COBITIS. 183 



caught through the ice, by baiting 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 

 with 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, were it not for the mil- 

 lions of little bones. They are frequently eight 

 and ten inches long. 



GEN. COBITIS. 



SUCKER, CyprinusTeres. [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 



