LEPOMIS SUXFISHES 247 



It reaches a length of about 10 inches, and is a fair angler's fish, 

 in that respect something like the rock bass. Owing to the char- 

 acter of the water from which it is most frequently taken, its flesh is 

 apt to taste of mud, and it is not abundant enough on commercial 

 fishing grounds to make it a species of any considerable importance. 



Nearly half the food of half a dozen specimens examined by us 

 many years ago was found to consist of fishes, and the remainder of 

 insects — mostly of water-bugs and larvae of May-flies, with which, 

 however, some terrestrial insects were commingled. 



Genus LEPOMIS Rafinesque 



(SUNFISHES) 



Bodv oblong, deep and compressed; operculum ending behind in a 

 convex bony or osseo-membranotis process or flap; preoperculum entire; 

 mouth large or small ; supplemental maxillar}^ developed in large-mouthed 

 forms; teeth on vomer and usually on palatines; none on tongue or ptery- 

 goids; lower phar}mgeal teeth conical, more or less acute, the bones nar- 

 row and weak, flattened or hollowed out underneath, and with the outer 

 margin straight or concave, the width of the toothed portion being 

 about 3 in its length; gill-rakers various, never very long; dorsal spines 

 10; anal spines 3; caudal emarginate. 



Fresh waters of the eastern United States, Canada, and Mexico ; 

 species about 15 ; 8 species found in Illinois. 



The genus Lepomis, as here understood, includes Apomotis of 

 various authors. The forms that have been known under these two 

 names agree in their pharyngeal dentition,* which is remarkably 

 different from that of the genus Enpomotis (see Fig. 64-67). The 

 fact that the opercular flap is usually either entirely black or black 

 with a definite border above, behind, and below, serves as a useful 

 distinction of the species of this genus from the single commonly dis- 

 tributed species of Eupomotis (E. gihhosus) , in which there is always 

 a conspicuous roundish spot of red at the lower posterior corner of 

 the opercular flap. 



The species of this genus and the next constitute the true sun- 

 fishes, as distinguished from the crappies, rock bass, warmouths, and 

 black bass. In the southern half of the state, where the yellow 



*We have not found the "complete gradation in the character of pharyngeals 

 between Lepomis * * * ^^(^ Eupomotis, both as to the width and form of 

 the bones themselves and the form of the teeth" that was described by McKay 

 (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1881, p. 88). (See Richardson, 1904, Bull. III. State Lab. 

 Nat. Hist.. Vol. VII., pp. 27-32.) 



