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 order! Well, in the interest of the rays, I do not advise you to put them in the same tank.”

“Thirdly,” said Conseil, “the sturiones, whose gills are open, as usual in fishes, but with a single aperture, provided with an operculum. This order includes four genera; type, the sturgeon.”

“Ah, friend Conseil, you have kept the best to the last—in my opinion, at least. Is that all?”

“Yes, my brave Ned; and you may as well note, that when you know all this you know nothing at all; for the families are divided into genus, sub-genus, species, and varieties.”

“Well, friend Conseil,” said Ned, leaning against the glass, “look at the varieties passing.”

“Yes; one could almost believe oneself in an aquarium.”

“No,” I said, “for an aquarium is a cage, and those fish are as free as a bird in the air.”

“Come, now, name them, Conseil; name them,” cried Ned Land.

“I,” he replied; “I am not equal to that. You must ask my master.”

In fact, Conseil, though an excellent classifier, was nothing of a naturalist; and I do not think he could tell the difference between a tunny and a bonito. He was just the opposite of the Canadian, who could name the fish without hesitation.

“A balista,” I had said.

“And a Chinese balista,” added Ned.

“Genus balista; family sclerodermes; order plectognathes,” murmured Conseil.

The Canadian had not been mistaken. A shoal of