Boys' Fish and Boys' Fishing 239 



forked stick, and even then, uncomfortable as it may find its 

 new relations, it never loses sight of the humor of the occa- 

 sion. Its large head and expansive forehead betoken a 

 large mind. It is the only fish whose brain contains a 

 Sylvian fissure, a piling up of tissue consequent on the 

 abundance of gray matter. So it understands and makes 

 no complaint. After it is dried in the sun for an hour, pour 

 a little water over its gills, and it will wag its tail, and squeak 

 with gratitude. And the best of all is, there are horned 

 pouts enough to go around. 



The female horned pout lays thousands of eggs, and when 

 these hatch, she goes about near the shore with her school of 

 little fishes, like a hen with myriad chicks. She should be 

 respected and let alone, for on her success in rearing this 

 breed of " bullying little rangers," depends the sport of the 

 small boy of the future. 



But while the bullhead is the daily bread of the angling 

 boy, he has other treasures which he values more highly. 

 There are trout in all the cold brooks of the northland, and 

 some of the best of these only the small boy knows to this 

 day. I might tell you of one which flows through the 

 wooded hills to the upper Genesee — but after all it is better 

 nameless, closed to the memory of the days when I was a 

 small boy myself. And then, not too far away, there is 

 " Grandpa Jordan's Creek," which flows down the hills into 

 the Oatka River, and I hope that this suggestive name has 

 not been changed to a closer imitation of the River Jordan. 



But finer than any trout is the old-fashioned green and 

 golden sunfish with a black ear trimmed with scarlet. This 

 is the pumpkin seed of the boys' vernacular, a bright " coin — 

 fresh from the mint," resplendent in all the colors worth 

 seeing in the rainbow. 



It is only a little fish, with a nest in the eddy where the 

 stream turns around the root of a big stump, but it leaps 

 like a hawk on the hook, with a pound of momentum for 

 every ounce of its weight. In other parts of the country, 



