Salmon (Salmo salar). Bull Trout (Salmo eriox). (Also called Grey Salmon Trout (Salmo trutta). Loch Leven Trout (Salmo Levenensis). Grayling (Thymallus vulgaris). Pollan (C. pollan). Vendace (C. Willughbii). Burbot or Eel-pout (Lota vulgaris). Sharp-nosed Eel (Anguilla acutirostris). I. Cyclostomata (Sucker-mouth Petromipon ... Lamprey (P. marinus.) ed)...... Lampern (P. fluviatilis). Fringe-lipped Lampern (P. planeri). It will be seen that there are about fifty species of fresh-water fish which the angler may catch with a rod and line; many, however, are rare, and need only be mentioned incidentally. It is needless to observe that fishes live in water; but there are still many who do not know that fishes breathe air, as will be seen by the following sketch of their structure and habits. On each side of the neck you will observe bony plates of an arch-like shape, to which pouch fringes are attached: these are the gills, by which fish breathe. The water passes in at the mouth and out at the gills; but in its passage it impinges against the fringes, which consist of innumerable blood-vessels, and by this means the oxygen in the water is filtered and conveyed to the lungs of the fish. Fishes are enabled to float by means of an air-bladder in their interior. Some species, however, do not possess this apparatus; but as they are nearly of the same specific gravity as the water, the want of this air-bladder may be no great inconvenience. They are propelled through the water by means of the tail, and assisted and balanced by the fins. The fins on either side of the breast are called the pectoral fins; those on the back dorsal fins; on the belly ventral fins; that behind the vent the aural fin, and the tail the caudal fin. The teeth are placed in various portions of the mouth and throat, according to the necessities of the species. The scales, with which fish are covered as with armour, are very beautiful objects under the microscope. The temperature of fishes is, as a rule, very little above that of the water they inhabit. Fishes have keen sight, fair hearing powers, small taste, acute smell, and very little feeling or sensitiveness to pain. There are numerous instances on record of the indifference fish appear to have to injuries which would cause great pain to animals of a higher organization. Finally, fishes lay eggs (spawn) on weeds, or in furrows in the gravel, which are covered over, and remain until they are hatched in due course. The male fish has the milt, or soft roe, and the female the hard roe. When the female spawns, the male fecundates the spawn with his milt. The productiveness of fishes is enormous: in a carp of ten pounds in weight Schneider found 700,000 eggs. VEN. My friend Piscator, you have kept time with my thoughts, for the sun is just rising, and I myself just now come to this place, and the dogs have just now put down an otter. Look down at the bottom of the hill there in that meadow, chequered with water-lilies and ladysmocks;1 there you may see what work they make look! look! you may see all busy, men and dogs, dogs and men, all busy. PISC. Sir, I am right glad to meet you, and glad to have so fair an entrance into this day's sport, and glad to see so many dogs and more men all in pursuit of the otter. Let us compliment no longer, but join unto them. Come, honest Venator, let us be gone, let us make haste: I long to be doing; no reasonable hedge or ditch shall hold me. VEN, Gentleman-huntsman, where found you this otter? HUNT. Marry, Sir, we found her a mile from this place, a-fishing. She has this morning eaten the greatest part of this trout; she has only left thus much of it as you see, and was fishing for more: when we came we found her just at it; but we were here very early, we were here an hour before sunrise, and have given her no rest since we came; sure, she will hardly escape all these dogs and men. I am to have the skin if we kill her. VEN. Why, Sir, what is the skin worth? HUNT. It is worth ten shillings to make gloves: the gloves of an otter are the best fortification for your hands that can be thought on against wet weather. PISC. I pray, honest huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant question do you hunt a beast or a fish?? HUNT. Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it to be resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have made vows never to eat flesh. But I have heard the question hath been debated among many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it; yet most agree that her tail is fish; and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will walk upon land; for an otter does so, sometimes, five or six or ten miles in a night, to catch for her young ones, or to glut herself with fish. And I can tell you that pigeons will fly forty miles for a breakfast ;3 but, Sir, I am sure the otter devours much fish, and kills and spoils much more than he eats. And I can tell you that this dog-fisher, for so the Latins call him, can smell a fish in the water a hundred |