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
