354 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



them ; found out what fishes were sociable and which 

 were solitary ; saw abundant evidence, in short, of their 

 possessing a sense of pleasure, of fear, cunning, and mem- 

 ory; and with these faculties, even if exercised in the 

 most primitive manner, what may we not expect of fishes 

 when, without exciting their suspicion, we follow them 

 patiently hour after hour ? 



In looking over the most recent faunal lists of this 

 portion of the country, I find that the Delaware and its 

 tributaries are credited with between fifty and sixty 

 species of fishes. Some of them I know nothing about, 

 albeit in one instance I am quoted as the authority for 

 the presence in the Delaware of one such little fish. 

 What there is in the books that more interests me is the 

 fact that, of the fishes enumerated, forty-nine are found 

 within the range of my quiet rambles about home. Of 

 all that frequent these waters, forty-nine I am sure have 

 names ; and as there may possibly be others without names, 

 I am always on the lookout for them, and also for those 

 that may have wandered beyond the habitat assigned 

 them by the systernatists. Much of our zoological litera- 

 ture is, in this respect, somewhat amusing. By a precon- 

 ceived notion of what should be the geographical distribu- 

 tion of our fishes, and other animals as well, these " syste- 

 matic " writers gravely assert that in such a river such a fish 

 is found, but that it never wanders either to the eastward 

 or westward. Perhaps originally this was true of our 

 rivers, as the river itself determined the range of specific 

 variation that has ultimately come about ; but no river 

 could retain all the species that originated in it. There 

 are too many possible ways by which fish can be safely 

 transported long distances, for us to assert that none of 

 them have operated in stocking a neighboring stream with 

 species not native and to the manner born. There is 



