ETHEOSTOMA 313 



3.3; gill-membranes scarcely connected*, distances to angle and to back 

 of orbit equal. Dorsal fin usually VIII or IX, 12-14 (sometimes VII or 

 X) ; two portions as a rule scarcely separated at base, sometimes apart 

 a distance equal to about § of eye; first dorsal very low, its height 48 to 

 64 per cent, of second; (first 2.6 to 3.7 in head, second 1 . 8 to 2.1); 

 caudal rounded; anal II, 6 or 7; pectorals 1.15 to 1 .27 in head; sepa- 

 ration of ventrals about half their width at base. Scales 6-8, 44-57, 

 7-8 [10-13]; lateral line nearly straight, from 5 to 15 pores usually lack- 

 ing; cheeks and opercles with more or less closely embedded scales; nape 

 as a rule scaled; breast naked or wholly or partly covered with embed- 

 ded scales; belly covered with ordinary scales. 



Taken by us in ten collections, from eight localities, all but two 

 from southern Illinois, south of the Saline River, the exceptions 

 coming from Robinson creek a branch of the Kaskaskia in Shelby 

 county, and from the Little Wabash River near Carmi, in White 

 county. It is distinctly a southern species, reported from Georgia 

 and Florida to southern Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the 

 Black Warrior River in Alabama. It is, like obeyense, a species of 

 swift clear creeks with a bottom of rock or gravel. 



ETHEOSTOMA FLABELLARE Rafinesque 

 (fan-tailed darter) 



Rafinesque, 1819, Journ. de Physique, 419. 



J. & G., 513; M. v., 131; B., I, 86; J. & E., I, 1097; X.. 34 (Poecilichthys flabellatus 

 and P. lineolatus); J., 42; F., 64; F. F., 1.3, 24; L., 29. 



Length 2 to 2 5 inches ; body rather slender, compressed, back low, caudal 

 peduncle deep ; depth 4 . 6 to 6 . 8 in length ; greatest width of body about | 

 its greatest depth ; depth caudal peduncle 1 . 8 to 2 . 4, usually less than 2 , in 

 its length . Color (in preservative) rather dark, with small dark specks and 

 faint cross-bars; each scale of back and sides with a central dark spot, the 

 longitudinal rows formed by these most prominent in females and in the 

 so-called variety /w^o/a^Mwf ; a rather large and very black humeral spot; 

 a dark streak across opercles and through eye to end of snout ; suborbital 

 streak faint or wanting; cheeks and opercles dusted with minute brown 

 specks; males with head and upper parts dark bluish black and with 10 

 or 12 cross-bars of same color on sides, traces of these bars in females; 

 second dorsal and caudal fins finely barred; pectorals faintly barred, 

 other fins plain ; spines of first dorsal in breeding males ending in fleshy 

 pads or knobs of rust-red color, and body and fins all more or less dusky. 

 Head rather long, slender, depressed, 3 .6 to 4.2 in length; a distinct but 

 not deep angle at nape, from which profile is almost straight to tip of 

 snout, which is somewhat upturned, especially in males; interorbital 



*" Rather broadly connected" (Jordan and Evermann, 1. c). 



'\E. flabellare lineolaiuni {Aga.ssiz) , Jordan and Evermann, 1896, Bull. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., No. 47, Pt. I., p. 1098. 



