HOW TO IDENTIFY A FISH 



It is easy to know a fish, or even a true fish; but a more 

 interesting question is: What kind of a fish is it? There our 

 difficulty begins. We can readily say that a certain specimen is 

 a fish, or even that it is a bass, a perch, a herring, or a trout; 

 but which particular species of the several kinds of bass, perch, 

 herring, or trout is it ? Just what species of fish is it ? This is 

 what every angler, every commercial fisherman, and everyone 

 interested in nature wishes to know, When we get hold of a 

 fish our first desire is to know its name, — what species it is. The 

 vague knowledge that a form is something like a perch, a bass, 

 or an eel will not suffice. The works devoted wholly to sys- 

 tematic ichthyology are in the nature of things entirely technical, 

 and they are not easily followed by the untrained student. 

 Though most of our fishes are not difficult of identification, 

 many of them are. There are now known from America north of 

 the Isthmus of Panama more than 3,300 species of fishes and fish- 

 like vertebrates. Many of these are so closely related and the 

 characters separating them so hard to make out, that the difficul- 

 ties are real and not easily to be overcome except by one trained 

 in the methods of systematic zoology. But fortunately such 

 is not the case with the vast majority of fishes, particularly the 

 food and game species. Most of these are fairly easy to identify. 

 A little time devoted to an examination of the specimen in hand 

 and a careful reading of the keys will enable one to locate it. It 

 has been the aim of the authors of the present work to make a 

 book which any angler or intelligent fisherman can use easily and 

 with satisfaction. 



In the first place, in studying a fish, there are some things 

 regarding its anatomy which one must know. He must know 

 the names of the fins, the parts of the mouth and other parts of 

 the head and body; also something about the different kinds of 

 teeth and the bones upon which they are placed, the different 

 kinds of scales and their arrangement, and how to contrast one 

 character with another. 



