JOHNNY DARTERS. 29 
often edged with patches of white. The cheeks 
are deep blue, the breast deep orange; while the 
expanded fins are gorgeous in scarlet, indigo, and 
crimson. The female, as is'usually the case when 
the male of the species is resplendent, is plainly 
colored, —a speckly green, with no trace of blue 
or orange. 
When the War of the Rebellion broke out, there 
were some good people who were anxiously look- 
ing for some sign or omen, that they might know 
on which side the “stars in their courses’ were 
fighting. It so happened that in a little brook in 
Indiana, called Clear Creek, some one caught a 
rainbow darter. This fish was clothed in a new 
suit of the red, white, and blue of his native land, 
in the most unmistakably patriotic fashion. There 
were some people who had never seen a darter 
before, and who knew no more of the fishes in 
their streams than these fishes knew of them, by 
whom the coming of this little  soldier-fish” into 
their brooks was hailed as an omen of victory. Of 
course, these little fishes had really ‘always been 
there.” They were there when America was dis- 
covered and for a long time before, but the people 
had not seen them. The warblers lived, you re- 
member, in Spalding’s woods at Concord; but 
Spalding did not know that they were there, and 
they had no knowledge of Spalding. So with the 
darters in Spalding’s brooks. Still, when the day 
comes when history shall finally recount all the 
influences which held Indiana to her place in the 
Union, shall not, among greater things, this least 
of little fishes receive its little meed of praise? 
