Percoidea, or Perch-like Fishes 297 



is oblong and compressed, the color is dull green crossed by 

 black bars or blotches. 



The Sunfishes: Centrarchidae. The large family of Centrar- 

 chid&, or sunfishes, is especially characteristic of the rivers of 

 the eastern United States, where the various species are 

 inordinately abundant. The body is relatively short and 

 deep, and the axis passes through the middle so that the back 

 has much the same outline as the belly. The pseudobranchiae 

 are imperfect, as in many fresh-water fishes, and the head is 

 feebly armed, the bones being usually without spines or serra- 

 tures. The colors are often brilliant, the sexes alike, and all 

 are carnivorous, voracious, and gamy, being excellent as food. 

 The origin of the group is probably Asiatic, the fresh- water 

 serranoid of Japan, Bryttosus, resembling in many ways an 

 American sunfish, and the genus Kuhlia of the Pacific showing 

 many homologies with the black bass, Micropterus. 



FIG. 231. Crappie, Pomoxis annularis Rafinesque. Ohio River. 



Crappies and Rock Bass. Pomoxis annularis, the crappie, 

 and Pomoxis sparoides, the calico-bass, are handsome fishes, 

 valued by the angler. These are perhaps the most prim- 

 itive of the family, and in these species the anal fin is 

 larger than the dorsal. The flier, or round bass, Centrarchus 

 macropterus, with eight anal spines, is abundant in swamps 

 and lowland ponds of the Southern States. It is a pretty fish, 

 attractive in the aquarium. Acantharchus pomotis is the 

 mud-bass of the Delaware, and Archoplites interruptus, the 



