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aquatic JLitt 



Viviparous Fishes 



(Concluded from Page 94.) 

 or liberation from the egg. (Similarly, 

 the production of large eggs carries with 

 it fewer numbers, and generally an ad- 

 vanced state of development of the 

 ambryo, the latter being usually more and 

 more like the parents as the eggs are 

 larger. From relatively tiny eggs, such 

 as the majority of pelagic ones, are 

 hatched highly undeveloped larval fishes, 

 totally unlike the species which produce 

 t hem.)— Abstract from a paper read be- 

 fore the New South Wales Naturalists-' 



Club. 



( The familiar "guppy," Lebistes retic- 

 ulatus, one of the killifishes, presents the 

 best known example of sex dimorphism- 

 dissimilarity of sexes— among fishes.— 

 Editor.) 



The common or popular names of these 

 fishes are even more mixed up and poorly 

 applied than usual. Cynoscion nobilis, 

 the "sea bass," is not a bass, and Seri- 

 phus, sometimes called the herring, does 

 not even remotely resemble the herring. 

 The young "sea bass" is known as "sea 

 trout." No possible stretch of the imag- 

 ination could make it suggest a trout, and, 

 having wrongly called its parent a bass, to 

 call it a trout is a very good commentary 

 on how loosely common names are used. 

 Genyonemus, the fish that is usually 

 known as the kingfish, is sometimes 

 called "tomcod" on the southern Cali- 

 fornia coast. It resembles a tomcod as 

 little as Seriphus, the queenfish, resem- 

 bles a herring. When Genyonemus, the 

 kingfish, is called "tomcod" the name 

 kingfish is transferred to Seriphus, the 

 queenfish, or white croaker. Cynoscion 

 parvipinnis, a close relative of the "sea 

 bass," is sometimes called "bluefish," 

 though it has nothing whatever in com- 

 mon with the famous bluefish of the At- 



lantic. The names croaker, roncador, and 

 corvina are not at all consistently applied, 

 but are shuffled back and forth between 

 various of these fishes. 



Hence in the use of vernacular names 

 among these or any other fishes the 

 reader is again cautioned that there is 

 no constancy nor rule for their applica- 

 tion, and he can only be sure of defi- 

 nitely indicating a given fish by using its 

 scientific name. Though such names will 

 probably never be used by people at 

 large, and certainly not by unlettered fish- 

 ermen, the scientific name is nevertheless 

 the one true name for a species, and a 

 name that will be recognized by scientific 

 men in all countries the world over. — 

 Edimn Chapin Storks in "California Fish 

 and Game." 



There is a type of fish fancier who 

 derives more pleasure from pulling down 

 than in building up ; in saying the unkind 

 thing, rather than the kind ; the sort of 

 a man who goes gladly forty miles out 

 of his way if he thinks he can "put one 

 over." It takes a peculiar mental con- 

 struction to gloat in "knocking" — a sort 

 of self-hypnosis, which makes the 

 knocker think he is doing himself good 

 by doing another fellow harm. The 

 knocker believes that others take his story 

 at its face value. But note the consistent 

 knocker. He is seldom a successful 

 aquarist. When he gets a fish he can't 

 hold it ; when he has a friend, he loses 

 him. He has to buy for cash, for the 

 knocker has no credit. Nobody trusts 

 him, nobody believes him. The knocker 

 does a lot of harm, but in the long run 

 it is only to himself. The man who 

 knocks is always among the down-and- 

 outs, the has-beens, the never-to-bes. 

 The successful aquarist ignores the 

 knocker. He is too busy studying his 

 fishes. The discreet man, if he can't say 

 a good word, says nothing ! 



