Fish Study 



177 



r/ze johnny darter likes a swift-flowing brook 



THE JOHNNY DARTER 



Teacher's Story 



"We never tired of watching the little Johnny, or Tessellated darter (Boleosoma 

 nigrum) , although our earliest aquarium friend, (and the very first specimens showed j/i 

 by a rapid ascent of the river weed how 'a Johnny could climb trees,') he has still inany 

 resources which we have itever learned. Whenever we try to catch him with the hand 

 we begin with all the imcertainty that characterized our first attetnpts, even if we havi 

 him in a two-quart pail. We may know him by his short fins, his first dorsal having 

 but nine spines, and by the absence of all color save a soft, yellowish brown, which in 

 freckled with darker markings. The dark brown on the sides is arranged in seven or 

 eight W-shaped marks, below which are a few flecks of the same color. Covering tha 

 sides of the back are the wavy markings and dark specks which have given the name of 

 the "Tessellated Darter;" but Boleosoma is a preferred name, and we even prefer 'boly' 

 for short. In the spring the -males have the head jet black; and this dark color often 

 extends on the back part of the body, so that the fish looks as if he had been taken by th^ 

 tail and dipped into a bottle of ink. But ivith the end of the nuptial season this cole* 

 disappears and the fish regains his normal, strawy hue. 



His actions are rather bird-like; for he ivill strike attitudes like a tufted titmoua 

 and he flies rather than swims through the water. He will, with much perseverance 

 push his body between a plant and the sides of the aquarium and balance himself on <•■ 

 slender stem. Crouching catlike before a snail shell, he will snap off a horn which th, ■ 

 unlucky owner pushes timidly out. But he is also less dainty and seizing the anim^,< 

 by the head, he dashes the shell against the glass or stones until he pidls the body out „«- 

 breaks the shell." — David Starr Jordan. 



The johnny darters are, with the sticklebacks, the most amusing little 

 fish in the aquarium. They are well called darters since their movements 

 are so rapid when they are frightened that the eye can scarcely follow 

 them; and there is something so irresistibly comical in their bright, saucy 



