COBITIS. 183 



caught through the ice, by baitmg with cheese and 

 Venice turpentine. 



The head is large, the back of a dusky green, 

 the sides silvery, the abdomen white, the pectoral 

 fins yellowish, and the ventrals and anals tinged 

 w^ith red. This fish seems to be very timid, and 

 the angler therefore, in fixing himself in a good po- 

 sition, over some deep hole, where the chub con- 

 ceals itself under the projecting long roots of trees, 

 is obliged to move very cautiously, or he will fright- 

 en it away. For the table, the chub would be 

 considered very excellent, w^ere it not for the mil- 

 lions of little bones. They are frequently eight 

 and ten inches long. 



GEN. COBITIS. 



Sucker, — Cyprinus Teres. [ Catastomus] . From 

 the earliest period of boyhood, we have been fa- 

 miliar with the fresh water sucker, a lazy, still fish 

 of a dingy color, with mouth very like that of the 

 lamprey eel, being constituted of a semi-cartilagi- 

 nous ring, at the extremity of a short elastic sack, 

 as it were, under the jaws ; it appears, on close 

 examination, as though the skin from the tip of 

 the snout, was drawn down under the tip of the 

 under jaw, and a hoop set in the thus elongated 

 tube. 



It basks in the hot sun, fastened by the mouth 



