156 riSHIS OF ILLINOIS 



taken by us 208 times, from 136 Illinois localities. Outside the 

 state it is distributed far and wide, from the Great Lakes and 

 the smaller lakes of New York to the Roanoke River on the 

 Atlantic coast and to the Tombigbee in Alabama, and westward 

 through the Ohio Valley to the Arkansas and the tributaries of 

 the Missouri in Kansas and Missouri. Notwithstanding this 

 wide-spread general occurrence, its distribution in this state is 

 somewhat peculiar, as shown by the fact that, although we have 

 collected it throughout the state, our records of its occurrence 

 are several times more numerous from the eastern half of Illinois 

 than from the western. It is one of the species which enters 

 freely the lower Illinoisan glaciation, and is, indeed, much more 

 abundant southward than in the northern parts of the state. Its 

 area of greatest proportionate abundance in our collections is that 

 containing the Big Muddy, the tributaries of the Wabash, and 

 the small rivers and creeks of extreme southern Illinois. 



Females bursting with eggs have been taken about the 

 first of June, together with spring males with heads profusely 

 covered with small tubercles of a peculiar whitish tint. Tuber- 

 culate males have occurred, indeed, in our collections from the 

 middle of Maj^ to August 1. 



Genus ERICYMBA Cope 



Body elongate, little compressed; muzzle broad; interorbitals, suborbi- 

 tals, and dentaries containing greatly developed mucus channels, which 

 appear externally as distinct transverse vitreous streaks; no barbel; premaxil- 

 laries protractile; teeth 1, 4-4, 1 or 4-4, without grinding surface, hooked; 

 intestine short; peritoneum silvery; dorsal rays 8; anal 8; scales about 35; 

 lateral line continuous. Size small. One species known. 



ERICYMBA BUCCATA Cope 



SILVER-MOUTHED MINNOW. 

 (Map XLVI) 



Cope, 1865, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 88. 



G., VII, 185; J. & G., 204; M. V., 62; J. & E., I, 302; N., 45; J., 61; F., 76; L., 18. 



Small, pale silvery to straw-colored fishes with an elongate and de- 

 curved snout, sufficiently distinguished from all other Illinois CyprinidoB by 

 the externally visible mucus channels in the infraorbital and lower jaw-bones. 

 Length 3 to 4 inches; body fusiform, rather elongate and Httle compressed, 

 and the back not much elevated; profile not angled at nape, being a gentle 

 convex curve from base of dorsal to tip of snout; depth 4.1 to 5.2 in length; 



