The I/O Package - The Java Programming Language - page 739

Figure 20-1. Type Tree for Byte Streams in
java.io
All byte streams have some things in common. For example, all streams
support the notion of being open or closed. You open a stream when
you create it, and can read or write while it is open. You close a stream
with its close method, defined in the Closeable [1] interface. Closing a
stream releases resources (such as file descriptors) that the stream may
have used and that should be reclaimed as soon as they are no longer