486 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



water. In the aquarium, according to Eugene Smith, the com- 

 mon sunfish by incessant attacks often kills associates of many 

 kinds. It is a very gamy fish, common everywhere and is usually 

 found in the company of shiners, minnows and killies. In 

 quarry ponds, of the Palisades, says the same author, the fish 

 will thrive and multiply as freely as the goldfish, provided there 

 is water enough throughout the year. 



Genus MICROPTERTJS Lace'pede 



Body oblong, compressed, the back not much elevated; head 

 oblong, conical; mouth very large, oblique, the broad maxillary 

 reaching nearly to or beyond the posterior margin of the eye, 

 its supplemental bone well developed; lower jaw prominent- 

 teeth on jaws, vomer and palatines in broad villiform bands,, 

 the inner depressible, usually no teeth on the tongue; preopercle 

 entire; operculum ending in two flat points without cartilagin- 

 ous flap; branchiostegals normally six; gill rakers long and 

 slender; scales rather small, weakly ctenoid; lateral line com- 

 plete, the tubes straight, occupying the anterior half of each 

 scale; dorsal fin divided by a deep notch, the spines low and 

 rather feeble, 10 in number; anal spines three, the anal fin much 

 smaller than the dorsal; pectorals obtusely pointed, the upper 

 rays longest; ventrals close together below the pectorals; caudal 

 fin emarginate; posterior processes of the premaxillaries not 

 extending to the f rentals; frontals posteriorly with a transverse 

 ridge connecting the parietal and supraoccipital crests, which 

 are very strong; vertebrae 16+16 or 17=32 or 33. Size large. 

 Two species, among the most important of American " game " 



fishes. 



241 Micropterus dolomieu Lace'pexle 



Small Mouthed Black Bass 



Micropterus dolomieu LACEPEDE, Hist. Nat. Poiss. IV, 325, 1802; JORDAN & 

 GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 485, 1S83; MATHER, App. 12th Kept. 

 Adirondack Surv. N. Y. 5, 1SSG; MEEK, Ann. N. Y. Ac. Sci. IV, 

 313, 1888; BEAN, Fishes Penna. 116, color pi. 11, 1893; EVERMANN & 

 KENDALL, Kept. U. S. F. C. for 1894, 600, 1896; JORDAN & EVERMANN, 

 Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. 1011, 1896, pi. CLXII, figs. 430, 430a, 1900;. 

 BEAN, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. IX, 364, 1897; MEARNS, id. X, 320, 

 1898; EUGENE SMITH, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. Y. 1897, 35, 1898. 



