THE FOOD AND GAME FISHES OF NEW YORK. 41 1 



fessor John A. Ryder, the egg of the White Perch is very adhesive, and on this 

 account is troublesome to hatch artificially. In the experiments made by him the 

 eggs were taken upon cotton yarn, which was drawn up through a funnel into which 

 the eggs and milt had been squeezed from the spawning fish. The cord, covered 

 with the adhering eggs, was then wrapped upon a wooden reel and sent under cover 

 of damp cloths to the central station, where they arrived in fine condition, almost 

 every egg being impregnated. This system was devised and carried out under the 

 superintendence of Col. M. McDonald. After reaching the central station the cotton 

 cord with the adhering eggs was cut into lengths of 10 or 12 inches and suspended 

 in the glass hatching jars. The development was soon interfered with by the growth 

 of fungus. When the wooden reel with the adhering eggs was introduced into a 

 wide aquarium fungus also attacked the eggs as before but the results were some- 

 wliat more favorable. With the water at 58° to 60° F. the eggs hatched out in 6 

 days. 



The White Perch congregates in large schools and is one of the freest biters 

 among fishes. The shrimp is one of the best baits, though worms, sturgeon eggs, 

 Minnows and strips of cut fish with silvery skin are equally effective. Dr. Abbott 

 has known as many as 20 dozen to be taken with a line in a few hours, and Spangler 

 mentions catches of si.x or seven hundred in a day by two rods, the fish ranging in 

 weight from ^ to i^^^ pounds. 



Eugene Smith, on several occasions, found a long, green, brackish-water alga 

 {Entcromorplia) in stomachs of White Perch, indicating that they sometimes eat 

 vegetable matter, though perhaps only for the minute organisms found upon it. 



In captivity the fish is very susceptible to fungus attacks, but the parasite is 

 readily killed by changing the water supply from salt to fresh, or vice versa. 



114. Sea BaSS ; Black Fish (Ccntropristcs striatus Linnreus). 



Perca varia ]\Iitchill, Rept. Fish. N. Y., 1 1, 1814 ; Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y., I, 415, 



pi. 3, fig. 6, 1815, New York. 

 Centropristes nigricans DeKay, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 24, pi. 2, fig. 6, 1842; Bean, 19th 



Rept. Comm. Fish. N. Y., 266, pi. XVII, fig. 21, 1890. 

 Ccii/npiistfs st-riattis ]o-RD\-ti & Eigenmann, Bull. U. S. V. C, VIII, 391, pi. 64, 1890; 



Jordan & Evermann, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1199, 1896, pi. CXC, fig. 500, 



1900; Bean, Bull. .A.m. Mus. Nat. Hist., IX, 366, 1897; H. M. Smith, Bull. U. S. F. 



C, 1897, 100, 1898; Bean, 52d Ann. Rept. N. Y. State Mus., 105, 1900. 



Dusky brown or black, adults often bluish, more or less mottled, with traces of 

 pale longitudinal streaks along the rows of scales; young greenish, often with a dark 



