238 Fish Stories 



on occasion. But a minnow with a hook through its dorsal 

 fin is a most unwilHng lure for the black bass or the pike, 

 and a grasshopper cannot take its place in a trout brook, 

 without certain crushing of his carapace. 



So having found the natural boy with his natural bait, we 

 will equip him with hook and line, a pole cut from some 

 osier or willow thicket. On his line there will be a cork 

 to hold the hook from the bottom and a sinker of lead to 

 make it fall. With all this, and bare feet and a ragged straw 

 hat, a jackknife to cut a forked stick to string the fishes 

 on, and the boy is ready to go a-fishing. 



And what fish will the natural boy naturally take? In 

 America there is but one fish which enters fully into the 

 spirit of the occasion. It is a fish of many species accord- 

 ing to the part of the country, and of as many sizes as there 

 are sizes of boys. This fish is the horned pout, and all the 

 rest of the species of Ameiurus. Horned pout is its Bos- 

 ton name. Bullhead is good enough for New York ; and for 

 the rest of the country, big and little, all the fishes of this 

 tribe are called catfish. A catfish is a jolly blundering sort 

 of a fish, a regular Falstaff of the ponds. It has a fat jowl, 

 and a fat belly, which it is always trying to fill. Smooth 

 and sleek, its skin is almost human in its delicacy. It wears 

 a long mustache, with scattering whiskers of other sort 

 Meanwhile it always goes armed with a sword, three swords, 

 and these it has always on hand, always ready for a struggle 

 on land as well as in the water. The small boy often gets 

 badly stuck on these poisoned daggers, but as the fish knows 

 how to set them by a muscular twist, the small boy learns 

 how, by a like untwist, he may unset and leave them harm- 

 less. 



The catfish lives in sluggish waters. It loves the mill- 

 pond best of all, and it has no foolish dread of hooks when 

 it goes forth to bite. Its mouth is wide. It swallows the 

 hook, and very soon, it is in the air, its white throat gasping 

 in the untried element. Soon it joins its fellows on the 



