Fish StnJy 



177 



77z<: johnny darter likes a swift-flowing brook. 



THE JOHNNY DARTER 

 Teacher's Story 



"We never tired of watching the little JoJinnv, or Tessellated darter (Boleosoma 

 nigrurn), although oiir earliest aquarium friend, and the very first specimens showed us 

 by a rapid ascent of the river weed hew 'a Johnny could climb trees,' he has still many 

 resources which we have never learned. Whenever we try to catch hint with the hand 

 we begin with all the uneertaintv that characterized our first attempts, even if we have 

 him in a two-quart pail. We may know him by his short fins, his first dorsal hailing 

 but nine spines, and by the absence of all color save a soft, yellowish brown, which is 

 freckled with darker markings. The dark brown on the sides is arranged in seven or 

 eight W -shaped marks, below which are a feiv flecks of the same color. Covering the 

 sides of the back are the wavy markings and dark specks which have given the name of 

 the "Tessellated Darter;" but Boleosoma is a preferred name, and -ur even prefer 'boly' 

 for short. In the spring the males have the licad jet black; and this dark color often 

 extends on the back part of the body, so that the fish looks as if he had been taken by the 

 tail and dipped into a bottle <>/" ink. Bat ;<. ith the end of the nuptial season this color 

 disappears and the fish regains his normal, strait'-v hue. 



His actions are rather bird-like; for he will strike attitudes like a tn/ted titmouse 

 and he flies rather than swims through the water. He leill, with much perseverance, 

 push his body betwe* n a plant and the sides of the aquarium and I alanee himself on a 

 slender stem. Crouching catlike before a snail shell, he will snap off a horn which the 

 unlucky owner pushes timidly out. But he is also less dainty and seizing the animal 

 by the head, he dashes the shell against the glass or stones until he pulls the body out or 

 breaks the shell."- DAVID STARR JORDAN. 



The johnny darters are, with the sticklebacks, the most amusing little 

 fish in the aquarium. They are well called darters since their movements 

 are so rapid when they are frightened that the eye can scarcely follow 

 them ; and there is something so irresistibly comical in their bright, saucy 



