154 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



streak; fins plain; forehead, opercles, and predorsal region flushed with 

 red in spring males. Head long, conic, pointed, 3.8 to 4.3 in length, 

 its width 2.3 to 2.6 in its length; interorbital space little convex, 3 to 

 3 . 6 in head; eye smaller than in the last species, 3.2 to 3.6 in head 

 in adults, in which it is distinctly less than the maxillary-; nose 3 to 

 3 . 4 in head ; mouth rather large, oblique, tip of upper lip almost at top of 

 pupil; maxillan' distinctly longer than eye, 2 . 7 to 3 . I in head, reaching 

 vertical from front of orbit; jaws subequal; isthmus less than pupil. 

 Teeth 2, 4-4, 2, the grinding surface slight and present on few teeth; 

 intestine .8 to . 9 of length of head and body ; peritoneum dusted with 

 coarse brown specks. Dorsal fin with 8 rays (occasionally 7), set well be- 

 hind ventrals, so that distance from dorsal to caudal is 74 to 81 per 

 cent, of that from muzzle to dorsal; longest dorsal ray 1.3 to 1.5 in 

 head; anal rays usually 10, sometimes 9 or 11; pectorals scarcely § to 

 ventrals, 1.2 to 1.5 in head; ventrals usually short of vent. Scales 6 

 (or 7), 36-40, 3; rows before dorsal 17 to 21; lateral line decurved ante- 

 riorly. 



The rosy-faced minnow is a bright-colored species which delights 

 in the clear waters of rapid streams. It has been rare in our work, 

 occurring only in the ^Mississippi drainage of the northern third of 

 the state, in the tributaries of the Illinois, the Rock, and the Missis- 

 sippi, and only once from the main stream. It is a species of north- 

 ern distribution, ranging from the lower St. Lawrence and Lake 

 Champlain to the Lake of the Woods, thence southward to the head- 

 waters of the James, through the Ohio Valley to the Alleghany 

 River, and to the tributaries of the Missouri in Kansas and Missouri. 

 In Ohio it is reported by Osburn as occasionally occurring in large 

 schools over clean gravelly places in ripples, the females ready to 

 spawn during the latter part of May — a date which agrees with our 

 own observations in Illinois. The spring males have the head and 

 fore part of the body excessively tuberculate, and there are some- 

 times w^eak tubercles on the same parts of the breeding females 

 also. 



NOTROPIS UMBRATILIS ATRIPES (Jordan) 



(blackfin) 



Jordan, 1878, Bull. 111. St. Lab. Nat. Hist., I. 2, 59 (Lythrurus atripes). 



J. & G., 197 (Minnilus atripes); M. V., 61 (umbratilis) ; J. & E., I, 300, also (?) 301 

 (umbratilis fasciolaris) ; X., 47 (Lythrurus diplaemius) ; J., 59 (Lythrurus 

 atripes and diplaemius); F., 76 (also macrolepidotus) and Bull. 111. St. Lab. Xat. 

 Hist., II. 2, 138 (macrolepidotus); L., 18 (umbratilis). 



Fishes with the dentition and the elongate anal fin of Notropis (e. g., 

 atherinoides and rubrijrons), but with the form of body (deep and com- 

 pressed) of Cyprinella (e. g., N. whipplii) or Montana (AL lutrensis) ; most 

 easily distinguished from the fishes of the first subgenus mentioned 



