THE SUNFISHES 



line. There are three bronze bands radiating 

 from the eye, across the cheeks and gill-covers ; 

 the belly is white, although in some waters it has 

 a pepper-and-salt appearance ; there is a dusty spot 

 on the gill-cover, and in the young fish the dorsal 

 fin has bronze spots upon it ; the caudal fin is 

 yellowish at its base, then black with white tips. 

 In some waters, this coloration of the fins is not 

 present on the adult fish, and in southern waters 

 the mature fish is uniformly of a dead-green 

 color without silvery lustre. 



The large-mouthed is of dark-green color above, 

 and greenish silvery below. In the young there is 

 a blackish stripe along the sides, from gill-cover to 

 base of caudal fin, and three dark oblique stripes 

 across .the cheeks and gill-covers, and below and 

 above the lateral band are dark spots ; the belly 

 is whitish, but, " as the fish grows older, the black 

 lateral band breaks up and grows fainter, and the 

 color becomes more and more of a uniform pale 

 green, the back becoming darker." The techni- 

 cal specific name of the large-mouthed is salmoides, 

 a combination of Latin and Greek, and, translated 

 literally, means " trout-like," a physical misnomer, 

 as it has no resemblance to the trout, except in its 

 gameness as a fighter when on the hook. 



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