Introduction 



do so, can, with this book, accurately identify any specimen he 

 may obtain, if it belongs to a family containing any American food 

 or game-fish. 



We have left out the vast array of little fishes, too small to be 

 worth eating except to bigger fish. These swarm in all waters- 

 minnows and darters in the brooks, silversides and killifishes in 

 the estuaries, anchovies in the surf, and many even in the open 

 sea, the prey of the mackerel, the bluefish, and other pelagic pre- 

 daceous species. We have left out or briefly mentioned rare fishes, 

 those which occasionally appear on our coasts. We have not con- 

 sidered the many strange fishes of the depths, soft-bodied, black in 

 colour, and often provided with luminous spots which serve as lan- 

 terns in the watery darkness. These would be food-fishes if we 

 could get at them, and game-fishes likewise, for they will take the 

 hook at the depth of half a mile, with ferocity and persistence. 

 But the reader of this book will seldom angle for them, and, if he 

 does, he will know how to look elsewhere for their descriptions. 



Then, too, we omit the groups which lie below the true 

 fishes the lampreys without limbs or jaws, which are not true 

 fishes themselves, but merely fish-like animals that live by sucking 

 the blood of real fishes; the sharks and rays or skates, with large 

 fins and often with large teeth, and a skeleton of cartilage. It is 

 true that lampreys are much eaten in Europe and sometimes in 

 America, for we ourselves have eaten canned lamprey on the Col- 

 umbia River and found it excellent; that from the fin-rays of certain 

 sharks the Chinaman prepares a delicious soup; and that the skate 

 with brown butter, raie au beurre noir, is a delicacy of the 

 French chef. But in the United States none of these is a food-fish. 

 Our people are too well fed to care for the coarse rank flesh of 

 sharks, however much its flavour may be disguised by the ingenious 

 cook. Other coarse-grained fishes, such as the sea catfish, we 

 have omitted or noticed only in passing. 



There are certain fishes whose flesh contains poisonous alka- 

 loids which, in the tropics, become greatly developed, and, when 

 eaten, producing the dangerous disease called "Ciguatera." These 

 are the file-fishes, trigger-fishes, globe-fishes, porcupine-fishes and 

 puffers. In Hawaii one of these species, Tetraodon gibbosus, is 

 known as Mdki Mdki, or Deadly Death, its flesh being poisonous 

 in the highest degree. In general, however, these fishes cease to 



XVV 



