I was once fishing for white-perch on Gunpowder River, in Maryland, with a companion who happened to lose one of his hooks through a defective snell, which, however, he soon recovered by catching the perch that had stolen it. We were perfectly sure that it was his, as he had tied his hooks himself with a peculiar shade of sewing silk. He then marked the fish by clipping off a portion of one of the spines of the dorsal fin, and returned it to the water, only to be retaken three times, twice by my friend and once by myself. The lips of the perch being then quite ragged from the frequent hooking, it was humanely killed and deposited in the basket. From my experience with both wild and domesticated fish I am quite sure that cold-blooded animals, like fishes and batrachians, are not very sensitive to pain. Owing to the very small brain and the gelatinous character of the spinal marrow of fishes, it is very doubtful if they suffer much, if any, pain from the infliction of so slight an injury as the pricking of a fish-hook. If it were otherwise, I do not think a hooked fish would offer so much resistance and pull so hard upon the hook if it caused much pain. Nor does it seem reasonable that a fish would repeatedly subject itself to the same experience if its mouth felt at all sore, as all experienced anglers know they do, time and again. The mouth and throat of a fish cannot be very sensitive when it is considered that it swallows, whole, such prey as sunfish and catfish fry, bristling with sharp fins and spines, and those of the catfish are always erect, even if swallowed head first. Marine fishes also swallow crabs, lobsters, prawns, besides mollusks, sea-urchins, and other creatures that would be exceedingly irritating and painful to a sensitive throat. [Illustration THE SEA-BASS] [_Centropristes striatus_] [Illustration THE MASCALONGE] [_Esox nobilior_] [Illustration THE PIKE] [_Esox lucius_] THE SEA-BASS (_Centropristes striatus_) The sea-bass is known in various localities as black sea-bass, black will, black harry, hannahills, humpback, and also by names belonging rightly to other well-known fishes, as blackfish, bluefish, and rock-bass. The name sea-bass, however, is in most general use, and is the most distinctive and appropriate. Linnæus described it briefly, in 1758, and named it _striatus_, or "striped." He afterward received specimens from South Carolina, which in 1766 he named _atraria_, or "blackish," but the older name must hold according to the law of priority.