4o AMERICAN FISHES. 



sey. In Gill's " Catalogue of the Fishes of the East Coast," and in Storer's 

 "Fishes of Massachusetts," I find the statement that it is known as the 

 "Black Bass." If this was true at any time, the usage has since undergone 

 a very considerable change. The species should be carefully distinguished 

 from the Blackfish of Long Island Sound, which is the tautog, a member 

 of a very different family. 



Under the name Sea Bass, are included two species, so similar in gene- 

 ral appearance that it is scarcely necessary to discriminate between them, — 

 so similar, indeed, that for a score of years after the differences had been 

 pointed out by Holbrook, the Carolina ichthyologist, naturalists refused to 

 believe in their existence.* 



The habits of the two are so similar that they will be treated as one 

 throughout this essay. 



The combined range of the two species embraces the Cape Ann, Massa- 

 chusetts, and the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico. It has not yet been 

 determined where the dividing line in their distribution should be drawn. 

 It is probable, however, that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of Hat- 

 teras, since the atrarius type prevails about Charleston, where indeed Dr. 

 Garden obtained the specimens which he sent to Linnaeus to name and de- 

 scribe. There is doubtless a neutral ground occupied by both species, and 

 the determination of its limits would be a capital subject for some enterpris- 

 ing angler to investigate. 



The extreme southern limit of the Sea Bass appears to be the sandy 

 coast of Texas, where Jordan ascertained that it is rarely if ever seen. 

 Silas Stearns informs us that it is rather abundant in certain rocky locali- 

 ties along the Gulf coast of Florida. In Pensacola Bay it is seen about 

 the piles of stone ballast that lie in shoal water, and also at sea on the 

 fishing grounds near the entrance. It also occurs in St. Andrew's, St. 

 Joseph's, and Apalachicola Bay ; and to the southward, where there is more 

 or less rocky bottom, showing either in reefs or in channel-beds, it is found 

 in abundance. In the vicinity of St. Mark's, Cedar Keys, and St. Mar- 

 tin's Reef are other prolific Bass reefs. 



It has only recently been found to occur north of Cape Cod. Previous 

 to 1878, there were on record only four instances of its occurence east of 

 Nantucket, but in the summer of 1878 several were taken in the Milk Is- 

 land weir, off Gloucester. This weir, which lies on the west side of Milk 



* S. furvus, the northern form, has the air bladder simple, and the pectoral as long as the ventral fin ; S. 

 atrarius, the southern form has the air bladder sacculated, and the pectoral longer than the ventral. 



