304 Percoidea, or Perch-like Fishes 



The black bass is now introduced into the streams of Europe 

 and California. There is little danger that it will work injury 

 to the trout, for the black bass prefers limestone streams, and 

 the trout -rarely does well in waters which do not flow over 

 granite rock or else glacial gravel. 



The large-mouth black bass (Micropterus salmoides) is very 

 much like the other in appearance. The mouth is larger, in 

 the adult cleft beyond the eye; the scales are larger, and in 

 the young there is always a broad black stripe along the sides 

 and no cross-bands. The two are found in the same region, but 

 almost never in the same waters, for the large-mouth bass is a 

 fish of the lakes, ponds, and bayous, always avoiding the swift 

 currents. The young like to hide among weeds or beneath 

 lily-pads. From its preference for sluggish waters, its range 

 extends farther to the southward, as far as the Mexican State 

 of Tamaulipas. 



Plioplarchus is a genus of fossil sunfishes from the Eocene 

 of South Dakota and Oregon. Plioplarchus sexspinosus, sep- 

 temspinosus, and whitei are imperfectly known species. 



The Saleles: Kuhliidae. Much like the sunfishes in anatomy, 

 though more like the white perch in appearance and habit, 

 are the members of the little family of Kuhliida. These are 

 active silvery perches of the tropical seas, ponds, and river- 

 mouths, especially abundant in Polynesia. Kuhlia malo is 

 the aholehole- of the Hawaiians, a silvery fish living in great 

 numbers in brackish waters. Kuhlia rupestris, the salele of the 

 Samoan rivers, is a large swift fish of the rock pools, in form, color, 

 and habits remarkably like the black bass. It is silvery bronze 

 in hue, everywhere mottled with olive-green. The sesele, Kuhlia 

 marginata, lives with it in the rivers, but is less abundant. The 

 saboti, Kuhlia t&niura, a large silvery fish with cross-bands on 

 the caudal fin, lives about lava-rocks in Polynesia from the 

 Galapagos to Samoa and the East Indies, never entering rivers. 

 Still other species are found in the rock pools and streams of 

 Japan and southward. 



The skeleton in Kuhlia is essentially like that of the black 

 bass, and Dr. Boulenger places the genus with the Centrarchidce. 



The True Perches: Percidae. The great family of Percidce 

 includes fresh-water fishes of the northern hemisphere, elon- 



