20 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



JOHNNY DARTERS.i 



ANY one who has ever been a boy and can 

 remember back to the days of tag-alders, 

 yellow cowslips, and an angle-worm on a pin-hook, 

 will recall an experience like this : You tried some 

 time to put your finger on a little fish that was 

 lying, apparently asleep, on the bottom of the 

 stream, half hidden under a stone or a leaf, his 

 tail bent around the stone as if for support against 

 the force of the current. You will remember that 

 when your finger came near the spot where he was 

 lying, the bent tail was straightened, and you saw 

 the fish again resting, head up-stream, a few feet 

 away, leaving you puzzled to know whether you 

 had seen the movement or not. You were trying 

 to catch a Johnny Darter. Nothing seems easier, 

 but you did not do it. 



Having by well-understood stratagem succeeded 

 where you failed, allow us to give you that ac- 

 quaintance which he so deftly declined. 



In all clear streams from Maine to Mexico the 

 Johnny Darters are found ; and the boy who does 

 not know them has missed one of the real pleas- 

 ures of a boy's life. All of them are very little 

 fishes, — some not more than two inches long, and 



1 The original version of this paper was the joint work of the 

 late Professor Herbert Edson Copeland and the writer. — D. S. J. 



