BOLEICIITHYS 315 



Genus BOLEICHTHYS Girard 



Darters separated doubtfully from Etheostoma, from which genus they 

 differ alone in the more noticeable upward flexure* of the lateral line an- 

 teriorly; premaxillaries non-protractile, as in Etheostoma, and cranium 

 Q-shaped, as in that genus; vertebrae {B. fusiformis) 36 (16 + 20); pyloric 

 caeca 4f. Species few and variable; size small; colors not brilliant. 



Fig. 75 

 BOLEICHTHYS FUSIFORMIS (Girard) 



(Map XCVIII) 



Girard, 1854, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 41 (Boleosoma). 



J. & G., 519 (Poecilichthys barratti), 520 (P. fusiformis, P. erochrous and P. eos), 

 521 (P. gracilis); M. V., 134 (Etheostoma); B., I, 75 (Etheostoma); J. & E., I, 

 1101; N., 34 (exilis, eos, etc.); J., 42 (eos), 43 (elegans); F., 64 (Etheostoma eos 

 and fusiforme); L., 29. 



Length 2 to 23^ inches; body moderately elongate, compressed, the back 

 more or less elevated; depth 5.8 to 7.1 in length; greatest width of body about 

 % its greatest depth; caudal peduncle rather slender, its depth 2.9 to 3.3 (3.8) 

 in its length. Color (in preservative) olivaceous, much blotched and dotted 

 with brown, the dark color often in more or less definite W- and X-shaped 

 markings, though more often in vaguely defined zigzag streaks and rusty 

 splotches; a black band in front of eye on snout and a dark blotch behind 

 eye; suborbital streak faint; spinous faintly dusky in membranes near base; 

 soft dorsal and caudal faintly barred. Males are in general darker, with 

 usually 9 or 10 transverse bars of dusky on sides in breeding season; basal 

 third of membranes of spinous dorsal jet-black, and the fin edged with dusky; 

 between these bands on spinous dorsal a row of elongate-roundish pale 

 blotches (crimsont in life). Head 3.5 to 4.1 in length, bluntly pointed, the 

 muzzle somewhat decurved; nape scarcely angled, if at all; interorbital space 

 5.5 to 6.9 in head; eye round, 3.5 to 4; nose 4.3 to 5.2; mouth subterminal, 

 slightly oblique, tip of upper lip scarcely to lower margin of orbit; maxillary 

 past front of orbit; cleft 3.1 to 3.8 in head; jaws subequal; gill-membranes 

 scarcely connected, distances to angle and to back of orbit about equal. 



* See preceding description of Etheostoma jessioe; also description of B. fusiformis. 

 f In 3 specimens (Accessions No. 28075, 111. State Lab. Nat. Hist.). 



1 "Spinous dorsal in life usually bright blue, with a median crimson band" (Jordan and 

 Evermann). 



