]^0 POMOTIS RUBRICAUDA. 



fectly as a whole. The specific name vulgaris was first applied to this animal 

 by Cuvier, and it is here retained, because I do not believe that this fish is the 

 Labrus aiiritus of Linneeus ; nor is it possible at this time to determine the an- 

 imal on which he imposed this name in the tenth edition of the Systema Natune, 

 in which it first appears, for his description is short, — his sole reference is to the 

 Museum of De Geer, — and his " habitat " Pennsylvania. The Labrus auritiis of the 

 twelfth edition is a difierent animal, for here the " opercula apice membranaceo, 

 elongato nigro," first appears ; and this description may possibly apply to one of 

 the two succeeding species, for in 1772, four years before the publication of that 

 work, Dr. Garden sent the Swedish naturalist, among other things, the dried skins 

 of two fishes, " Fresh-Avater Eed-bellied Trout " and " Fresh-water Bream." Now 

 each of these has a black, elongated, fleshy auricular appendage, which exists in none 

 other of our fishes. Linneeus, however, receiving these fishes from the very scene 

 of Catesby's labours, refers to the plate " Perca fluviatilis gibbosa," &c. of that au- 

 thor, not with certainty, but with doubt, and in his description he does not speak 

 of the red spot at the opercle which Catesby says " distinguishes his fish from all 

 others " ; so it appears to me certain that the specific name aiiritus was not applied 

 to the animal now under consideration, but to some other at present unknown. 



POMOTIS EUBPJCAUDA. — Storer. 



Plate II. Fig. 2. 



Specific Characters. Body dusky above ; sides and belly red ; appendix to the 

 opercle very long ; black, bordered above and below with pale greenish-blue. 

 D. 10-11. P. 12. V. 1-5. A. 3-10. C. 17. 



Synonymes. Pomotis rubricauda, Storer, Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 177. 

 Pomotis appendix, Storer, Synops., p. 42. 

 Red-bellied Perch, Vulgo. 



Description. This fish is of an ovoidal form, but more elongated and less 

 arched than Pomotis vulgaris. The head is large, broad, and rather prominent 



