The Common Bullhead ; Horned Pout 



"It is not certain that the boy will think of his bait for half an 

 hour, but the bullhead is in no hurry. He is in the mud and pro- 

 ceeds to digest the liver. He realizes that his days will not be 

 long in the land, or water more properly speaking, and he argues 

 that if he swallows the bait and digests it before the boy pulls him 

 out, he will be just so much ahead. Finally, the boy thinks of 

 his bait, pulls it out, and the bullhead is landed on the bank, and 

 the boy cuts him open to get the hook out. Some fish only take 

 the bait gingerly, and are only caught around the selvage of the 

 mouth, and they are comparatively easy to dislodge. Not so with 

 the bullhead. He says if liver is a good thing, you can't 

 have too much of it, and it tastes good all the way down. The 

 boy gets down on his knees to dissect the bullhead, and get his 

 hook, and it may be that the boy swears. It would not be astonish- 

 ing, though he must feel, when he gets his hook out of the hidden 

 recesses of the bullhead like the minister who took up a collection 

 and didn't get a cent, though he expressed thanks at getting 

 his hat back. There is one drawback to the bullhead, and that 

 is his horns. We doubt if a boy ever descended into the 

 patent insides of a bullhead to mine for limerick hooks, that 

 did not, before his work was done, run a horn into his vital 

 parts. But the boy seems to expect it, and the bullhead 

 enjoys it. We have seen a bullhead lie on the bank and 

 become dry, and to all appearances dead to all that was going 

 on, and when a boy sat down on him and got a horn in his 

 elbow and yelled murder, the bullhead would grin from ear to 

 ear, and wag his tail as though applauding for an encore. 



"The bullhead never complains. We have seen a boy take 

 a dull knife and proceed to follow a fish line down a bullhead 

 from head to the end of his subsequent anatomy, and all the 

 time there would be an expression of sweet peace on the 

 countenance of the bullhead, as though he enjoyed it. If we 

 were preparing a picture representing ' Resignation,' for a chromo 

 to give to subscribers, and wished to represent a scene of suf- 

 ering in which the sufferer was light-hearted, seeming to recog- 

 nize that all was for the best, we should take for the subject 

 a bullhead, with a boy searching with a knife for a long-lost 

 fish hook. 



"The bullhead is a fish that has no scales, but in lieu 

 thereof has a fine India-rubber skin, that is as far ahead of 



29 



