A Manual of the Vertebrate Animals of the Northern United States: Including the District North and East of the Ozark Mountains, South of the Laurentian Hills, North of the Southern Boundary of Virginia, and East of the Missouri River, Inclusive of Marine SpeciesA. C. McClurg, 1904 - 397 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
abundant adipose fin adult air-bladder anal Anal fin ashy Baird barbels bars base belly bill birds black spot blackish blotches bluish Body elongate bones bony breast broad brown brownish buffy Cape Cod carapace caudal caudal fin cheeks chestnut chiefly claw color compressed Cope dark decurved depth Dorsal fin dorsal spines dusky edge FAMILY feet fishes front Genera gill membranes gill openings gill rakers Girard Gmelin gray grayish groove Head 31 hind toe incisors Jordan keeled Lacépède lateral line length less Linnæus lower jaw mandible maxillary middle toe moderate naked nearly neck nostrils Olivaceous olive opercle outer pale pectoral Pectoral fins plastron plates plumage posterior premaxillaries preopercle protractile Rafinesque rays scales scaly serrate short shorter sides silvery skin slender snout species spiracles stout streaked stripes tail feathers tarsus teeth tibia upper jaw usually ventral vertebræ vomer warm seas whitish wing yellow yellowish
Popular passages
Page 40 - They are very tenacious of life, ' opening and shutting their mouths for half an hour after their heads have been cut off.
Page 199 - I only know thee humble, bold, Haughty, with miseries untold, And the old Curse that left thee cold, And drove thee ever to the sun, On blistering rocks ; nor made thee shun Our cabin's hearth, when day was done, And the spent ashes warmed thee best ; We knew thee, — silent, joyless guest Of our rude ingle. E'en thy quest Of the rare milk-bowl seemed to be Naught but a brother's poverty, And Spartan taste that kept thee free From lust and rapine.
Page 40 - dull and blundering fellows," fond of the mud, and growing best in weedy ponds and rivers without current. They stay near the bottom, moving slowly about with their barbels widely spread, watching for anything eatable. They will take any kind of bait, from an angleworm to a piece of a tin tomato can, without coquetry, and they seldom fail to swallow the hook.
Page 88 - It is a solemn, stately, ruminant fish, lurking under the shadow of a pad at noon, with still, circumspect, voracious eye, motionless as a jewel set in water, or moving slowly along to take up its position, darting from time to time at such unlucky fish or frog or insect as comes within its range, and swallowing it at a gulp.
Page 306 - ... unpleasant to them ; they quarrel a good deal, and are particularly spiteful towards martins and swallows, whose homes they often invade and occupy. Their song is bright and hearty, and they are fond, of their own music ; when disturbed at it they make a great ado with noisy scolding.
Page 120 - He has the faculty of asserting himself and making himself completely at home wherever placed. He is plucky, game, brave and unyielding to the last when hooked. He has the arrowy rush and vigor of the Trout, the untiring strength and bold leap of the Salmon, while he has a system of fighting tactics peculiarly his own.
Page 122 - Forced from the populous and fertile valleys of the river beds and lake bottoms, they have taken refuge from their enemies in the rocky highlands, where the free waters play in ceaseless torrents, and there they have wrested from stubborn nature a meager living.
Page 80 - This is the last generation of trout-fishers. The children will not be able to find any. Already there are well trodden paths by every stream in Maine, in New York, and in Michigan. I know of but one river in North .America by the side of which you will find no paper collar or other evidences of civilization.
Page 89 - Body elongate, compressed behind, covered with imbedded scales, •which are linear in form, and placed obliquely, some of them at right angles to others. Lateral line well developed. Head long conical, moderately pointed, the rather small eye well forward and over the angle of the mouth. Teeth small, subequal, in bands on each jaw and a long patch on the vomer. Tongue free at tip. Lips rather full, •with a free margin behind, attached by a frenum in front. Lower...
Page 8 - Lancelots.) Body elongate, compressed, naked, colorless, with no fins, except a rayless fold extending along the back, around the tail, past the vent, to the abdominal pore. Mouth inferior, appearing as a longitudinal fissure, surrounded by conspicuous, rather stiff cirri. Eye rudimentary. Liver reduced to a blind sac of the simple intestine. the greater development of the dorsal fin in the latter. Species four or more, found imbedded in the sand on various coasts. (Cirrostomi...