IN THE LITTLE BROOK. 359 



and sprinkled with dust and has had his stomach dug out to re- 

 cover the hook, if he falls into the brook he will swim away. He 

 holds no malice, and is ready to bite again at the first thing in sight. 



The catfish uses his lungs as an organ of hearing. The need- 

 less lung becomes a closed sac filled with air, and commonly known 

 as the swim bladder. In the catfish (as in the suckers, chubs, and 

 most brook fishes) the air bladder is large, and is connected by a 

 slender tube, the remains of the trachea, to the oesophagus. At 

 its front it fits closely to the vertebral column. The anterior ver- 

 tebrae are much enlarged, twisted together, and through them passes 

 a chain of bones which connect with the hidden cavity of the air. 

 The air bladder therefore assists the ear of the catfish as the tym- 

 panum and its bones assist the ear of the higher animals. An ear 

 of this sort can carry little range of variety in sound. It probably 

 gives only the impression of jars or disturbances in the water. 



The catfish lays her eggs on the bottom of the brook, without 

 much care as to their location. She is not, however, indifferent to 

 their fate, for when the little fishes are hatched she swims with 

 them into shallow waters, brooding over them and watching them 

 much as a hen does with her chickens. In shallow ponds the young 

 catfishes make a black cloud along the shores, and the other fishes 

 let them alone, for their spines are sharp as needles. 



Up the brooks in the spring come the suckers, large and small 

 coarse, harmless, stupid fishes, who have only two instincts, the one 

 to press to the head of the stream to lay their eggs, the other to 

 nose over the bottom of the stream wherever they go, sucking into 

 their puckered, toothless mouths every organic thing, from water 

 moss to carrion, which they may happen to find. They have no other 

 habits to speak of, and when they have laid their eggs in a sandy 

 ripple they care no more for them, but let go of life's activity and 

 drop down the current to the river whence they came. There 

 are black suckers and white suckers, yellow ones, brown ones, and 

 mottled, and there is more than one kind in every little brook, but 

 one and all they are harmless dolts, the prey of all larger fishes, and 

 so full of bones that even the small boy spits them out after he has 

 cooked them. 



Then come the minnows, of all forms and sizes, the female dull 

 colored and practical, laying her eggs automatically when she finds 

 quiet water, and thinking no more of them afterward. The male, 

 feeble of muscle, but resplendent in color, with head and fins painted 

 scarlet or purple, or silver white, or inky black, as may be most 

 pleasing to his spouse. His mouth is small and without teeth, for 

 he feeds on creatures smaller than fishes, and his head in the spring 

 is covered with coarse warts, nuptial ornaments, which fall off as 



