378 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



The catch of perch from Lake Michigan in 1899 was over 

 three milhon pounds, of which 677,000 pounds came from the 

 lUinois shore. In the lUinois River it is taken in considerable 

 numbers, but mostlj^ by line-fishing. "As a game fish, the 

 yellow perch can be commended chiefly on account of the fact 

 that anybody can catch it. It can be taken with hook and line 

 any month in the year, and with any sort of bait, — grasshoppers, 

 angleworms, grubs, small minnows, pieces of mussel, or pieces 

 of fish; and it will even rise, and freely, too, on occasion, to the 

 artificial fly; * * * It is easily taken through the ice in 

 winter, when small minnows are the best bait." A State 

 Laboratory assistant some years ago made an experiment at 

 simple and inexpensive fishing for the yellow perch from a pier 

 at South Chicago. With a piece of lath for a pole, a line of cotton 

 twine, a small hook, and a bit of pork for his first bait, he caught 

 a single perch, cut this up as bait for others, and within an 

 hour had a string of seventy-five. 



Subfamily ETHEOSTOMINiZE 



THE DARTERS 



The darters have long been a favorite group with students 

 of American fishes. Peculiar to this country,* in which the 

 subfamily has a great development, interesting in their variety, 

 their habits, and their relations to nature, and especially attrac- 

 tive by reason of their graceful forms, their relatively minute 

 size, their brilliant coloration, and the exquisite detail and finish 

 of their structural equipment, they are to the fishes of North 

 America what the hummingbirds are to South American birds. 

 They seem not to be so much dwarfed as concentrated fishes, 

 each embodying in small space all the complexity, spirit, and 

 activity of a perch or a wall-eyed pike. 



As a group, they are most likely to be found in compara- 

 tively swift and rocky streams, being especially adapted to these 

 situations by their small size, their large paired fins, their pointed 

 heads, and their habit of resting on the bottom or, in some cases, 

 of burying themselves in sand, — all of which are means of 

 maintaining themselves in swift currents, and of securing from 

 among and under- stones the insect larvae and crustaceans on 



* Small percoids of Europe belonging to the genus Aspro and found in the Danube are of 

 larger size than the American darters, and are thought by most writers to have been indepen- 

 dently derived from European percoid stock, and not to be genetically related to the American 

 Etheostominoe. 



