or less definite partition into head and trunk. Dermal plates which surround the mouth function as jaws. No evidence of branchial arches. Column notochordal, showing no traces of centra; well-marked neural and hæmal elements. Paired limbs [absent or uncertain]. Dermal plates consisting typically of two layers, the superficial tuberculate, the inner bony with radiating lamellæ. Orbits situated near or at the margin of the head-shield and separated from one another by fixed integumental plates. A pineal funnel present situated in a fixed plate. A mucous system whose canals radiate from the preoccipital region." =Anarthrodira.=--"Arthrognaths in which the cranial and dorsal regions are separated by a fixed partition whose dorsal rim is overlapped and concealed by superficial plates. Of these a large median dorsal element is present which extends backward superficially from the region near the pineal funnel. Also a pair of elements which overlie the position of the external occipital joint. Suborbital plates apparently absent. Jaw elements undescribed." =Stegothalami= (~stegos~, roof; ~thalamos~, chamber).--"Anarthrodires in which the cranio-dorsal septum is vertical and deep, its height equal apparently to that of the arch of the head-shield. By this deep partition the latter appears to inclose two chambers (whence the ordinal name). Orbits inclosed by pre- and postorbital plates. Mucous system lacks a postorbital canal." One family, the _Macropetalichthyidæ_, thus defined: "Stegothalami with large orbits and well-arched cranio-dorsal shield. Dorso-central shield long, wide, gomphoidal, extending backward to the hinder margin of the shield and bordered by all plates save the postorbitals and marginals. Pineal funnel small and obscure." _Macropetalichthys sullivanti_ from Ohio Devonian rocks, and _Macropetalichthys agassizi_ from the Devonian of Germany, are important species of this group. The _Asterosteidæ_ perhaps constitute a second family in this order. The single species _Asterosteus stenocephalus_ is from the Devonian of Ohio. =Arthrodira.=--"Arthrognaths in which the dorsal armoring is separated into dorsal and cranial elements, the latter attached to the former movably by means of a pair of peg-and-socket joints. The interval lying between cranial and dorsal armoring does not appear to have been protected by plates, and in the median line, instead of the cranio-central of the Anarthrodires, there are separate elements, median occipital, median dorsal, and perhaps others. Suborbital plates present. Jaws of three pairs of elements. Ventral armoring of two pairs of lateral and two median elements." =Temnothoraci= (~temnô~, to cut; ~thôrax~, thorax).--"Arthrodires whose cranial and dorsal shields are closely apposed, separated only by a transverse fissure-like interval (whence the ordinal name); interarticulation of cranial and dorsal shields little developed. Head-shield elliptical in outline as far as the line of the transverse division. The anterior rim of the shoulder-shield flattened at its sides, suggesting a rudiment of the vertical partition of the Anarthrodira. Suborbital plate is present, but takes no part, apparently, in the ventral boundary of the orbit, this being formed, as in the Anarthrodira, by the pre- and postorbital elements. Jaws, ventral armoring, and endoskeleton not definitely known." One family, _Chelonichthyidæ_, thus defined: "Temnothoraci with orbits relatively small in size and situated well forward in the head-shield. Occipital elements produced antero-posteriorly, the external occipital forming the posterior lateral angle of the head, no projection of the head occurring in the region of the marginal plate. Median occipital trapezoidal. Centrals take part in the median boundary of the orbits, and embrace the pineal plate. Median dorsal with poorly developed keel and terminal process." _Heterosteus asmussi_ (perhaps to be called _Ichthyosauroides spinosus_) is a gigantic species from the Lower Devonian of Livonia. Allied to this species is _Homostius milleri_ from Scotland, celebrated as the "Asterolepis of Stromness" in Hugh Miller's "Footsteps of the Creator." Another notable species is _Homostius formosissimus_ from the Lower Devonian of Russia. =Arthrothoraci.=--"Arthrodires whose dorsal shield articulates with the head-roof by a conspicuous and movable peg-and-socket joint, and leaves a definite interval (unprotected?) between the two armorings. Orbits marginal, bounded inferiorly not by the suborbital element. In the head-shield the postero-lateral angles formed by the marginal plate (_Phlyctænaspis?_), the occipital border concave. A dorsal fin is present, supported by endoskeletal elements." Five families, the most important being the _Coccosteidæ_, thus defined: "Arthrothoraci with head-shield hexagonal in outline. Median occipital trapezoidal, margins underlapped conspicuously by the external occipitals. Prefrontals meet below pineal plates, thus occluding this element from contact with centrals. The median dorsal plate elongated, terminating in an acute heavy point; no definite ventral keel; its anterior border approaches the head-shield more closely than in related families. Cranio-dorsal joint relatively small. Postero-dorso-lateral large." (?A pair of spines occurs in the pectoral region.) The best-known species is _Coccosteus cuspidatus_ (_decipiens_) of the Lower Red Sandstone or Devonian of Scotland. The family of _Dinichthyidæ_ consists of "Arthrothoraci with stout trenchant jaws, whose cutting surfaces have worn away marginal teeth. Plates heavy. Head-shield with conspicuous lateral indentation to form dorsal border of orbit. Preorbitals separated by rostral and pineal elements, the latter passing backward between the anterior ends of the centrals. Cranio-dorsal joint conspicuous. Median dorsal shovel-shaped, nearing a stout keel with a large neck and with heavy gouge-shaped terminal. Postero-dorso-lateral relatively small in size." _Dinichthys hertzeri_ and numerous other species are described from the Devonian and Carboniferous rocks of Ohio. The _Titanichthyidæ_ are "Arthrothoraci with slender edentulous jaws bearing a longitudinal sulcus. Plates squamous. Head-shield wide, with indentations to form dorsal border of orbit. Cranio-dorsal joint complete, but of relatively small size. Median dorsal with lateral border indented with rudimentary keel and with flat and rounded terminal. Antero-dorso-lateral with an area of overlap on median border." _Titanichthys agassizi_ is a gigantic mailed fish from the Lower Carboniferous of Cleveland, Ohio. The _Mylostomidæ_ are "Arthrothoraci with dental elements in the character of crushing plates. Cranial shield wide, rounded anteriorly, deeply indented in nuchal margin; orbital rim not apparent in dorsal aspect. Central separated from marginal." _Mylostoma terrelli_ is based on jaws from Cleveland, Ohio. The _Selenosteidæ_ are "Arthrothoraci with jaws studded with cuspidate teeth; the mandibular rami rounding out anteriorly or presenting diverging tips, bearing teeth in the symphysis. Cranial shield deeply concave on lateral margins, no orbital rim here apparent. Nuchal border deeply indented. (Centrals separate from marginals.) Cranio-dorsal hinges large in size. Dorsal armoring reduced antero-posteriorly, giving an almost zone-like appearance. Dorso-median crescent-shaped, with feeble keel and knob." _Selenosteus glaber_ is described by Dean from the Cleveland shales. =Relations of Arthrodires.=--To complete our account of the Arthrodira we may here summarize Dr. Dean's reasons for separating its members from true fishes on the one hand and from the Ostracophores on the other. "FIRST. The Arthrodira cannot be strictly included among the Pisces. According to the definition of the latter class its members are Craniotes possessing the following characters: _a_, dermal defenses which in their simplest terms can be reduced to the shagreen denticles of the Elasmobranch; _b_, a series of definite gill-arches whose foremost elements are metamorphosed into hyoid and mandibular apparatus; _c_, paired fins, or their equivalents. In the first of these regards I think it can be shown that the remarkable character of the dermal plates in the Arthrognaths approaches rather that of the Ostracophores than that of the Pisces. In certain of these forms, _Trachosteus_, for example, the tuberculated plates are made up of inner and outer elements, each with tubercles, which denote a distinctly different mode of origin from that of any known type of fish. The absence of remains of gill-arches in the Arthrognaths would be not a serious objection to including these forms among Pisces, especially in view of the fact that cartilaginous gill-arches are rarely preserved even in favorable fossils. But that their presence is more than doubtful is indicated by the peculiar character of the 'jaws' in these forms. For the character of these structures is such as to suggest that they are not homologous with the branchial arch jaws of the true fishes, but are rather parallel structures which owe their origin to distinctly exoskeletal elements, i.e., that they were derived from dermal plates surrounding the mouth, which became mobile, and whose edges became apposed as sectorial structures. I would in this connection call attention to the fact that the 'mandibles,' 'premaxillary,' and 'maxillary' dental plates[159] were not fixed in the sense in which these elements are in the true Pisces. On the evidence of several types, _Dinichthys_, _Titanichthys_, _Mylostoma_, _Trachosteus_, _Diplognathus_, and other of the American forms, _Macropetalichthys_[160] excepted, there is the clearest proof that each element of the jaws had a considerable amount of independent movement. On account of the mobility of these elements the name Arthrognathi is suggested. Thus the mandibular rami could change the angle of inclination towards each other, as well as their plane with reference to the vertical axis. So, too, could the 'premaxillæ' be protracted like a pair of bent fingers, and it is more than probable that the 'maxillæ' had a considerable amount of independent movement. In connection with these characters it is also important to note that the blades of the 'mandible' show nowhere the faintest trace of an articular facet for attachment to the cranium. In short, the entire plan of the mandibular apparatus in these forms is strikingly unfish-like, although one will frankly confess that it is remarkable that these forms should have paralleled so strikingly the piscine conditions, to the extent of producing mandibular rami margined with teeth, and an arrangement of toothed elements on the 'upper jaw' which resembles superficially the premaxillary and maxillary structures of teleostomes, or the vomero-palatine structures of lung-fishes and chimæras. "In the matter of paired fins there seems little evidence to conclude that either pectoral or pelvic fins were present. In spite of the researches upon these forms during the past half-century, no definite remains of pectoral fins have been described. The so-called pectoral spines described for _Dinichthys_ by Newberry, whatever they may be, certainly are not, as far as the present evidence goes, pterygial, nor are the similar structures in _Brachydirus_.[161] The sigmoid element, described as a 'pelvic girdle' by Smith Woodward, in Coccosteus, a structure which appears to occur in a small species of _Dinichthys_(?), may as reasonably be interpreted as a displaced element of the armor-plates of the trunk. In _Coccosteus_, as far as I am aware, it occurs in well-preserved condition in but a single specimen. "In referring to the singular joint between the shoulder-plates and the hinder margin of the cranium Smith Woodward has called attention to one of the striking features of the group. It is one, however, which, as a functional structure, i.e., a joint, characterizes only a portion of its members; and in these the region in which vestiges of the joint are sought is overlaid and concealed by dermal plates. Such are the conditions in _Macropetalichthys_ (with transitional characters in _Trachosteus_ and in _Mylostoma_). For this form a special subclass (or order) may be created which we may term Anarthrodira. "SECOND. The _Arthrognathi_ cannot well be included in any other class. It would certainly be more convenient to retain the Arthrognaths among the Ostracophores, regarding them as a fourth subclass, were it not that they differ from them in so marked a way in the presence of well-marked vertebral arches, of supports for the unpaired fin, and in the possession of 'jaws.' In these regards--add to them the (probable if not certain) absence of the paired paddle-like 'spines'--they stand certainly further from the Antiarcha than these from the Osteostraci, or than the latter from the Heterostraci. It appears to me desirable, therefore, that the Arthrodira and the Anarthrodira be brought together as a separate class. Should subsequent researches demonstrate a closer affinity with the Ostracophores, the Arthrognathi can be regarded as of rank as a subclass, with the orders Anarthrodira and Arthrodira."[162] In a recent paper Dr. Otto Jaekel unites Arthrodires and Ostracophores under the name _Placodermi_. He regards _Pteraspis_ as a larval type, _Asterolepis_ as one more specialized. In _Coccosteus_ he claims to find a pelvic girdle as well as a more segmented skeleton. He regards all of these as true fishes, the _Coccosteidæ_ as ancestral, related on the one hand to the _Crossopterygians_, and on the other to the _Stegocephali_ and other ancestral Amphibians. =Suborder Cycliæ.=--We may append to the _Arthrodira_ as a possible suborder the group called _Cycliæ_ by Dr. Gill, based on a single imperfectly known species. Few organisms discovered in recent times have excited as much interest as this minute fish-like creature, called _Palæospondylus gunni_, discovered in 1890 by Dr. R. H. Traquair in the flagstones of Caithness in Scotland. Many specimens have been obtained, none more than an inch and a half long. Its structure and systematic position have been discussed by Dr. R. H. Traquair, by Woodward, Gill, Gegenbaur, and recently by Dean, from whose valuable memoir on "The Devonian Lamprey" we make several quotations. [Illustration: FIG. 369.--_Palæospondylus gunni_ Traquair. Devonian. (After Traquair and Dean.)] =Palæospondylus.=--According to Dr. Traquair: "The _Palæospondylus gunni_ is a very small organism, usually under one inch in length, though exceptionally large specimens occasionally measure one inch and a half.... It has a head and vertebral column, but no trace of jaws or limbs; and, strange to say, all the specimens are seen only from the ventral aspect, as is shown by the relation of the neural arches to the vertebral centra. "The head is in most cases much eroded.... It is divided by a notch ... into two parts.... The _anterior part_ shows a groove the edges of which are elevated, while the surface on each side shows two depressions, like fenestræ, though perhaps they are not completely perforated, and also a groove partially divided off, posteriorly and externally, a small lobe. In front there is a ring-like opening ... surrounded by small pointed cirri, four ventrally, at least five dorsally, and two long lateral ones which seem to arise inside the margin of the ring instead of from its rim like the others. The _posterior part_ of the cranium is flattened, but the median groove is still observable. Connected with the posterior or occipital aspect of the skull are two small narrow plates which lie closely alongside the first half-dozen vertebræ. "The bodies of the vertebræ are hollow or ring-like, and those immediately in front are separated from each other by perceptible intervals; their surfaces are marked with a few little longitudinal grooves, of which one is median. They are provided with neural arches, which are at first short and quadrate, but towards the caudal extremity lengthen out into slender neural spines, which form the dorsal expansion of a caudal fin, while shorter hæmal ones are also developed on the ventral aspect." Dr. Traquair concludes that "there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that the little creature must be classed as a Marsipobranch." "If _Palæospondylus_ is not a Marsipobranch, it is quite impossible to refer it to any other existing group of vertebrates." =Gill on Palæospondylus.=--In 1896 Dr. Gill proposed to regard _Palæospondylus_ provisionally as the type of a distinct order of Cyclostomes to be called _Cycliæ_ (~kyklos~, circle), from the median ring on the head, whether nostril or mouth. Dr. Gill observes: "Assuming the correctness of Dr. Traquair's description and figures, we certainly have a remarkable combination of characters. On the one hand, if the 'median opening or rim' is indeed nasal, the animal certainly cannot be referred to the class of Selachians or of Teleostomes. On the other hand, the cranium and the segmental vertebral column indicate a more advanced stage of development of the vertebrate line than that from the living Marsipobranchs must have originated. We may, therefore, with propriety isolate it as the representative not only of a peculiar family (_Palæospondylidæ_), but of an order or even subclass (Cycliæ) of vertebrates which may provisionally (and only provisionally) be retained in the class of Marsipobranchs. "The group may be defined as Monorrhines with a continuous (?) cranium, a median nasal (?) ring, and a segmented vertebral column. "The differences between the _Hyperoartia_ and _Hyperotreta_ are very great, and Prof. Lankester did not go much too far when he elevated those groups to class rank. Among the numerous distinctive characters are the great differences in the auditory organs. Perhaps the organs of _Palæospondylus_ might be worked out in some specimen and throw light on the subject of affinities. At present even the region of the auditory organs is not exactly known and we are now at a loss to orient the several parts of the cranium. In fact, the question of the relations of _Palæospondylus_ is a very open one." =Views as to the Relationships of Palæospondylus.=--Dr. Dean thus summarizes in a convenient and interesting fashion the views of different students of fossil fishes in regard to _Palæospondylus_: =Huxley.=--A "baby _Coccosteus_." =Traquair, 1890.=--"Certainly not a Placoderm, its resemblance to a supposed 'baby Coccosteus' being entirely deceptive. The appearance of the head does remind us in a strange way of the primitive skull of _Myxine_, a resemblance which is rendered still more suggestive by the apparent complete absence of the lower jaw, or of limbs or limb-girdles." =Traquair, 1893.=--"It seems, indeed, impossible to refer the organism to any existing vertebrate class, unless it be the Marsipobranchs or Cyclostomata." Does not believe it a larval form, because the possible adult is unknown, and because of the highly differentiated vertebræ. Granting his interpretation of the parts of the fossil, "there seems no escape from the conclusion that the little creature must be classed as a Marsipobranch." =Traquair, 1897.=--"The question of the affinities of _Palæospondylus_ is left precisely where it was after I had written my last paper on the subject." =Smith Woodward, 1892.=--"It seems to possess an unpaired nose, lip cartilages in place of functional jaws, and no paired limbs; thus agreeing precisely with the lampreys and hagfishes, of which the fossil representatives have long been sought. It is extremely probable, therefore, that _Palæospondylus_ belongs to this interesting category." =Dawson, 1893.=--_Palæospondylus_ suggests "the smaller snake-like Batrachians of the Carboniferous and Permian; and I should not be surprised if it should come to be regarded as either a forerunner of the Batrachians or as a primitive tadpole." =Gill, 1896.=--"The group to which _Palæospondylus_ belongs may be defined as Monorrhines with a continuous (?) cranium, a median nasal (?) ring, and a segmented vertebral column." "The cranium and segmented vertebral column indicate a more advanced stage of development of the vertebrate line than that from which the living Marsipobranchs must have originated. We may, therefore, with propriety isolate it as the representative not only of a peculiar family (_Palæospondylidæ_), but of an order or even subclass (_Cycliæ_) of vertebrates which may provisionally (and only provisionally) be retained in the class of Marsipobranchs." =Dean, 1896.=--"Place it with the Ostracoderms among the curiously specialized offshoots of the early Chordates, but this position would be at the best unsatisfactory." =Dean, 1898.=--"_Palæospondylus_ should not be given a place--even a provisional one--among the Marsipobranchs." To be accepted "as the representative of the new subclass (or class) Cycliæ constituted for it by Professor Gill." =Parker & Haswell, 1897.=--"There is some reason to regard that _Palæospondylus_ is referable to the Cyclostomes." "A distinctly higher type than recent forms." =Gegenbaur, 1898.=--"Discovery of _Palæospondylus_ one of the highest importance. If this organism stands in no way near the Cyclostomes, the tentacles lose their higher importance, since they also occur in other groups." "Through _Palæospondylus_ came also the attempt (Pollard) to deduce the presence of the tentacular condition in the higher forms." (_Mem._--In this Gegenbaur has not consulted the literature accurately. At the time of founding his "Cirrhostomal Theory" Pollard was unaware of the discovery of _Palæospondylus_). "Ich muss sagen, das die positive Behauptung der einen wie der anderen Deutung mir sehr unsicher scheint, da auch an den übrigen Resten des Kopfskelets keine bestimmten Uebereinstimmungen mit anderen Organismen erweisbar sind. Es ist daher auch nicht zu vermuthen, dass sogar an Beziehung zu Froschlarven gedacht ward. Unter diesen Umständen möchte ich jene im Verhältniss zum Kopfe wie zum gesammten Körper bedeutende, von Cirren umstellte Eingangsöffnung als nicht einer Nase, sondern einem Munde oder beiden zugleich angehörig betrachten. Zu einem dem Cyclostomenriechorgan vergleichbaren Verhalten fehlen alle Bedingungen." =Relationships of Palæospondylus.=--The arguments for and against the supposition that _Palæospondylus_ is a Cyclostome may be here summed up after Professor Dean. The vertebral column agrees with that of the lamprey in having the notochord in part persistent. On the other hand, the vertebræ have continuous centra, showing definite processes. Those of the different regions are differentiated. These conditions are quite unlike those seen in the lamprey. The cranium is massive, over twice as large proportionally as that of the lamprey. In the latter type the cranium forms but a small portion of the bulk of the head; in _Palæospondylus_, on the other hand, the cranium bears every sign of having filled the contour of the head. Moreover, if the region adjacent to the structure is admitted to be that of the eye, and few, I believe, will doubt it, then the brain-cavity must, by many analogies, have been much larger than that of a Marsipobranch. Also the auditory capsules must have been of extraordinary size. In short, there is very little about the cranium to suggest the structures of Cyclostomes. The "oral cirri" suggest somewhat the barbels of the nose and mouth of a hagfish. They, however, resemble even as much in arrangement and greater number the buccal cirri of _Amphioxus_. On the other hand, similar mouth-surrounding tentacles are evolved independently in many groups of fishes, siluroids, sharks, forms like _Pogonias_, _Hemitripterus_. A possibility further exists that the "cirri" may turn out to be remnants of cranial or facial structures of an entirely different nature. In fact the very uncertain preservation of these parts renders their evidence of little definite value. In but one specimen, as far as I am aware, is there any evidence of the presence of ventral cirri. The jaw parts in _Palæospondylus_ are unknown. It is possible that the ventral rim of the "nasal ring" may prove to be the remains of the Meckelian cartilage (the cartilaginous core of the lower jaw). It is possible that certain very faint ray-like markings noted by Professor Dean may be the basalia of paired fins. In such case _Palæospondylus_ can have no affinity with the lampreys. Dr. Dean asserts that the presence of these, in view of the wide dissimilarity in other and important structures, is sufficient to remove _Palæospondylus_ from its provisional position among the Cyclostomes. The postoccipital plates may represent a pectoral arch. It is, however, much more likely, as Dr. Traquair has insisted, that the supposed rays are due to the reflection of light from striations on the stone, and that the creature had no pectoral limbs. The caudal fin, with its dichotomous rays, is essentially like the tail of a lamprey. This condition is, however, found in other groups of fishes, as among sharks and lung-fishes. It is, moreover, doubtful whether the rays are really dichotomous. It is possible that _Palæospondylus_ may be, as Huxley suggests, a larval Arthrodire. It is not probable that this is the case, but, on the other hand, _Palæospondylus_ seems to be an immature form. According to Dr. Dean, it is more likely to prove a larval _Coccosteus_, or the young of some other Arthrodire, than a lamprey. Against this view must be urged the fact that the tail of _Palæospondylus_ is not heterocercal, a fact verified by Dr. Traquair on all of his many specimens. It is more like the tail of a lamprey than that of _Coccosteus_. It is, however, certain that it cannot be placed in the same class with the living _Cyclostomes_, and that it is far more highly specialized than any of them. In a still later paper (1904) Dr. Dean shows that the fossil might as easily be considered a Chimæra as a lamprey, and repeats his conviction that it is a larval form of which the adult is still unrecognized. We cannot go much farther than Dr. Dean's statement in 1896, that it belongs "among the curiously specialized offshoots of the early Chordates." FOOTNOTES: [157] "The name _Arthrodira_ as given to Coccosteans, as distinguished from the _Antiarcha_, is not altogether a satisfactory one, since at least from the time of Pander the head of Pterichthys (_Asterolepis_) is known to be articulated with the armoring of the trunk in a way closely resembling that of _Coccosteus_. This term may, however, be retained as a convenient one for the order of Coccosteans, in which, together with other differentiating features, this structure is prominently evolved. A renewed examination of the subject has caused me to incline strongly to the belief, as above expressed, that _Pterichthys_ and Coccosteans are not as widely separated in phylogeny as Smith Woodward, for example, has maintained. But, as far as present evidence goes, they appear to me certainly as distinct as fishes are from amphibia, or as reptiles are from birds or from mammals." (DEAN.) The name _Placodermi_ used by McCoy in 1848 was applied to the _Ostracophores_ as well as to the _Arthrodires_. Hay revives it as the name of a superorder to include the _Antiarcha_ and the _Arthrodira_, the former being detached from the _Ostracophores_. This superorder is equivalent to the subclass _Azygostei_ of Hay. [158] Memoirs New York Academy of Sciences, 1901. [159] It will be recalled that there is no ground for concluding that the "mandibular rami" possessed an endoskeletal core, and were comparable, therefore, to the somewhat mobile jaws of Elasmobranchs. On the other hand, there is the strongest evidence that they are entirely comparable to adjacent dermal plates. Histologically they are identical, and in certain cases their exposed surfaces bear the same tuberculation. [160] The similarity of _Macropetalichthys_ to Dinichthyids in the general matter of the dermal plates is so complete that I have had no hesitation in associating it with the Arthrognaths. (_Cf._ Eastman.) The circumstance that its "jaws" have not yet been found has to a large degree been due to the lack of energy on the part of local collectors. In the corniferous quarries near Delaware, Ohio, this fossil is stated to be relatively abundant. [161] It is by no means impossible that there may ultimately be found pectoral elements to correspond in a general way with the paddle-like "spines" of the Antiarcha. [162] The group Placodermi, created by McCoy (1848) as a "family" for the reception of Coccosteus and Pterichthys might then be justly elevated to rank as a class, superseding the Ostracophori of Cope (1891). The latter group might, however, be retained as a subclass, and include the Heterostraci and Osteostraci as ordinal divisions. CHAPTER XXXIV THE CROSSOPTERYGII =Class Teleostomi.=--We may unite the remaining groups of fishes into a single class, for which the name _Teleostomi_ (~teleos~, true; ~stoma~, mouth), proposed by Bonaparte in 1838, may be retained. The fishes of this class are characterized by the presence of a suspensorium to the mandible, by the existence of membrane-bones (opercles, suborbitals, etc.) on the head, by a single gill-opening leading to gill-arches bearing filamentous gills, and by the absence of claspers on the ventral fins. The skeleton is at least partly ossified in all the _Teleostomi_. More important as a primary character, distinguishing these fishes from the sharks, is the presence typically and primitively of the air-bladder. This is at first a lung, arising as a diverticulum from the ventral side of the oesophagus, but in later forms it becomes dorsal and is, by degrees, degraded into a swim-bladder, and in very many forms it is altogether lost with age. This group comprises the vast majority of recent fishes, as well as a large percentage of those known only as fossils. In these the condition of the lung can be only guessed. The _Teleostomi_ are doubtless derived from sharks, their relationship being possibly nearest to the _Ichthyotomi_ or to the primitive _Chimæras_. The Dipnoans among _Teleostomi_ retain the shark-like condition of the upper jaw, made of palatal elements, which may be, as in the _Chimæra_, fused with the cranium. In the lower forms also the primitive diphycercal or protocercal form of tail is retained, as also the archipterygium or jointed axis of the paired fins, fringed with rays on one or both sides. We may divide the Teleostomes, or true fishes, into three subclasses: the _Crossopterygii_, or fringe-fins; the _Dipneusti_, or lung-fishes; _Actinopteri_, or ray-fins, including the _Ganoidei_ and the _Teleostei_, or bony fishes. Of these many recent writers are disposed to consider the _Crossopterygii_ as most primitive, and to derive from it by separate lines each of the remaining subclasses, as well as the higher vertebrates. The _Ganoidei_ and _Teleostei_ (constituting the _Actinopteri_) are very closely related, the ancient group passing by almost imperceptible degrees into the modern group of bony fishes. =Subclass Crossopterygii.=--The earliest Teleostomes known belong to the subclass or group called after Huxley, _Crossopterygii_ (~krossos~, fringe; ~pteryx~, fin). A prominent character of the group lies in the retention of the jointed pectoral fin or archipterygium, its axis fringed by a series of soft rays. This character it shares with the _Ichthyotomi_ among sharks, and with the _Dipneusti_. From the latter it differs in the hyostylic cranium, the lower jaw being suspended from the hyomandibular, and by the presence of distinct premaxillary and maxillary elements in the upper jaw. In these characters it agrees with the ordinary fishes. In the living Crossopterygians the air-bladder is lung-like, attached by a duct to the ventral side of the oesophagus. The lung-sac, though specialized in structure, is simple, not cellular as in the Dipnoans. The skeleton is more or less perfectly ossified. Outside the cartilaginous skull is a bony coat of mail. The skin is covered with firm scales or bony plates, the tail is diphycercal, straight, and ending in a point, the shoulder-girdle attached to the cranium is cartilaginous but overlaid with bony plates, and the branchiostegals are represented by a pair of gular plates. In the single family represented among living fishes the heart has a muscular arterial bulb with many series of valves on its inner edge, and the large air-bladder is divided into two lobes, having the functions of a lung, though not cellular as in the lung-fishes. The fossil types are very closely allied to the lung-fishes, and the two groups have no doubt a common origin in Silurian times. It is now usually considered that the Crossopterygian is more primitive than the lung-fish, though at the same time more nearly related to the Ganoids, and through them to the ordinary fishes. =Origin of Amphibians.=--From the primitive _Crossopterygii_ the step to the ancestral _Amphibia_, which are likewise mailed and semi-aquatic, seems a very short one. It is true that most writers until recently have regarded certain Dipneustans as the _Dipteridæ_ as representing the parents of the Amphibians. But the weight of recent authority, Gill, Pollard, Boulenger, Dollo, and others, seems to place the point of separation of the higher vertebrates with the Crossopterygians, and to regard the lobate pectoral member of _Polypterus_ as a possible source of the five-fingered arm of the frog. This view is still, however, extremely hypothetical and there is still much to be said in favor of the theory of the origin of Amphibia from Dipnoans and in favor of the view that the Dipnoans are also ancestors of the Crossopterygians. [Illustration: FIG. 370.--Shoulder-girdle of _Polypterus bichir_. Specimen from the White Nile.] In the true Amphibians the lungs are better developed than in the Crossopterygian or Dipnoan, although the lungs are finally lost in certain salamanders which breathe through epithelial cells. The gills lose, among the Amphibia, their primitive importance, although in _Proteus anguineus_ of Austria and _Necturus maculosus_, the American "mud-puppy" or water-dog, these persist through life. The archipterygium, or primitive fin, gives place to the chiropterygium, or fingered arm. In this the basal segment of the archipterygium gives place to the humerus, the diverging segments seen in the most specialized type of archipterygium (_Polypterus_) become perhaps radius and ulna, the intermediate quadrate mass of cartilage possibly becoming carpal bones, and from these spring the joints called metacarpals and phalanges. In the Amphibians and all higher forms the shoulder-girdle retains its primitive insertion at a distance from the head, and the posterior limbs remain abdominal. The Amphibians are therefore primarily fishes with fingers and toes instead of the fringe-fins of their ancestors. Their relations are really with the fishes, as indicated by Huxley, who unites the amphibians and fishes in a primary group, _Ichthyopsida_, while reptiles and birds form the contrasting group of _Sauropsida_. [Illustration: FIG. 371.--Arm of a frog.] The reptiles differ from the Amphibians through acceleration of development, passing through the gill-bearing stages within the egg. The birds bear feathers instead of scales, and the mammals nourish their young by means of glandular secretions. Through a reptile-amphibian ancestry the birds and mammals may trace back their descent from palæozoic Crossopterygians. In the very young embryo of all higher vertebrates traces of double-breathing persist in all species, in the form of rudimentary gill-slits. =The Fins of Crossopterygians.=--Dollo and Boulenger regard the heterocercal tail as a primitive form, the diphycercal form being a result of degradation, connected with its less extensive use as an organ of propulsion. Most writers who adopt the theory of Gegenbaur that the archipterygium is the primitive form of the pectoral fin are likely, however, to consider the diphycercal tail found associated with it in the _Ichthyotomi_, _Dipneusti_, _Crossopterygii_ as the more primitive form of the tail. From this form the heterocercal tail of the higher sharks and Ganoids may be derived, this giving way in the process of development to the imperfectly homocercal tail of the salmon, the homocercal tail of the perch, and the isocercal tail of the codfish and its allies, the gephyrocercal and the leptocercal tail, tapering or whip-like, representing various stages of degeneration. Boulenger draws a distinction between the protocercal tail, the one primitively straight, and the diphycercal tail modified, like the homocercal tail, from an heterocercal ancestry. [Illustration: FIG. 372.--_Polypterus congicus_, a Crossopterygian fish from the Congo River. Young, with external gills. (After Boulenger.)] =Orders of Crossopterygians.=--Cope and Woodward divide the _Crossopterygia_ into four orders or suborders, _Haplistia_, _Rhipidistia_, _Actinistia_, and _Cladistia_. To the latter belong the existing species, or the family of _Polypteridæ_, alone. Boulenger unites the three extinct orders into one, which he calls _Osteolepida_. In all three of these the pectorals are narrow with a single basal bone, and the nostrils, as in the Dipneustans, are below the snout. The differences are apparently such as to justify Cope's division into three orders. =Haplistia.=--In the _Haplistia_ the notochord is persistent, and the basal bones of dorsal and anal fins are in regular series, much fewer in number than the fin-rays. The single family _Tarrassiidæ_ is represented by _Tarrasius problematicus_, found by Traquair in Scotland. This is regarded as the lowest of the Crossopterygians, a small fish of the Lower Carboniferous, the head mailed, the body with small bony scales. =Rhipidistia.=--In the _Rhipidistia_ the basal bones of the median fins ("axonosts and baseosts") are found in a single piece, not separate as in the _Haplistia_. Four families are recognized, _Holoptychiidæ_, _Megalichthyidæ_, _Osteolepidæ_, and _Onychodontidæ_, the first of these being considered as the nearest approach of the Crossopterygians to the Dipnoans. The _Holoptychiidæ_ have the pectoral fins acute, the scales cycloid, enameled, and the teeth very complex. _Holoptychius nobilissimus_ is a very large fish from the Devonian. _Glyptolepis leptopterus_ from the Lower Devonian is also a notable species. _Dendrodus_ from the Devonian is known from detached teeth. [Illustration: FIG. 373.--Basal bone of dorsal fin, _Holoptychius leptopterus_ (Agassiz). (After Woodward.)] In the Ordovician rocks of Cañon City, Colorado, Dr. Walcott finds numerous bony scales with folded surfaces and stellate ornamentation, and which he refers with some doubt to a Crossopterygian fish of the family _Holoptychiidæ_. This fish he names _Eriptychius americanus_. If this identification proves correct, it will carry back the appearance of Crossopterygian fishes, the earliest of the Teleostome forms, to the beginning of the Silurian, these Cañon City shales being the oldest rocks in which remains of fishes are known to occur. In the same rocks are found plates of Ostracophores and other fragments still more doubtful. It is certain that our records in palæontology fall far short of disclosing the earliest sharks, as well as the earliest remains of Ostracophores, Arthrodires, or even Ganoids. =Megalichthyidæ.=--The _Megalichthyidæ_ (wrongly called "_Rhizodontidæ_") have the pectoral fins obtuse, the teeth relatively simple, and the scales cycloid, enameled. There are numerous species in the Carboniferous rocks, largely known from fragments or from teeth. _Megalichthys_, _Strepsodus_, _Rhizodopsis_, _Gyroptychius_, _Tristichopterus_, _Eusthenopteron_, _Cricodus_, and _Sauripterus_ are the genera; _Rhizodopsis sauroides_ from the coal-measures of England being the best-known species. The _Osteolepidæ_ differ from the _Megalichthyidæ_ mainly in the presence of enameled rhomboid scales, as in _Polypterus_ and _Lepisosteus_. In _Glyptopomus_ these scales are sculptured, in the others smooth. In _Osteolepis_, _Thursius_, _Diplopterus_, and _Glyptopomus_ a pineal foramen is present on the top of the head. This is wanting in _Parabatrachus_ (_Megalichthys_ of authors). In _Osteolepis_, _Thursius_, and _Parabatrachus_ the tail is heterocercal, while in _Diplopterus_ and _Glyptopomus_ it is diphycercal. _Osteolepis macrolepidotus_ and numerous other species occur in the Lower Devonian. _Diplopterus agassizii_ is common in the same horizon. _Megalichthys hibberti_ is found in the coal-measures, and _Glyptopomus minimus_ in the Upper Devonian. _Palæosteus_ is another genus recently described. [Illustration: FIG. 374.--_Gyroptychius microlepidotus_ Agassiz. Devonian. Family _Megalichthyidæ_. (After Pander.)] The _Onychodontidæ_ are known from a few fragments of _Onychodus sigmoides_ from the Lower Devonian of Ohio and _Onychodus anglicus_ from England. [Illustration: FIG. 375.--_Coelacanthus elegans_ Newberry. From the Ohio Carboniferous, showing air-bladder. (After Dean.)] =Order Actinistia.=--In the _Actinistia_ there is a single fin-ray to each basal bone, the axonosts of each ray fused in a single piece. The notochord is persistent, causing the back-bone in fossils to appear hollow, the cartilaginous material leaving no trace in the rocks. The genera and species are numerous, ranging from the Subcarboniferous to the Upper Cretaceous, many of them belonging to _Coelacanthus_, the chief genus of the single family _Coelacanthidæ_. In _Coelacanthus_ the fin-rays are without denticles. _Coelacanthus granulatus_ is found in the European Permian. _Coelacanthus elegans_ of the coal-measures is found in America also. In _Undina_ the anterior fin-rays are marked with tubercles. _Undina penicillata_ and _Undina gulo_ from the Triassic are well-preserved species. In _Macropoma_ (_lewesiensis_) the fin-rays are robust, long, and little articulated. Other genera are _Heptanema_, _Coccoderma_, _Libys_, _Diplurus_, and _Graphiurus_. _Diplurus longicaudatus_ was found by Newberry in the Triassic of New Jersey and Connecticut. [Illustration: FIG. 376.--_Undina gulo_ Egerton; Lias. Family _Coelacanthidæ_. (After Woodward.)] =Order Cladistia.=--In the _Cladistia_ the axis of the pectoral limb is fan-shaped, made of two diversified bones joined by cartilage. The notochord is restricted and replaced by ossified vertebræ. The axonosts of the dorsal and anal are in regular series, each bearing a fin-ray. The order contains the single family _Polypteridæ_. In this group the pectoral fin is formed differently from that of the other Crossopterygians, being broad, its base of two diverging bones with cartilage between. This structure, more specialized than in any other of the Crossopterygians or _Dipneusti_, has been regarded by Gill and others, as above stated, as the origin of the fingered hand (chiropterygium) of the frogs and higher vertebrates. The base of the diverging bones has been identified as the antecedent of the humerus, the bones themselves as radius and ulna, while the intervening non-ossified cartilage breaks up into carpal bones, from which metacarpals and digits ultimately diverge. This hypothesis is open to considerable doubt. The nostrils, as in true fishes, are superior. The body in these fishes is covered with rhombic enameled scales, as in the garpike; the head is similarly mailed, but, in distinction from the garpike, the anterior rays of the dorsal are developed as isolated spines. The young have a bushy external gill with a broad scaly base. The air-bladder is double, not cellular, with a large air-duct joining the ventral surface of the oesophagus. The intestine has a spiral valve. The cranium, according to Boulenger ("Poissons du Bassin du Congo," p. 11), is remarkable for its generalized form, this character forming a trait of union between the Ganoids and the primitive _Amphibia_ or _Stegocephali_. Without considering _Polypterus_, it is not possible to interpret the homologies of the cranium of the amphibians and the sharks. The jaws are similar to those of the vertebrates higher than fishes. Tooth-bearing premaxillaries and dentaries are solidly joined at the front of the cranium, and united by a suture to the toothed maxillaries which form most of the edge of the mouth. Each half of the lower jaw consists of four elements, covering Meckel's cartilage, which is ossified at the symphysis. These are the articular, angular, dentary, and splenial (coronoid). Most of these bones are armed with teeth. The palato-suspensory consists of hyomandibular, quadrate, ectopterygoid, entopterygoid, metapterygoid, and palatine elements, the pterygoid elements bearing teeth. In _Erpetoichthys_ only the opercle is distinct among the gill-covers. In _Polypterus_ there is a subopercle also; the suborbital chain is represented by two small bones. The gill-arches are four, but without lower pharyngeals. The teeth are conic and pointed, and in structure, according to Agassiz, they differ largely from those of bony fishes, approaching the teeth of reptiles. [Illustration: FIG. 377.--Lower jaw of _Polypterus bichir_, from below.] The external gill of the young, first discovered by Steindachner in 1869, consists of a fleshy axis bordered above and below by secondary branches, themselves fringed. In form and structure this resembles the external gills of amphibians. It is inserted, not on the gill-arches, but on the hyoid arch. Its origin is from the external skin. It can therefore not be compared morphologically with the gills of other fishes, nor with the pseudobranchiæ, but rather with the external gills of larval sharks. The vertebræ are very numerous and biconcave as in ordinary fishes. Each of the peculiar dorsal spines is primitively a single spine, not a finlet of several pieces, as some have suggested. The enameled, rhomboid scales are in movable oblique whorls, each scale interlocked with its neighbors. [Illustration: FIG. 378.--_Polypterus congicus_, a Crossopterygian fish from the Congo River. Young, with external gills. (After Boulenger.)] [Illustration: FIG. 379.--_Polypterus delhezi_ Boulenger. Congo River.] The shoulder-girdle, suspended from the cranium by post-temporal and supraclavicle, is covered by bony plates. To the small hypercoracoid and hypocoracoid the pectoral fin is attached. Its basal bones may be compared to those of the sharks, mesopterygium, propterygium, and metapterygium, which may with less certainty be again called humerus, radius, and ulna. These are covered by flesh and by small imbricated scales. The air-bladder resembles the lungs of terrestrial vertebrates. It consists of two cylindrical sacs, that on the right the longer, then uniting in front to form a short tube, which enters the oesophagus from below with a slit-like glottis. Unlike the lung of the _Dipneusti_, this air-bladder is not cellular, and it receives only arterial blood. Its function is to assist the respiration by gills without replacing it. =The Polypteridæ.=--All the _Polypteridæ_ are natives of Africa. Two genera are known, no species having been found fossil. Of _Polypterus_, Boulenger, the latest authority, recognizes nine species: six in the Congo, _Polypterus congicus_, _P. delhezi_, _P. ornatipinnis_, _P. weeksi_, _P. palmas_, and _P. retropinnis_; one, _P. lapradei_, in the Niger; and two in the Nile, _Polypterus bichir_ and _P. endlicheri_. Of these the only one known until very recently was _Polypterus bichir_ of the Nile. These fishes in many respects resemble the garpike in habits. They live close on the mud in the bottom of sluggish waters, moving the pectorals fan-fashion. If the water is foul, they rise to the surface to gulp air, a part of which escapes through the gill-openings, after which they descend like a flash. In the breeding season these fishes are very active, depositing their eggs in districts flooded in the spring. The eggs are very numerous, grass-green, and of the size of eggs of millet. The flesh is excellent as food. [Illustration: FIG. 380.--_Erpetoichthys calabaricus_ Smith. Senegambia. (After Dean.)] The genus _Erpetoichthys_ contains a single species, _Erpetoichthys calabaricus_,[163] found also in the Senegal and Congo. This species is very slender, almost eel-like, extremely agile, and, as usual in wriggling or undulating fishes, it has lost its ventral fin. It lives in shallow waters among interlaced roots of palms. When disturbed it swims like a snake. FOOTNOTES: [163] This genus was first called _Erpetoichthys_, but the name was afterwards changed by its author, J. A. Smith, to _Calamoichthys_, because there is an earlier genus _Erpichthys_ among blennies, and a _Herpetoichthys_ among eels. But these two names, both wrongly spelled for _Herpetichthys_, are sufficiently different, and the earlier name should be retained. "A name in science is a name without necessary meaning" and without necessarily correct spelling. Furthermore, if names are spelled differently, they are different, whatever their meaning. The efforts of ornithologists, notably those of Dr. Coues, to spell correctly improperly formed generic names have shown that to do so consistently would throw nomenclature into utter confusion. It is well that generic names of classic origin should be correctly formed. It is vastly more important that they should be stable. Stability is the sole function of the law of priority. CHAPTER XXXV SUBCLASS DIPNEUSTI,[164] OR LUNGFISHES =The Lungfishes.=--The group of Dipneusti, or lung-fishes, is characterized by the presence of paired fins consisting of a jointed axis with or without rays. The skull is autostylic, the upper jaw being made as in the Chimæra of palatal elements joined to the quadrate and fused with the cranium, without premaxillary or maxillary. The dentary bones are little developed. The air-bladder is cellular, used as a lung in all the living species, its duct attached to the ventral side of the oesophagus. The heart has many valves in the muscular arterial bulb. The intestine has a spiral valve. The teeth are usually of large plates of dentine covered with enamel, and are present on the pterygo-palatine and splenial bones. The nostrils are concealed, when the mouth is closed, under a fold of the upper lip. The scales are cycloid, mostly not enameled. [Illustration: FIG. 381.--Shoulder-girdle of _Neoceratodus forsteri_ Günther. (After Zittel.)] The lung-fishes, or _Dipneusti_ (~dis~, two; ~pnein~, to breathe), arise, with the Crossopterygians, from the vast darkness of Palæozoic time, their origin with that or through that of the latter to be traced to the Ichthyotomi or other primitive sharks. These two groups are separated from all the more primitive fish-like vertebrates by the presence of lungs. In its origin the lung or air-bladder arises as a diverticulum from the alimentary canal, used by the earliest fishes as a breathing-sac, the respiratory functions lost in the progress of further divergence. Nothing of the nature of lung or air-bladder is found in lancelet, lamprey, or shark. In none of the remaining groups of fishes is it wholly wanting at all stages of development, although often lost in the adult. Among fishes it is most completely functional in the _Dipneusti_, and it passes through all stages of degeneration and atrophy in the more specialized bony fishes. In the _Dipneusti_, or Dipnoans, as in the Crossopterygians and the higher vertebrates, the trachea, or air-duct, arises, as above stated, from the ventral side of the oesophagus. In the more specialized fishes, yet to be considered, it is transferred to the dorsal side, thus avoiding a turn in passing around the oesophagus itself. From the sharks these forms are further distinguished by the presence of membrane-bones about the head. From the _Actinopteri_ (Ganoids and Teleosts) Dipnoans and Crossopterygians are again distinguished by the presence of the fringe-fin, or archipterygium, as the form of the paired limbs. From the Crossopterygians the Dipnoans are most readily distinguished by the absence of maxillary and premaxillary, the characteristic structures of the jaw of the true fish. The upper jaw in the Dipnoan is formed of palatal elements attached directly to the skull, and the lower jaw contains no true dentary bones. The skull in the Dipnoans, as in the _Chimæra_, is autostylic, the mandible articulating directly with the palatal apparatus, the front of which forms the upper jaw and of which the pterygoid, hyomandibular and quadrate elements form an immovable part. The shoulder-girdle, as in the shark, is a single cartilage, but it supports a pair of superficial membrane-bones. In all the Dipnoans the trunk is covered with imbricated cycloid scales and no bony plates, although sometimes the scales are firm and enameled. The head has a roof of well-developed bony plates made of ossified skin and not corresponding with the membrane-bones of higher fishes. The fish-like membrane-bones, opercles, branchiostegals, etc., are not yet differentiated. The teeth have the form of grinding-plates on the pterygoid areas of the palate, being distinctly shark-like in structure. The paired fins are developed as archipterygia, often without rays, and the pelvic arch consists of a single cartilage, the two sides symmetrical and connected in front. There is but one external gill-opening leading to the gill-arches, which, as in ordinary fishes, are fringe-like, attached at one end. In the young, as with the embryo shark, there is a bushy external gill, which looks not unlike the archipterygium pectoral fin itself, although its rays are of different texture. In early forms, as in the Ganoids, the scales were bony and enameled, but in some recent forms deep sunken in the skin. The claspers have disappeared, the nostrils, as in the frog, open into the pharynx, the heart is three-chambered, the arterial bulb with many valves, and the cellular structure of the skin and of other tissues is essentially as in the Amphibian. The developed lung, fitted for breathing air, which seems the most important of all these characters, can, of course, be traced only in the recent forms, although its existence in all others can be safely predicated. Besides the development of the lung we may notice the gradual forward movement of the shoulder-girdle, which in most of the Teleostomous fishes is attached to the head. In bony fishes generally there is no distinct neck, as the post-temporal, the highest bone of the shoulder-girdle, is articulated directly with the skull. In some specialized forms (_Balistes_, _Tetraodon_) it is even immovably fused with it. In a few groups (_Apodes_, _Opisthomi_, _Heteromi_, etc.) this connection ancestrally possessed is lost through atrophy and the slipping backward of the shoulder-girdle leaves again a distinct neck. In the Amphibians and all higher vertebrates the shoulder-girdle is distinct from the skull, and the possession of a flexible neck is an important feature of their structure. In all these higher forms the posterior limbs remain abdominal, as in the sharks and the primitive and soft-rayed fishes generally. In these the pelvis or pelvic elements are attached toward the middle of the body, giving a distinct back as well as neck. In the spiny-rayed fishes the "back" as well as the neck disappears, the pelvic elements being attached to the shoulder-girdle, and in a few extreme forms (as _Ophidion_) the pelvis is fastened at the chin. =Classification of Dipnoans.=--By Woodward the _Dipneusti_ are divided into two classes, the _Sirenoidei_ and the _Arthrodira_. We follow Dean in regarding the latter as representative of a distinct class, leaving the _Sirenoidei_, with the _Ctenodipterini_, to constitute the subclass of _Dipneusti_. The _Sirenoidei_ are divided by Gill into two orders, the _Monopneumona_, with one lung, and the _Diplopneumona_, with the lung divided. To the latter order the _Lepidosirenidæ_ belong. To the former the _Ceratodontidæ_, and presumably the extinct families also belong, although nothing is known of their lung structures. Zittel and Hay adopt the names of _Ctenodipterini_ and _Sirenoidei_ for these orders, the former being further characterized by the very fine fin-rays, more numerous than their supports. =Order Ctenodipterini.=--In this order the cranial roof-bones are small and numerous, and the rays of the median fins are very slender, much more numerous than their supports, which are inserted directly on the vertebral arches. In the _Uronemidæ_ the upper dentition comprises a cluster of small, blunt, conical denticles on the palatine bones; the lower dentition consists of similar denticles on the splenial bone. The vertical fins are continuous and the tail diphycercal. There is a jugular plate, as in _Amia_. The few species are found in the Carboniferous, _Uronemus lobatus_ being the best-known species. In _Dipteridæ_ there is a pair of dental plates on the palatines, and an opposing pair on the splenials below. Jugular plates are present, and the tail is usually distinctly heterocercal. In _Phaneropleuron_ there is a distinct anal fin shorter than the very long dorsal; _Phaneropleuron andersoni_ is known from Scotland, and _Scaumenacia curta_ is found at Scaumenac Bay in the Upper Devonian of Canada. In _Dipterus_ there are no marginal teeth, and the tail is heterocercal, not diphycercal, as in the other Dipnoans generally. Numerous species of _Dipterus_ occur in Devonian rocks. In these the jugular plate is present, as in _Uronemus_. _Dipterus valenciennesi_ is the best-known European species. _Dipterus nelsoni_ and numerous other species are found in the Chemung and other groups of Devonian rocks in America. [Illustration: FIG. 382.--_Phaneropleuron andersoni_ Huxley; restored; Devonian. (After Dean.)] In the _Ctenodontidæ_ the tail is diphycercal, and no jugular plates are present in the known specimens. In _Ctenodus_ and _Sagenodus_ there is no jugular plate and there are no marginal teeth. The numerous species of _Ctenodus_ and _Sagenodus_ belong chiefly to the Carboniferous age. _Ctenodus wagneri_ is found in the Cleveland shale of the Ohio Devonian. _Sagenodus occidentalis_, one of the many American species, belongs to the coal-measures of Illinois. As regards the succession of the _Dipneusti_, Dr. Dollo regards _Dipterus_ as the most primitive, _Scaumenacia_, _Uronemus_, _Ctenodus_, _Ceratodus_, _Protopterus_, and _Lepidosiren_ following in order. The last-named genus he thinks marks the terminus of the group, neither Ganoids nor Amphibians being derived from any Dipnoans. =Order Sirenoidei.=--The living families of _Dipneusti_ differ from these extinct types in having the cranial roof-bones reduced in number. There are no jugular plates and no marginal teeth in the jaws. The tail is diphycercal in all, ending in a long point, and the body is covered with cycloid scales. To these forms the name _Sirenoidei_ was applied by Johannes Müller. =Family Ceratodontidæ.=--The _Ceratodontidæ_ have the teeth above and below developed as triangular plates, set obliquely each with several cusps on the outer margin. Nearly all the species, representing the genera _Ceratodus_, _Gosfordia_, and _Conchopoma_, are now extinct, the single genus _Neoceratodus_ still existing in Australian rivers. Numerous fragments of _Ceratodus_ are found in Mesozoic rocks in Europe, Colorado, and India, _Ceratodus latissimus_, figured by Agassiz in 1838, being the best-known species. The abundance of the fossil teeth of _Ceratodus_ renders the discovery of a living representative of the same type a matter of great interest. [Illustration: FIG. 383.--Teeth of _Ceratodus runcinatus_ Plieninger. Carboniferous. (After Zittel.)] [Illustration: FIG. 384.--_Neoceratodus forsteri_ (Günther). Australia. Family _Ceratodontidæ_. (After Dean.)] [Illustration: FIG. 385.--Archipterygium of _Neoceratodus forsteri_ Günther.] In 1870 the Barramunda of the rivers of Queensland was described by Krefft, who recognized its relationship to _Ceratodus_ and gave it the name of _Ceratodus forsteri_. Later, generic differences were noticed, and it was separated as a distinct group by Castelnau in 1876, under the name of _Neoceratodus_ (later called _Epiceratodus_ by Teller). _Neoceratodus forsteri_ and a second species, _Neoceratodus miolepis_, have been since very fully discussed by Dr. Günther and Dr. Krefft. They are known in Queensland as _Barramunda_. They inhabit the rivers known as Burnett, Dawson, and Mary, reaching a length of six feet, and being locally much valued as food. From the salmon-colored flesh, they are known to the settlers in Queensland as "salmon." According to Dr. Günther, "the Barramunda is said to be in the habit of going on land, or at least on mud-flats; and this assertion appears to be borne out by the fact that it is provided with a lung. However, it is much more probable that it rises now and then to the surface of the water in order to fill its lung with air, and then descends again until the air is so much deoxygenized as to render a renewal of it necessary. It is also said to make a grunting noise which may be heard at night for some distance. This noise is probably produced by the passage of the air through the oesophagus when it is expelled for the purpose of renewal. As the Barramunda has perfectly developed gills besides the lung, we can hardly doubt that, when it is in water of normal composition and sufficiently pure to yield the necessary supply of oxygen, these organs are sufficient for the purpose of breathing, and that the respiratory function rests with them alone. But when the fish is compelled to sojourn in thick muddy water charged with gases, which are the products of decomposing organic matter (and this must be the case very frequently during the droughts which annually exhaust the creeks of tropical Australia), it commences to breathe air with its lung in the way indicated above. If the medium in which it happens to be is perfectly unfit for breathing, the gills cease to have any function; if only in a less degree, the gills may still continue to assist in respiration. The Barramunda, in fact, can breathe by either gills or lung alone or by both simultaneously. It is not probable that it lives freely out of water, its limbs being much too flexible for supporting the heavy and unwieldy body and too feeble generally to be of much use in locomotion on land. However, it is quite possible that it is occasionally compelled to leave the water, although we cannot believe that it can exist without it in a lively condition for any length of time. [Illustration: FIG. 386.--Upper jaw of _Neoceratodus forsteri_ Günther. (After Zittel.)] "Of its propagation or development we know nothing except that it deposits a great number of eggs of the size of those of a newt, and enveloped in a gelatinous case. We may infer that the young are provided with external gills, as in _Protopterus_ and _Polypterus_. "The discovery of _Ceratodus_ does not date farther back than the year 1870, and proved to be of the greatest interest, not only on account of the relation of this creature to the other living _Dipneusti_ and _Ganoidei_, but also because it threw fresh light on those singular fossil teeth which are found in strata of Triassic and Jurassic formations in various parts of Europe, India, and America. These teeth, of which there is a great variety with regard to general shape and size, are sometimes two inches long, much longer than broad, depressed, with a flat or slightly undulated, always punctated, crown, with one margin convex, and with from three to seven prongs projecting on the opposite margin." [Illustration: FIG. 387.--Lower jaw of _Neoceratodus forsteri_ Günther. (After Günther.)] =Development of Neoceratodus.=--From DEAN'S "Fishes, Recent and Fossil," pp. 218-221, we condense the following account (after the observations of Dr. F. Semon) of the larval history of the Barramunda, _Neoceratodus forsteri_: It offers characters of exceptional interest, uniting features of Ganoids with those of Cyclostomes and Amphibians. The newly hatched _Neoceratodus_ does not strikingly resemble the early larva of shark. No yolk-sac occurs, and the distribution of the yolk material in the ventral and especially the hinder ventral region is suggestive rather of lamprey or amphibian; it is, in fact, as though the quantum of yolk material had been so reduced that the body form had not been constricted off from it. The caudal tip in this stage appears, however, to resemble that of the shark, and, as far as can be inferred from surface views, a neurenteric canal persists. Like the shark there then exists no unpaired fin; the gill-slits (five?) are well separated and there is an abrupt cephalic flexure. In this stage pronephros (primitive kidney) and primitive segments are well marked, and are outwardly similar to those structures in Ganoid; the mouth is on the point of forming its connection with the digestive cavity; the anus is the persistent blastophore; the heart, well established, takes a position, as in Cyclostomes, immediately in front of the yolk material. In a later stage the unpaired fin has become perfectly established, the tail increasing in length; the gill-slits have now been almost entirely concealed by a surrounding dermal outgrowth, the embryonic operculum; a trace of the pectoral fin appears; the lateral line is seen proceeding down the side of the body; near the anal region the intestine[165] becomes narrower, and the beginnings of the spiral valve appear. In a larva of two weeks a number of developmental advances are noticed; the fish has become opaque; the primitive segments are no longer seen; the size of the yolk mass is reduced; the anal fin-fold appears; sensory canals are prominent in the head region; lateral line is completely established; the rectum becomes narrowed; and the cycloidal body-scales are already outlined. Gill-filaments may still be seen beyond the rim of the outgrowing operculum. In the ventral view of a somewhat later larva the following structures are to be noted: the pectoral fins, which have now suddenly budded out,[166] reminding one in their late appearance of the mode of origin of the anterior extremity of urodele; the greatly enlarged size of the opercular flap; external gills, still prominent; the internal nares, becoming constricted off into the mouth-cavity by the dermal fold of the anterior lip (as in some sharks); and finally (as in _Protopterus_ and some batrachian larvæ) the one-sided position of the anus. The larva of six weeks suggests the outline of the mature fish; head and sides show the various openings of the tubules of the insunken sensory canals; and the archipterygium of the pectoral fin is well defined. The oldest larva figured is ten weeks old; its operculum and pectoral fin show an increased size; the tubular mucous openings, becoming finely subdivided, are no longer noticeable; and although the basal supports of the remaining fins are coming to be established, there is as yet little more than a trace of the ventrals. The early development of a lung-fish has thus far been described (Semon) only from the outward appearance of the embryo. The egg of _Neoceratodus_ has its upper pole distinguished by its fine covering of pigment. From the first fine planes of cleavage it will be seen that the yolk material of the lower pole is not sufficient to prevent the egg's total segmentation. The first plane of cleavage is a vertical one, passing down the side of the egg as a shallow surface furrow, not appearing to entirely separate the substance of the blastomeres, although traversing completely the lower hemisphere. A second vertical furrow at right angles to the first is seen from the upper pole. The third cleavage is again a vertical one (as in all other fishes, but unlike _Petromyzon_), approximately meridional; its furrows appear less clearly marked than those of earlier cleavages, and seem somewhat irregular in occurrence. The fourth cleavage is horizontal above the plane of the equator. Judging from Semon's figure, at this stage the furrows of the lower pole seem to have become fainter, if not entirely lost. In a blastula showing complete segmentation the blastomeres of the upper hemisphere are the more finely subdivided. In the earlier stage the dorsal lip of the blastopore is crescent-like; in the later the blastopore acquires its oblong outline, through which the yolk material is apparent; its conditions may later be compared to those of a Ganoid. The next change of the embryo is strikingly amphibian-like; the medullary folds rise above the egg's surface, and, arching over, fuse their edges in the median dorsal line. The medullary folds are seen closely apposed in the median line; hindward, however, they are still separate, and through this opening the blastopore may yet be seen. At this stage primitive segments are shown; in the brain region the medullary folds are still slightly separated. In an older embryo the fish-like form may be recognized. The medullary folds have completely fused in the median line, and the embryo is coming to acquire a ridge-like prominence; optic vesicles and primitive segments are apparent, and the blastopore appears to persist as the anus. The continued growth of the embryo above the yolk mass is apparent; the head end has, however, grown the more rapidly, showing gill-slits, auditory, optic, and nasal vesicles, at a time when the tail mass has hardly emerged from the surface. Pronephros has here appeared. It is not until the stage of the late embryo that the hinder trunk region and tail come to be prominent. The embryo's axis elongates and becomes straighter; the yolk mass is now much reduced, acquiring a more and more oblong form, lying in front of the tail in the region of the posterior gut. The head and even the region of the _pronephros_ are clearly separate from the yolk-sac; the mouth is coming to be formed. According to Eastman (Ed. Zittel), the skeleton of _Neoceratodus_ is less developed and less ossified than that of its supposed Triassic ancestors. A similar rule holds with regard to the sturgeons and some Amphibians. [Illustration: FIG. 388.--Adult male of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ Fitzinger. (After Kerr.)] =Lepidosirenidæ.=--The family _Lepidosirenidæ_, representing the suborder _Diplopneumona_, is represented by two genera of mudfishes found in streams of Africa and South America. _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ was discovered by Natterer in 1837 in tributaries of the Amazon. It was long of great rarity in collections, but quite recently large numbers have been obtained, and Dr. J. Graham Kerr of the University of Cambridge has given a very useful account of its structure and development. From his memoir we condense the following record of its habits as seen in the swamps in a region known as Gran Chaco, which lies under the Tropic of Capricorn. These swamps in the rainy season have a depth of from two to four feet, becoming entirely dry in the southern winter (June, July). [Illustration: FIG. 389.--Embryo (3 days before hatching) and larva (13 days after hatching) of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ Fitzinger. (After Kerr.)] =Kerr on the Habits of Lepidosiren.=--The loalach, as the _Lepidosiren_ is locally called, is normally sluggish, wriggling slowly about at the bottom of the swamp, using its hind limbs in irregular alternation as it clambers through the dense vegetation. More rapid movement is brought about by lateral strokes of the large and powerful posterior end of the body. It burrows with great facility, gliding through the mud, for which form of movement the shape of the head, with the upper lip overlapping the lower and the external nostril placed within the lower lip, is admirably adapted. It feeds on plants, algæ, and leaves of flower-plants. The gills are small and quite unable to supply its respiratory needs, and the animal must rise to the surface at intervals, like a frog. It breathes with its lungs as continuously and rhythmically as a mammal, the air being inhaled through the mouth. The animal makes no vocal sound, the older observation that it utters a cry like that of a cat being doubtless erroneous. Its strongest sense is that of smell. In darkness it grows paler in color, the black chromatophores shrinking in absence of light and enlarging in the sunshine. In injured animals this reaction becomes much less, as they remain pale even in daylight. [Illustration: FIG. 390.--Larva of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ 30 days after hatching. (After Kerr.)] [Illustration: FIG. 391.--Larva of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ 40 days after hatching. (After Kerr.)] [Illustration: FIG. 392.--Larva of _Lepidosiren paradoxa_ 3 months after hatching. (After Kerr.)] In the rainy season when food is abundant the Lepidosiren eats voraciously and stores great quantities of orange-colored fat in the tissues between the muscles. In the dry season it ceases to feed, or, as the Indians put it, it feeds on water. When the water disappears the Lepidosiren burrows down into the mud, closing its gill-openings, but breathing through the mouth. As the mud stiffens it retreats to the lower part of its burrow, where it lies with its tail folded over its face, the body surrounded by a mucous secretion. In its burrow there remains an opening which is closed by a lid of mud. At the end of the dry season this lid is pushed aside, and the animal comes out when the water is deep enough. When the waters rise the presence of Lepidosirens can be found only by a faint quivering movement of the grass in the bottom of the swamp. When taken the body is found to be as slippery as an eel and as muscular. The eggs are laid in underground burrows in the black peat. Their galleries run horizontally and are usually two feet long by eight inches wide. After the eggs are laid the male remains curled up in the nest with them. In the spawning season an elaborate brush is developed in connection with the ventral fins. _Protopterus_, a second genus, is found in the rivers of Africa, where three species, _P. annectens_, _P. dolloi_, and _P. æthiopicus_, are now known. The genus has five gill-clefts, instead of four as in _Lepidosiren_. It retains its external gills rather longer than the latter, and its limbs are better developed. The habits of _Protopterus_ are essentially like those of _Lepidosiren_, and the two types have developed along parallel lines doubtless from a common ancestry. No fossil _Lepidosirenidæ_ are known. [Illustration: FIG. 393.--_Protopterus dolloi_ Boulenger. Congo River. Family _Lepidosirenidæ_. (After Boulenger.)] Just as the last page of this volume passes through the press, there has appeared a bold and striking memoir on the "Phylogeny of the Teleostomi," by Mr. C. Tate Regan of the British Museum of Natural History. In this paper Mr. Regan takes the view that the Chondrostean Ganoids (_Palæoniscum_, _Chondrosteus_, _Polyodon_, _Psephurus_, etc.) are the most primitive of the Teleostomous fishes; that the _Crossopterygii_, the _Dipneusti_, the _Placodermi_, and the _Teleostei_ (as well as the higher vertebrates) are descended from these; that the _Coccosteidæ_ (Arthrodires) are the most generalized of the Placoderms, the _Osteostraci_ and most of the other forms called Ostracophores (_Antiarcha_, _Anaspida_) being allied to the Arthrodires, and to be included with them among the _Placodermi_; that the cephalic appendage of _Pterichthyodes_, etc., is really a pectoral fin; that the _Heterostraci_ (_Lanarkia_, _Pteraspis_, etc.) are not Ostracophores or Placoderms at all, but mailed primitive sharks, derived from the early sharks as the Chimæras are, and that the Holostean Ganoids (_Lepisosteus_, _Amia_, etc.) should be separated from the _Chondrostei_ and referred to the _Teleostei_, of which they are the primitive representatives. Mr. Regan especially calls attention to the very close similarity in structure of pectoral and ventral fins in the Chondrostean Ganoids, _Psephurus_ and _Polyodon_, with that of the anal fin in the same fishes. From this he derives additional evidence in favor of the origin of paired fins from a lateral fold. In his view, the _Chondrostei_ have sprung directly, through ancestors of the _Lysopteri_ and _Selachostomi_, from pleuropterygian sharks (_Cladoselache_) of the Lower Silurian, and the true fishes on the one hand and the Crossopterygian-Dipneustan-Placoderm series on the other are descended from these. The absence of the lower jaw in fossil remains of Ostracophores may be due to its cartilaginous structure. "There is no justification for regarding the _Crossopterygii_ as less specialized than the _Chondrostei_ because they were the earlier dominant group." These views are very suggestive and contain at least some elements of taxonomic advance, although few naturalists of to-day will regard the Chondrostean Ganoids as more primitive than the fishes called _Crossopterygii_ and _Placoderms_. These conclusions are summarized by Mr. Regan as follows: (1) The _Chondrostei_ are the most generalized _Teleostomi_. (2) The _Crossopterygii_ differ from them (_a_) in the lobate pectoral fin; (_b_) in the larger paired gular plates. (3) The _Placodermi_ (_Coccosteidæ_, _Asterolepidæ_, _Cephalaspidæ_) are a natural group, not related to the _Heterostraci_, which are _Chondropterygii_. They may probably be regarded as armored _primitive Crossopterygii_, this view being most in accordance with (_a_) the arrangement of the cranial roof-bones in _Coccosteus_; (_b_) the structure of the ventral fin in _Coccosteus_; (_c_) the structure of the pectoral limb of the _Asterolepidæ_. (4) The _Dipneusti_ probably originated from more specialized _Crossopterygii_, e.g., from the neighborhood of the _Holoptychiidæ_. (5) The Teleostei differ in so many respects from the _Chondrostei_ that they should rank as an order, in which the _Holostei_ are included. FOOTNOTES: [164] This group has been usually known as _Dipnoi_, a name chosen by Johannes Müller in 1845. But the latter term was first taken by Leuckart in 1821 as a name for Amphibians before any of the living _Dipneusti_ were known. We therefore follow Boulenger in the use of the name _Dipneusti_, suggested by Hæckel in 1866. The name Dipnoan may, however, be retained as a vernacular equivalent of _Dipneusti_. [165] The yolk appears to be contained in the digestive cavity, as in _Ichthyophis_ and lamprey. [166] The abbreviated mode of development of the fins is most interesting; from the earliest stage they assume outwardly the archipterygial form; the retarded development of the limbs seems curiously amphibian-like; the pectorals do not properly appear until about the third week, the ventrals not until after the tenth. The Natural History of Plants THEIR FORMS, GROWTH, REPRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION FROM THE GERMAN OF ANTON KERNER VON MARILAUN _Professor of Botany in the University of Vienna_ BY F. W. OLIVER _Quain Professor of Botany in University College, London_ WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF MARIAN BUSH AND MARY E. EWART 4to. New edition. 2 vols. The set--$11.00 A work for reference or continuous reading, at once popular and, in the modern sense, thoroughly scientific. The new edition is practically identical with the former four-volume edition except that the colored plates in the latter have been omitted. The wood-engravings, over two thousand in number, have been retained. _Prof. John M. Coulter_, in THE DIAL: "Prof. Kerner has brought the most recent researches within reach of the intelligent reader, and in a style so charming that even the professional teacher may learn a lesson in the art of presentation.... =It is such books as this that will bring botany fairly before the public as a subject of absorbing interest=; that will illuminate the botanical lecture-room." _Prof. Chas. R. Barnes_, in THE BOTANICAL GAZETTE: "This lucidity, and the excellent illustrations, not only will introduce the non-botanical reader to the science of botany, but =should serve as a lesson to the professional botanist in the art of presentation=." _The Nation_: "He has succeeded in constructing a popular work on the phenomena of vegetation which is practically without any rival." 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[Illustration] Henry Holt and Company 29 West 23d Street, New York GEOLOGY Vol I. "Geologic Processes and Their Results" BY Prof. THOMAS C. CHAMBERLIN AND Prof. ROLLIN D. SALISBURY Heads of the Departments of Geology and Geography, University of Chicago; Members of the United States Geological Survey; Editors of the Journal of Geology With numerous illustrations, including 24 colored maps and 3 tables. 654 pages, 8vo, $4.00 net Vol. II. "Earth History." _In preparation_ CHAS. D. WALCOTT, _Director of U. S. Geological Survey_: "I am impressed with the admirable plan of the work and with the thorough manner in which geological principles and processes and their results have been presented. The text is written in an entertaining style and is supplemented by admirable illustrations, so that the student cannot fail to obtain a clear idea of nature and the work of geological agencies, of the present status of the science, and of the spirit which actuates the working geologist." T. A. 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In addition to its general attractiveness and the beauty of its illustrations, it is written in a style well calculated to win the merest tyro." Moulds, Mildews, and Mushrooms BY LUCIEN M. UNDERWOOD _Professor in Columbia University_ iv+236 pages, 12mo $1.50 _Bradley M. Davis_, in the BOTANICAL GAZETTE:--"Wonderfully free from the dry diagnoses of most systematic descriptions, and everywhere combined with interesting accounts of life-habits and activities.... A marvel in its compactness, with a wonderfully uniform tone throughout, condensed and yet very clear." Flora of the Northern States and Canada BY PROFESSOR N. L. BRITTON _Director of the New York Botanical Garden_ x+1080 pages, large 12mo $2.25 This manual is published in response to a demand for a handbook suitable for ordinary school use, which shall meet modern requirements and outline modern conceptions of the science. It is based on _An Illustrated Flora_ prepared by Professor Britton in co-operation with Judge Addison Brown, in three volumes. The text has been revised and brought up to date, and much of novelty has been added, but all illustrations are omitted. CONWAY MACMILLAN, _Professor in the University of Minnesota_, in SCIENCE:--"There is no work extant in the whole series of American botanical publications which deals with descriptions of the flowering plants that can for a moment be compared with it, either for a skillful and delightful presentation of the subject-matter or for modern, scientific, and accurate mastery of the thousandfold mass of detail of which such a work must consist." V. M. SPALDING, _Professor in the University of Michigan_:--"I regard the book as one that we cannot do without and one that will henceforth take its place as a necessary means of determination of the plant species within its range." [Illustration] Henry Holt and Company 29 West 23d Street, New York Transcriber's Notes: Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected. Punctuation normalized. Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed. The ERRATA on p. ix has been corrected in the text. P. xxiii corrected "_Salmo gairdneri_, the Steelhead Trout. 326" to "_Salmo irideus_, the Rainbow Trout. 326" to agree with the actual illustration caption. P. xxiii corrected "_Salmo rivularis_, the Steelhead Trout. 327" to "_Salmo gairdneri_, the Steelhead Trout. 327" to agree with the actual illustration caption. Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_. Bold markup is enclosed in =equals=. Greek text is transliterated and enclosed in ~tildes~. Proofreading Symbols for Diacritical Marks (In the table below, the "x" represents a letter with a diacritical mark.) diacritical mark sample above below macron (straight line) ¯ [=x] [x=]