APPETITE AND Locomotion, 23 
during a fall of snow or rain. Indeed, a snow-storm seems to 
improve the appetite of some fishes; and rains which do not 
render the stream too turbid, but give to the water a slight- 
ly-darkened tint, do not injure it for even fishing with the fly. 
It is a commonly received opinion that angling is not as 
good as usual during easterly winds; but this is only true 
when the winds cause the tides to rise so high on our coast 
that fishes change their feeding-grounds.  Fly-fishing for 
both salmon and trout are, in some waters, best during an 
east wind. <A really windy day is not good for fly-fishing. 
The gentle, balmy breeze, which merely produces a catspaw 
ripple on the surface, and carries the cast of flies out, so as to 
leave part of the merit for their graceful and snow-flake fall 
to the angler and the rod, under “a sun of mild but not too 
bright a beam,” form a few of the conditions which give fly- 
fishing its peculiar zest. The prejudice against an cast wind 
with the American angler on the Atlantic slope near the 
coast is probably caused by the fact that an east wind so 
raises the tides along the shores, and sets it back in the estu- 
aries and creeks, as to cover shoals and islets of ecl-grass. 
This gives fishes a wider range to forage and prospect over 
shallow and weedy places for shrimp, shedder and soft-shell 
crabs, instead of remaining in the tideway to watch for bait 
carried along by the current. 
To converse intelligibly about fishes, it is necessary to 
know the names of their fins, for these give the means of lo- 
comotion ; and though this work is not intended as a school- 
book, or to be especially scientific, yet, as all retailers of fish- 
stories should know enough of a fish to name its fins, I pre- 
sent on the following page the form of a fish, with the names 
of them. 
The propulsive power of a fish is its tail or caudal fin. 
The pectorals and ventrals assist a little in speed, but more 
especially in turning and diving, while the anal and dorsals 
serve as centre-boards to a ship, to prevent leeway and being 
easily capsized. Of rapid swimmers in the American waters, 
