152 CORVINA OCELLATA. 



in a deep depression between the four and five ribs that communicate with the general cavity by 

 three or four small and short tubes. The testicles, when empty, are slender, very long, and unite 

 far back into one. The urinary bladder is large, sub-pyriform, and placed rather on the left of the 

 mesial line. 



Habits. The Bass appears with us early in March, and is then small, seldom 

 exceeding twelve or fourteen inches in length ; but as the season advances it is 

 caught of much greater dimensions, especially in November and December, when 

 it is most abundant and of largest size. It feeds on various other fish and on 

 crustaceous animals, as shrimps, &c., and it is taken with the hook, seine, or 

 spear ; it is held in much estimation as food, though I think its flesh wants 

 firmness and flavour. 



Geographical Distribution. This fish inhabits the Atlantic waters from New 

 York to Cape Florida, and thence it ranges along the northern shores of the 

 Gulf of ]\Iexico, and is even found as far west, according to Lesueur, as Lake Pont- 

 chartrain, near New Orleans. 



General Remarks. The Bass was first described by Linnseus, and from a 

 specimen furnished him by Dr. Garden ; he regarded it as a Perch, and applied to 

 it the specific name ocellata, from the black spot surrounded with a light ring on 

 the tail ; a name so appropriate that it has been preserved by all succeeding natu- 

 ralists. Lacepede alone described it under a different specific name, as the Lut- 

 jan triangle ; but then he was not aware that it was the same fish as his Centro- 

 pome oeille, or Perca ocellata of Linnasus, but he regarded it as an undescribed 

 species, and placed it in another genus ; and, by some mistake, he says he found it 

 among the drawings of Commerson, when in fact, according to Cuvier and ^Valen- 

 ciennes, his description was taken from a drawmg of Bosc, done in Carolina, and 

 from a young Bass. 



