Or 
Bony anp Leatner Movrus. 3 
The division of anglers’ fishes into such as are and such as 
are not leather-mouthed may be important to the young an- 
gler, as different management is required in playing each. 
Old anglers considered such fishes leather-mouthed as have 
their teeth in the throat. Hooks seldom part their hold from 
the mouths of such fishes, which are not generally regarded 
as gamy, though good sport for ladies and youth. But the 
contrary is the case with the striped bass, squeteague, pick- 
erel, maskinongé, perch, and most game fishes which are 
white-meated. These have a bony mouth, and not much 
flesh or skin to hold a hook; therefore you are never sure 
of landing these fish unless you play them so lightly as not 
to permit them a foot of slack line, except, perchance, they 
have gorged the hook. 
That water-grasses and some other plants are partly the 
food of leather-mouthed fishes, especially of the carp genus, 
is unquestionable; and in the Orient herbivorous fishes are 
considered the most delicate and highly prized. But when 
they feed on liver, brewers’ grains, boiled barley, split peas, 
and the like, they probably mistake these for the eggs or co- 
coons of water animals, inasmuch as they could not procure a 
supply of these except by rare accident. That some fish may 
feed on the seeds of such plants as are scattered about the 
water is not improbable, and it may have been from obsery- 
ing this that it is recommended by Lebault and Debraw, aft- 
er removing the fish to let fish-ponds dry, to sow them with 
oats or other grain, and, when it is ripe, to let the water 
again into the pond, and bring back the fish to feed. Bowlker 
remarks that carp will eat barley, wheat, or oaten bread, 
while tench and perch will not touch it. Of course perch 
prefer meats to vegetable diet; but as the tench differs with 
the carp upon vegetable diet, both being vegetarians, it 
proves that fishes have discriminative tastes. 
Most leather-mouthed fishes like both vegetable and ani- 
mal diet, and the carp is said to devour young eels, frog- 
spawn, fish-roe, and young fishes, including its own species, 
