302 Percoidea, or Perch-like Fishes 



among the most important of American game-fishes, abounding 

 in all clear waters east of the Alleghanies and resisting the evils 

 of civilization far better than the trout. 



The small-mouthed black bass, Micropterus dolomieu, is the 

 most valuable of the species. Its mouth, although large, is 

 relatively small, the cleft not extending beyond the eye. The 

 green coloration is broken in the young by bronze cross-bands. 

 The species frequents only running streams, preferring clear 

 and cold waters, and it extends its range from Canada as far 

 to the southward as such streams can be found. Dr. James A. 

 Henshall, an accomplished angler, author of the " Book of the 

 Black Bass," says: "The black bass is eminently an American 

 fish; he has the faculty of asserting himself and of making 

 himself completely at home wherever placed. He is plucky, 

 game, brave, unyielding to the last when hooked. He has the 

 arrowy rush and vigor of a trout, the untiring strength and 

 bold leap of a salmon, while he has a system of fighting tactics 

 peculiarly his own. I consider him inch for inch and pound 

 for pound the gamest fish that swims." 



In the same vein Charles Hallock writes: "No doubt the 

 bass is the appointed successor of the trout; not through heri- 

 tage, nor selection, nor by interloping, but by foreordination. 

 Truly, it is sad to contemplate, in the not distant future, the 

 extinction of a beautiful race of creatures, whose attributes 

 have been sung by all the poets; but we regard the inevitable 

 with the same calm philosophy with which the astronomer watches 

 the burning out of a world, knowing that it will be succeeded 

 by a new creation. As we mark the soft varitinted flush of 

 the trout disappear in the eventide, behold the sparkle of the 

 coming bass, as he leaps in the morning of his glory ! We hardly 

 know which to admire the most the velvet livery and the 

 charming graces of the departing courtier, or the flash of the 

 armor-plates of the advancing warrior. The bass will unques- 

 tionably prove himself a worthy substitute for his predecessor 

 and a candidate for a full legacy of honors. 



"No doubt, when every one of the older states shall become 

 as densely settled as Great Britain itself, and all the rural aspects 

 of the crowded domain resemble the suburban surroundings 

 of our Boston; when every feature of the pastoral landscape 



