BIG GAME FISHES 



CHAPTER I 



THE STRUCTURE OF GAME FISHES 



A FISH may be termed a cold-blooded, gill- 

 breathing, backboned animal, adapted to life in 

 the water, through which it moves by the aid 

 of fins, which correspond to the limbs of other 

 animals. The true fishes are represented by the 

 types treated in this volume, and a glance at 

 the skeleton, divested of skin and flesh, affords 

 the angler an idea of its structure, and the rela- 

 tion of its parts one to another. The skeleton 

 of a typical bony fish like the perch appears to 

 have two backbones, but the central one (68) is 

 the vertebra, made up of sometimes two hundred 

 sections. Each vertebra is hollow on the ends, 

 the space so formed being filled with a glutinous 

 substance, the edges of the bones being connected 

 by ligaments, which allow more or less lateral 

 motion a vast amount in the eel, very little in 



