CHAPTER I 
THE LIFE (OF THE, FISH 
A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF THE LONG-EARED 
SUNFISH, LEPOMIS MEGALOTIS 
HAT is a Fish ?—A fish is a back-boned animal which 
lives in the water and cannot ever live very long 
anywhere else. Its ancestors have always dwelt in 
water, and most likely its descendents will forever follow their 
example. So, as the water is a region very different from the 
fields or the woods, a fish in form and structure must be quite 
unlike all the beasts and birds that walk or creep or fly above 
ground, breathing air and being fitted to live in it. There are 
a great many kinds of animals called fishes, but in this all of 
them agree: all have some sort of a back-bone, all of them 
breathe their life long by means of gills, and none have fingers 
or toes with which to creep about on land. 
The Long-eared Sunfish.—If we would understand a fish, 
we must first go and catch one. This is not very hard to do, for 
there are plenty of them in the little rushing brook or among the 
lilies of the pond. Let us take a small hook, put on it an angle- 
worm or a grasshopper,—no need to seek an elaborate artificial 
fly,—and we will go out to the old “‘swimming-hole”’ or the deep 
eddy at the root of the old stump where the stream has gnawed 
away the bank in changing its course. Here we will find 
fishes, and one of them will take the bait very soon. In one 
part of the country the first fish that bites will be different from 
the first one taken in some other. But as we are fishing in 
the United States, we will locate our brook in the centre of popu- 
lation of our country. This will be to the northwest of Cincin- 
I 
