CHAPTER LIV 

 ORDER OF SUCKERS, CARP, AND MINNOWS 



PLECTOSPONDYLI 



THE SUCKER FAMILY 



Cat-os-tom' i-dae 



THIS huge Order contains 60 genera and 311 species, 

 divided into 4 Families. Of these Famihes, the Sucker 

 Family is the most important. It contains about 70 species, 

 all of which save two are habitants of North America. Be- 

 sides the Suckers themselves the Family includes the buffalo- 

 fish, the red-horse, and fresh-water "mullet." These fishes 

 have the mouth placed underneath the head, and fitted with 

 very fleshy, tubular lips, well adapted for sucking food from 

 the bottom. They have been specially formed to live upon 

 mud bottoms and in murky water — precisely the conditions 

 that high-class fishes abhor. 



There are times when a sucker (or a carp) seems like a 

 good fish for the table; and that is when one is very fish- 

 hungry, and there is no other kind of fish to be had. To 

 my mind, the flavor of the flesh is either barely tolerable, or 

 verging closely upon disagreeable. The very numerous and 

 wholly unnecessary bones seem like a positive affront. Al- 

 though these fishes are seldom eaten by choice, by the land- 

 locked dwellers in the interior of our great continent, to 



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