18 



FISHES 



the gills, scales and fins of the lung fishes, 

 while their water descendants have lost 

 their lungs, or rather the use of them, 

 for the lung of the fish is generally a 

 closed sac, called the air bladder. Some- 

 times it is only partly closed, and some- 

 umes it is lost altogether. 



But while we may dispute about the 

 highest fish, there is no doubt about the 

 lowest one. This is the lancelet. It is 

 of the size and shape of a toothpick, trans- 

 lucent, scaleless, and almost finless, bury- 

 ing itself in the sand on warm coasts, in 

 almost every region. 



The lancelet has no real bone in it. 

 just a line of soft tissue blocking out the 

 space where the backbone ought to be. It 

 has no skull, nor brain., nor eyes, nor 

 jaws, nor heart, nor anything in partic- 

 ular — just transparent muscle, spinal 

 cord, artery gills, stomach and ovaries, 

 with a fringe of feelers about the slit we 

 call the mouth. And even these organs 

 are rather blocked out than developed, 

 yet it is easy to see that the creature is a 

 vertebrate in intention and therefore es- 

 sentially a fish — a fish and a vertebrate 

 reduced to their lowest terms. 



You can go fishing almost anywhere, 

 but whether it is good to do it or not 

 depends on your reasons for doing it. 

 There are about three good reasons for 

 going a-fishing. one indiflierent one, and 

 one that is wholly bad. 



One good reason is that you may learn 

 to know fish. Isaac Walton tells us that 

 "it is good luck 1o any man to be on the 

 good side of the man that knows fish." 

 This is true, but you cannot learn to know 

 fish unless you go forth to find them. 

 There are about 15.000 kinds of fish in 

 the world ; 4,000 of them in North Amer- 

 ica, north of Panama. Now no man 

 knows them all, not even on one conti- 

 nent, though some have written books 

 upon them. 



But the man who knows a large part of 

 them has not only learned fish, but a host 

 of other things as well. He calls to mind 

 rosy-spotted trout of the Maine woods, 

 and still rosier of many brooks of Un- 

 alaska. He has seen the blue parrot fishes 

 of the Cuban reefs and the leaping grav- 

 ling of the' Gallatin and the Au Sable. He 

 has tried the inconnu of the Mackenzie 

 River and the tarpon of the Florida reefs. 

 He knows the s]iarkling darters of the 



french loroad and the Swannanoa, the 

 clear-skinned pescados blaiicos of the 

 Chapala Lake and the pop-eyes and gren- 

 adiers of three miles drop of Bering Sea. 

 Till you learn to know fish you cannot 

 imagine what the water depths still have 

 fc • you to know. 



The second good reason why you 

 should go a-fishing is that you may know 

 the places where fishes go. All the finest 

 scenery is full of fish. The Fire-Hole 

 Canyon, the Roaring River, the Agna 

 Bonita, the Rio Blanco, de Orizaba, 

 the creek of Captains Harbor, the 

 Saranna, the Roanoke, the Restigou- 

 che, the Nipigon, and the lakes of 

 the St. John, all these are good 

 fishing water of their kind. So is 

 the Rio Almendares, the Twin Lakes, 

 and the Eagle River, the Sawtooth Moun- 

 tains, the Aenados Islands, the shores of 

 Clipperton, the Pearl Islands, Dead 

 Man's Reef, No Man's Land, and the 

 sand reaches of San Diego, Santa Bar- 

 bara, Pensacola, and Beaufort. If you 

 know all these you know the rest of the 

 United States, with Canada and Mexico 

 as well. All this is a goodly country, 

 which it is well for a good citizen to un- 

 derstand. If you go a-fishing to know the 

 fish, the rest will be granted to you. And 

 with all the rest you have filled your mind 

 not only with pictures of plunging trout, 

 of leaping muscallonge and diving barra- 

 cuda, but you have enriched it with end- 

 less vistas of deep, green pools ; of foamy 

 cascades, flower-carpeted meadov/s, of 

 dark pines and sunny pines, white birch 

 and clinging vines and wallowing man- 

 grove. You have "dominion over palm 

 and pine," the only dominion there is, for 

 your dominion doth not "speedily pass 

 away." You know the crescent bay, with 

 its white breakers, the rush of the eager 

 waters through the tide-worn estuary, 

 the clinging fucus on the rocks at low- 

 tide, the bark of sea wolves, and the roar 

 of sea lions in the long lines of swaying 

 kelp which reach far out into the farthest 

 sea. This is good for you to know, for it 

 is an antidote to selfishness and doubt 

 and care. Then, too, it is good to know 

 the men that live in the open where the 

 fishes are. To shake their hands and 

 share their hospitality will cure you of 

 ]iessimism ana distrust of democracy, and 

 banish all the chimeras and eoblins which 



