I2& LIVING CREATURES. 



ers. These are popular with boys, and with girls, too, 

 because they may be found in small streams and ponds, 

 where there is slight danger of being drowned. They 

 bite readily, and when caught, are easily handled, be- 

 cause they have no 

 teeth in the mouth, 

 and their fins are soft. 

 The boys' list, it 

 must be confessed, 

 are all poor eating. 

 Thoreau says, "the 

 chub is a soft fish ; it 



tastes like a piece of brown paper salted." Without 

 doubt this is the solemn truth ; but who can make a 

 boy believe it, particularly if he has himself caught a 

 chub ? The first fish I ever caught was a beautiful sil- 

 ver shiner about six inches long. All these small, soft 

 fish seem to have bones mixed up with their flesh as if 

 to stiffen their sides, like corsets. When my little 

 shiner was cooked and on my plate, I found it terribly 

 full of bones. Nevertheless, no one could convince me 

 that it was not the most delicious morsel in the world. 

 When the young fisherman or fisherwoman finds a 

 sunfish (pumpkin seed) taken by the hook, then the 

 boys' list is left behind, and something like the "game 

 fish" is reached. A game fish is one which makes good 

 eating, bites vigorously, and, when once hooked, resists 

 so earnestly as to make the catching exciting. The lit- 

 tle, nearly round sunfish is one of a group of cousins 

 which includes the yellow perch, the log-perch or rock- 

 perch, and all other perches ; the yellow bass, the white 

 bass, the black bass, the striped bass of the se, and 



