40 SALMONID^. 



ventrals are entirely wanting. To this division belong the 

 famihes of Murmiidce, and AnguilUdeB, Congers, Eels, and their 

 congeners. 



First then, having noted whether the fish we desire to know 

 more minutely has hard or flexible fin-rays, and then, having 

 ascertained by the position of his ventral fins, if soft-fiuned, to 

 which division he belongs, by examining the number and posi- 

 tion, as well as the texture, of the dorsal and anal fins, we shall 

 speedily discover his family ; or if we have no book at hand to 

 which we can refer, we can easily so describe liim by letter to 

 some competent person, as Avill enable him readily to enlighten 

 us on the subject. 



To show the importance of possessing even the small degree 

 of knowledge conveyed in these last few pages, I will merely 

 observe that if the settlers of the shores of the Otsego had been 

 even so far advanced in the science, they had not committed the 

 blunder of misnaming the excellent fish of their waters, the 

 Otsego Bass ; when it is in truth one of the Salmon family — 

 the former being a spiny, the latter a soft-finned family. 



A few steps more would have prevented our Southern friends 

 from the commission of the absurdity of designating a variety 

 of Weak Fish as Trout — two fish which have not the most 

 remote connection ; and so on ad infinitum. 



All the family of Salmonida, or Salmons, have two dorsal fins, 

 as will be obsen^ed in the outline figure on page 37 ; the hinder 

 one of which has no rays, but is merely a fleshy or fatty 

 appendage. Had the Otsegoites known this simple fact, they 

 would at once have perceived that their fish not only was not a 

 Bass, but was a Salmon. And this same degree of attainment 



