LESSON XLI.
OUTSIDE AND INSIDE.
If I ask you what is the largest of all fish, you will say “a whale.” But let me tell you that a whale is not a fish. A whale is an animal that spends all its timeinthe water, but cannot live constantlyunderwater. If cast ashore it will die, because it has no means of getting back into the water, and no food on the land.
QUEER NOSES.
QUEER NOSES.
But whales have no gills, and they breathe air as you do. They are so made that they can, with safety, remain under water for a much longer time than you can. If a whale is kept under water too long, he drowns. So we must leave whales, nar-whales, and porpoises out of our account of fishes.
Among real fish you will find some of great size. Sturgeon have been caught which weighed five hundred pounds. They were twelve or fourteen feet long. Yet this size seems small when we compare it with that of the great shark which has been found thirty feet long.
A queer contrast with such a vast creature is the little minnow, which you catch in ponds and brooks. It is not much over an inch long. Little English boys in their first fishing trips go for sticklebacks, a fish from one to two inches long. I shall tell you in another lesson of this amusing little fish.
The fish usually chosen as a type, or model, of the fish race, is a perch. We find fishes[29]differing from the general perch pattern as much as flower differs from flower.
The perch is a wedge-shaped fish, and is a beautiful creature. Let us see how others of the fin familydiffer from the pattern I described to you in the last lesson.
Instead of having a clear, round, full, bright eye like that of a perch, some fishes, which live in mud, or in very deep water, have tiny eyes, like dots. Some fishes which live in streams in dark caves have really no eyes.
The perch is covered with scales of a rich green-brown and a golden white. Some fish, as the eel and sword-fish, have no scales. A shark has no true scales, but his skin has hardened into little bony points. Some other fish, instead of scales, have large bony plates. The heads and the fins seldom have any scales upon them.
If you could see a large collection of fish, you would wonder at the variety of shape. You would see the “perch pattern” changed in almost every possible way. Perhaps the first odd-shaped family to notice would be the rays.
The fish of this family are flat. Their bodies are shaped much like a flat triangle, finished with a long slim tail. The ray’s mouth is on the under side of his body. The most common members of the ray family are the skates. They are of a dark color above, and light below. I shall soon tell you a queer thing about skates’ eggs.
One of the rays is called the sting ray, because its tail extends in a huge lash, like an immense whip. Another ray is called the eagle, because his body and fins widen out on each side, like the wings of a big bird.
Another odd-shaped fin family is that of the flat fish. These, like the rays, are dark above and light below. These fish are very flat or thin in the body, and usually have both eyes and mouth on the upper or dark side. There is one kind where the eyes and mouth are so raised as to look much like the head of a bird. They swim with a queer wave-like motion of the whole body. To this family belong the turbot, flounder, plaice, and sole.
Then, too, there is a family of fish that are nearly as round as balls. They have wide stripes of light and dark color, and look more like nice play bells, furnished with tails and fins, than like fish.
A queer contrast to them is the pipe-fish. Pipe-fish have no scales. Their bodies are long and slender, like very slim canes. They get their name from the queer shape of their noses. The pipe-fish’s nose is very slim and hard, and half as long as the fish. People think it looks like a pipe, or cigar.
Many fish have very odd noses. Instead of the wedge-shaped head, with the nose and mouth set exactlyon the front, the nose may be of a queer shape, and the mouth above or below.
The bellows-fish gets its name from a nose shaped almost exactly like a bellows. One kind of sturgeon is called the shovel-fish, because its head is shaped much like a wide shovel. Another sturgeon is called the spoon-bill, because its nose runs out in a long, horny plate, like a spoon, or a paddle. The hammer-headed shark, has its head broadened on each side like a great hammer, with the neck for a handle. One eye is set at the end of each projection.
I cannot tell you of all the queer shapes that fish take. If you examine those which you catch in the ponds and rivers, or see brought to market, you will observe that no two kinds are alike. What a narrow, graceful, active fish a trout is! What a queer little fellow is the fish that from his shape you call “a pumpkin seed.”
I told you just now, that one ray fish has a very long tail. With it he strikes, and stuns or kills, his prey, or his enemy. Most fish live on animal food. Some fish eat sea-weeds, but most of them prefer other fish, crabs, insects, shell-fish, or other live creatures. Very many fish have some weapon for securing prey, or fighting their enemies.
Some fish, depend on their quickness of motion to secure their food or escape enemies. But I will now tell you of some of their weapons. The lower lip of a salmon turns up into a sharp, cutting hook. The sword-fish has a long, hard, sharp, strong horn, which it can drive into the side of a ship. With this weapon it will also kill a man. The sword is formed by some bones of the side of the head, growing out very long and strong. The sword-fish belongs to the ray order.
Another ray is the saw-fish. This fish carries on its head a long, flat bone set with great points like the teeth of a coarse saw. With this weapon the saw-fish charges into a shoal of fishes. He maims and wounds a number so that they die or cannot swim away. Then he feasts on them at his leisure.
A very queer fish is the torpedo.[30]He is a very big fellow. He can give a shock like electricity, that stuns or kills his prey. There is a large eel which has the same power. They are both much feared by other fishes.
But no fish is more feared by other fish, or by men, than the shark. No doubt you have heard of him, with his huge mouth set with great hooked teeth.He can kill almost any creature which is in the sea.
While much more could be said about weapons, we must now leave them to take a look at the first pair of fins, or the breast fins.
In the rays the breast fins are broad and long. They are the chief means of swimming. The flat fish have these breast fins extended all along the side of the body. By the wave-like motion of these fins and of the body they swim.
In some fish these breast fins are turned to feet, for walking at the bottom of the water. There are one or two kinds of fish that can climb trees. These have the under fins turned to sucker-like plates to help them climb.
Did you ever hear of the flying fish? That fish has the breast fins long and wide like wings. The fish can rise from five to twenty feet above the water, and these fin wings support it, so that it can fly about two hundred yards. Thus it escapes from its enemies.
You will see some fish with fleshy, finger-like organs near the mouth. These are called barbels. Fish with barbels are bottom feeders. With these barbels they hunt for food in the mud.
FOOTNOTES:[29]Bothfishandfishesare correct plural forms, and both are used to accustom the child to both words.[30]Also of the ray order.
[29]Bothfishandfishesare correct plural forms, and both are used to accustom the child to both words.
[29]Bothfishandfishesare correct plural forms, and both are used to accustom the child to both words.
[30]Also of the ray order.
[30]Also of the ray order.