48 AMERICAN FISHES. 



Labrax, of the family Percida, to which belongs our own noble Striped 

 Bass, they cover the whole tongue, besides being thickly set on the 

 palate. 



The position and shape of these teeth indicate as clearly the habits, 

 mode of feeding, and the food, of the various families to which they 

 belong, as do the teeth of the carnivorous, ruminating, or gnawing 

 quadrupeds inform the naturalist whether the creature, of which the 

 jaw-bone only lies before him, fed on animal substances, on grass, on 

 grain, or on the bark and hard-shelled nuts of trees; or as the beaks 

 and bills of birds tell the experienced looker-on whether the owner 

 was a bird of prey, an insect-eating warbler, or a grain-cracker. 



The distinction, therefore, which is founded upon the difference of 

 the teeth in different fishes, is by no means fanciful, or resorted to 

 merely to enable naturalists to display their ingenuity in making 

 definitions, and multiplying species, as many people stolidly imagine; 

 but is real and permanent, as representing the great sub-divisions of 

 the dwellers of the waters, as those which feed on living, those which 

 feed on dead animals of their own species, as insect-eaters, or mas- 

 ticators of hard shell-fish, and so forth, unto the end. Differences, 

 which even the most bigottcd enemy of scientific distinctions must 

 admit to be as real, and true in nature, as those between the tiger and 

 the wolf, the ox that chews his cud, and the horse which fattens at the 

 manger. 



I have known a sage coroner in England, who was wont to indulge 

 in sapient ridicule of the learned professions, and to sneer at anatomi- 

 cal and physiological distinctions, who gravely sat in inquest over 

 some exhumed bones, and solemnly record jd a verdict of wilful murder 

 aofainst some person or persons unknown, the skeleton, when examined, 

 turning out to be that of a defunct cow. 



Such instances are becoming, I am happy to say, rare, as regards 

 men in general, and those sciences which regard the human race, 

 and domestic animals. Why it should not be so with the sports- 

 man, 1 know not; but too tru.) it is, that most of that fraternity obsti- 

 nately adhere to ancient error, even when it is clearly pointed out ; 

 and attempt to ridicule the man of letters as a mere theorist, and 

 unpractical, for attempting to correct them in their blunders of 

 nomenclature, whereby they confuse all the tribes of the earth, the 



