982 Bulletin 47, United States National Museum. 



broadly united, free from isthmus; gill rakers tubercle-like. Lower 

 pharyngeals narrow, separate, with sharp teeth. Bvanchiostegals appar- 

 ently 5. Lateral line obsolete. Vent normal. Dorsal tin single, small, 

 with 4 or 5 spines ; anal with 3 spines ; venti'als thoracic, I, 5 ; caudal 

 rounded. Pseudobranchia! small, glandular, covered by the skin. No 

 pyloric cwca. Posterior processes of premaxillaries extending to the 

 frontals, the latter smooth ; parietal and supraoccipital crests not pro- 

 duced on the frontals. Vertebra? 10 + 14 or 15 = 24 or 25. Two species 

 known; very singular little fishes, among the very smallest known, 

 inhabiting the swamps of the southern United States, intermediate 

 between the Aphredoderidw and Centrarchida'. Like Fercopsis, Unihra, 

 Aphrvdoderus, DaJlia, Chologaster, etc., the Elassomidw constitute a relic of 

 a very ancient fauna. Dr. Boulenger places Elassoma among the Centrar- 

 chida^, an arrangement to which we see no serious objection. Elassoma, as 

 Dr. Boulenger suggests, is a dwarfed suufish, bearing much the same 

 relation to the others that the darters bear to the perch. {Elassomidw, 

 Jordan & Gilbert, Synopsis, 461, 1883.) 



449. ELASSOMA, Jordan. 



Elassoma, Jordan, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., x, 50, 1877, (Mnata). 



Characters of the genus included above. {'Maauua, a diminution.) 



a. Scales moderate, 38 to 45 in a longitudinal series. zonatum, 1379. 



aa. Scales very large, 27 to 30 in longitudinal series. kvergladei, 1380. 



1379. ELASSO.MA ZONATUM, Jordan. 



Head 3 ; depth 3i; eye large, "3 in head. D. IV, 10, or V, 9 ; A. Ill, 5; 

 B. 5 ; scales 38 to 42-19. Body oblong, compressed, the nape rather broad 

 and depressed ; head narrowed forward. Mouth small, oblique, the max- 

 illary scarcely reaching pupil. Teeth in jaws stout, conical, slightly 

 curved, directed forward in 2 or 3 rows. Color olive green, everywhere 

 finely punctulate ; sides with about 11 parallel vertical bands of dark 

 olive, about equal in width, narrower than the eye, about as wide as the 

 pale interspaces ; a conspicuous roundish black spot, nearly as large as 

 the eye, on the sides just above the axis of the body, under the beginning 

 of the dorsal ; soft fins faintly barred ; a blackish bar at base of cau- 

 dal. Length li inches. One of the smallest of our spinous-rayed fishes, 

 inhabiting sluggish streams and bayous from Southern Illinois to Texas, 

 Louisiana, and Alabama; not very common and only in still waters of 

 small extent. Variable, 'zonaius, banded.) 



Elassoma zonala, Jobdan, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., x, ,50, 1877, Little Red River, Judsonia, 



White County, Arkansas. (Coll. Prof. Henry S. Keynolds). 

 Elassoma ::oualinii, Jordan & Gilbert, Synopsis 461, 1883; Boulenger, Catalogue of Fishes in 



the British Museum, i, 34, 1895. 



1380. ELASSOMA EVERGLADEI, Jordan. 



Head 3^- ; depth 3i : eye 3 in head. D. IV, 9 (III, 8 to IV, 9) ; A. Ill, 

 5, (to III, 7) ; scales 28-13 or 14. Body more elongate and less compressed 



