18 FISHES 



the gills, scales and fins of the lung fishes, french broad and the Swannanoa, the 



while their water descendants have lost clear-skinned pescados blancos of the 



their lungs, or rather the use of them, Chapala Lake and the pop-eyes and gren- 



for the lung of the fish is generally a adiers of three miles drop of Bering Sea. 



closed sac, called the air bladder. Some- Till you learn to know fish you cannot 



times it is only partly closed, and some- imagine what the water depths still have 



cimes it is lost altogether. fc you to know. 



But while we may dispute about the The second good reason why you 

 highest fish, there is no doubt about the should go a-fishing is that you may know 

 lowest one. This is the lancelet. It is the places where fishes go. All the finest 

 of the size and shape of a toothpick, trans- scenery is full of fish. The Fire-Hole 

 lucent, scaleless, and almost finless, bury- . Canyon, the Roaring River, the Agna 

 ing itself in the sand on warm coasts, in Bonita, the Rio Blanco, de Orizaba, 

 almost every region. the creek of Captains Harbor, the 

 The lancelet has no real bone in it, Saranna, the Roanoke, the Restigou- 

 just a line of soft tissue blocking out the che, the Nipigon, and the lakes of 

 space where the backbone ought to be. It the St. John, all these are good 

 has no skull, nor brain, nor eyes, nor fishing water of their kind. So is 

 jaws, nor heart, nor anything in partic- the Rio Almendares, the Twin Lakes, 

 ular just transparent muscle, spinal and the Eagle River, the Sawtooth Moun- 

 cord, artery gills, stomach and ovaries, tains, the Venados Islands, the shores of 

 with a fringe of feelers about the slit we Clipperton, the Pearl Islands, Dead 

 call the mouth. And even these organs Man's Reef, No Man's Land, and the 

 are rather blocked out than developed, sand reaches of San Diego, Santa Bar- 

 yet it is easy to see that the creature is a bara, Pensacola, and Beaufort. If you 

 vertebrate in intention and therefore es- know all these you know the rest of the 

 sentially a fish a fish and a vertebrate United States, with Canada and Mexico 

 reduced to their lowest terms. as well. All this is a goodly country, 

 You can go fishing almost anywhere, which it is well for a good citizen to un- 

 but whether it is good to do it or not derstand. If you go a-fishing to know the 

 depends on your reasons for doing it. fish, the rest will be granted to you. And 

 There are about three good reasons for with all the rest you have filled your mind 

 going a-fishing, one indifferent one, and not only with pictures of plunging trout, 

 one that is wholly bad. of leaping muscallonge and diving barra- 

 One good reason is that you may learn cuda, but you have enriched it with end- 

 to know fish. Isaac Walton tells us that less vistas of deep, green pools ; of foamy 

 "it is good luck to any man to be on the cascades, flower-carpeted meadows, of 

 good side of the man that knows fish." dark pines and sunny pines, white birch 

 This is true, but you cannot learn to know and clinging vines and wallowing man- 

 fish unless you go forth to find them, grove. You have "dominion over palm 

 There are about 15,000 kinds of fish in and pine," the only dominion there is, for 

 the world ; 4,000 of them in North Amer- your dominion doth not "speedily pass 

 ica, north of Panama. Now no man away." You know the crescent bay, with 

 knows them all, not even on one conti- its white breakers, the rush of the eager 

 nent, though some have written books waiters through the tide-worn estuary, 

 upon them. the clinging fucus on the rocks at low- 

 But the man who knows a large part of tide, the bark of sea wolves, and the roar 

 them has not only learned fish, but a host of sea lions in the long lines of swaying 

 of other things as well. He calls to mind kelp which reach far out into the farthest 

 rosy-spotted trout of the Maine woods, sea. This is good for you to know, for it 

 and still rosier of many brooks of Un- is an antidote to selfishness and doubt 

 alaska. He has seen the blue parrot fishes and care. Then, too, it is good to know 

 of the Cuban reefs and the leaping grav- the men that live in the open where the 

 ling of the Gallatin and the Au Sable. He fishes are. To shake their hands and 

 has tried the inconnu of the Mackenzie share their hospitality will cure you of 

 River and the tarpon of the Florida reefs, pessimism and distrust of democracy, and 

 He knows the sparkling darters of the banish all the chimeras and goblins which 



