10 INSTRUCTION. 



to represent the head of a trout, weighing a pound and a 

 half, caught at Phillipse's Pond, near Smith Town, Long 

 Island. The gill-rajs are shown at No. 5. The divisions 

 of the gill-cover are faintly marked in the real fish, and 

 require some study. 



Lastly, the naturalist examines a fish as a jockey does 

 a horse, by looking at his teeth, and with about equally 

 satisfactory results. They both are bitten, whether the 

 term be used in a literal or metaphorical sense. The 

 writer once, after catching a large fish, having heard that 

 trout had teeth in their throats, proceeded to investigate. 

 Moved thereto by the spirit of inquiry, he thrust one 

 finger as far as possible down the trout's mouth, and 

 was not a little surprised, as well as pained, to find that 

 the throat was lined with teeth sharper than a serpent's, 

 and arranged in the same manner. They inclined back- 

 ward, and once having penetrated a substance, would 

 not and could not let go. The writer having suffered the 

 agony that the pursuit of science sometimes involves, 

 after exhausting gentle means of escape, and knowing 

 that he could no more wear a trout, than the old man in 

 the "Decameron" could the protecting ring, with a 

 wrench tore away his hand, a bleeding sacrifice to sci- 

 ence. Any reader wishing to ascertain the same facts, 

 may pursue a similar course. 



On the foregoing diagram, which represents the 

 arrangement of teeth in the salmon tribe, No. 6 is the 

 upper jaw, and No. 7 the lower ; No. 8, the outer teeth 

 in the upper jaw, superior maxillary / No. 9, the same 

 in the lower jaw, inferior maxillary ; No. 10, the inner 

 row of teeth of the upper jaw called learnedly the polar 



