Page:Handbook for Boys.djvu/127

1O6 endeavor to secure for the fishes fair consideration and treatment.

Classes of Fish

Fishes may be roughly classified as (1) fresh water, (2) migratory between fresh and salt water, and (3) marine. Among the families of American fresh-water fishes that are conspicuous on account of their size, abundance, or economic importance, or all of these, there may be mentioned the sturgeons, the catfishes, the suckers, the minnows or carps, the pikes, the killifishes, the trouts, salmons, and white-fishes, the perches, and the basses, and sun fishes.

Migratory Fish The migratory fishes fall into two groups, the anadromous and the catadromous. The anadromous fishes pass most of their lives in the sea, run up stream only for the purpose of spawning, and constitute the most valuable of our river fishes. In this group are the shads and the alewives or river herrings, the white perch, the striped bass or rock fish, some