290 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



rather wide. The body is covered with rather large cycloid 

 scales, and the head is almost entirely scaled. D. 14; A. 8. 

 Scales eight or nine in a transverse series, 35 from head to tail. 



Color dark green, more or less mottled (in spirits brownish); 

 sides with a dozen pale longitudinal streaks, regularly ar- 

 ranged; a darker stripe through eye; black bar at base of tail, 

 which is present in very young examples as well as in the adult. 



The eastern mud minnow is found from New York to South 

 Carolina in Atlantic streams. According to Prof. Cope it is 

 very common near Philadelphia. De Kay had very small indi- 

 viduals from brooks near Tappan, Rockland co. N. Y. Dr Theo- 

 dore Gill collected specimens in the same county in 1855. 



The species grows to a length of about 5 inches, and is well 

 adapted for aquarium life, but has no other value except as food 

 for larger fishes. Its habits are similar to those of the species 

 last described. 



The body is stouter than in T ni b i a 1 i iii i ; Ihc licad is 

 broader, less flattened on top. with a larger eye, shorter snout 

 and the profile more convex. 



The dogfish is a most peculiar fish, Jis voracious as a pike and 

 as tough-lived as a catfish. It requires but little water and 

 can often be dug from the moist mud of ditches the water of 

 which has evaporated. None may be found in a stream, but 

 the puddles and muskrat holes alongside may be full of them. 

 It is a good deal of an air-breather, rising 1o the surface to gulp 

 in air and then descending again, in the fashion of the paradise 

 fish. In the aquarium it is \erj hardy and apt to annoy other 

 species by driving them around and attacking their fins. When 

 exposed to the air in freezing weather, it succumbs almost 

 instantly, also when i)ut into water containing much lime; on 

 the other hand, hot weather does not in the least trouble it, 

 except that it gets its supply of air more frequently. 



In movement it is very erratic, now dashing about as if mad, 

 again standing perfectly motionless in the water, only moving 

 the pectorals and ventrals '' like a dog, running," again only 

 moving pectorals and the rear part of the dorsal or the latter 



