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Seattle Star's
“ M A R V E L O U S   C R I T T E R S   O F   P U G E T   S O U N D ”
(  H Y P E R T E X T   E D I T I O N  )
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    You will be able to locate many salvager suckers, opium-pipe fish, gushington slimebacks and cable croppies, but the motor-cop carp have almost annihilated the speedsimp suckers, and unless the city hastens to get one there will be a vacancy in the proposed aquarium for piscatorial rarities. I enclose a sketch of the speedsimp made by my son, who spends much of his time with a water glass watching the antics of the fish.
    The speedsimp suckers are equipped with a horn-like snout which, instead of being an alarm sounder, as it appears in the sketch, is a sort of funnel, through which the fish sucks Its food. That fine array of teeth is for show, an the fish really is without a mouth. Between these—shall I say false teeth—the water passes to the gills. The sucker’s favorite pastime is to race from one end of the sound to the other at top speed, endangering life and fin of the walker perch and mutt dabs. Many of these smaller fish may be found in a maimed condition as the result of the speedsimp’s lack of consideration for the little fellows.
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          Yours for that aquarium,
                              U. B. BLUBUB.
                    Fifth Av. West and Pike St.
NOTE—Kindly have your son send us a picture of the mutt dabs, with detailed description.—(Editor.)
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• • • •
    Editor The Star: I have been taking your paper nigh on to ten years, and have been taking a great interest in your articles on the fish.
    The cable-cleaning croppie is sure some fish, and so is the opium-pipe fish, but I know a fish that has them all beat so far that you could not have them for the dust. Us folks over on Salmon bay call it the rust-eating perch.
    You may think this is a fish yarn, but ’tain't. I have two of them in captivity, and I have been making a good living off them. All the boys along the water front tote their anchor chains up to where I keep the fish corralled, and I “sick” my fish onto the chains, and the way they eat up the rust is a crime to civilization. The other day a fellow brought up his ingersoll watch, which he had dropped overboard. The darn thing had about six inches of rust on it. My fish lit into that rust, and before you could say Jack Robinson the watch looked better than when it came out of the store.
    Well, as I got to go and feed the fish, I will have to close.
    —V. RACITEE.
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