Child Classics (Volume 4) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1909. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... JOHNNY DARTER By David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan, one of the greatest scientists in America, was born in Gainesville, New York, in 1851. He was a pupil of Agassiz, the famous naturalist. He served on the United States Fish Commission for fourteen years, was professor of zoology at Indiana University, and later president there, and in 1891 was made president of Leland Stanford Junior University, in Palo Alto, California. Any one who has ever been a boy and can remember back to the days of tag-alders, yellow cowslips, and an angleworm on a pin-hook, will recall an experience like this: You tried some time to put your finger on a little fish that was lying, apparently asleep, on the bottom of the stream, half hidden under a stone or a leaf, his tail bent around the stone as if for support against the force of the current. You will remember that when your finger came near the spot where he was lying, the bent tail was straightened, and you saw the fish again resting, head up-stream, a few feet away, leaving you puzzled to know whether you had seen the movement or not. You were trying to catch a Johnny Darter. Nothing seems easier, but you did not do it. In all clear streams from Maine to Mexico the Johnny Darters are found; and the boy who does not know them has missed one of the real pleasures of a boy's life. All of them are very little fishes, --some not more than two inches long, and the very largest but six or eight. But small though they are, they are the most interesting in habits, the most graceful in form, and many of them the most brilliant in color of all fresh-water fishes. The books call them "Darters," for one of the first species known was named in Greek "dart body,"--a name most appropriate to them all. The boys call them "Johnnies." Ce...