524 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGT IV. 
spiliy-rayed fishes, and in many systems it has been placed first in the 
series of fishes. Perea, the ancient name of P. Jluviatills, from 
-ipy.o^, dusky.) 
S26. IPo sifBSCB’BCSlslJl Sclirauck. — Yelloiv Perch; American Perch ; Pinged Perch. 
Back dark olivaceous; sides golden yellow; belly pale; sides with 6 
or 8 broad dark bars, which extend from the back to below the axis of 
the body ; lower fins largely red or orange ; upper fins olivaceous ; usually 
no distinct black spot on anterior or posterior part of sinnous dorsal. 
Back highest at origin of spinous dorsal, wliich is more or less behind 
insertion of pectoral ; profile convex from dorsal to occiput, thence con- 
cave, anteriorly, the snout projecting. Mouth somewhat obli(]ue, max- 
illary reaching opposite middle of orbit. Cheeks closely scaled through- 
out, the scales imbricated ; opercular striie and rugosities on top of head 
well marked. Pseudobranehiie quite small. Gill-rakers stout, short- 
ish. Dead in length ; depth 3:^. D. XIII-I, 14; A. II, 7 ; scales 5- 
55-17. Fresh waters of the Eastern United States; chiefiy northward 
and eastward ; abundant. 
This species has been recently considered as a slight variety of the 
European Perea JluviatiUs. It is, however, distinguished by the follow- 
ing characters : The head in P. americaria is rougher, the operele more 
strongly striate, the bones generally with finer and more numerous serr;e ; 
the preorbital is serrate, the scales on the cheeks are larger, imbricated 
and distinctly ctenoid ; the maxillary extends to opposite the middle of 
the pupil. The gill-rakers are stout, the longest but three times as high 
as broad. The pseudobranchiie are much smaller than in P. fluviatilis. 
First s])ine of the dorsal over or behind the posterior edge of the operele, 
a series of scales downward from it reaching about to base of pectoral. 
In P. fluviatilifi the dorsal is further forward, and the anterior spines are 
considerably higlier than in P. americana. The scales are usually larger 
in the American species, the dark bars are more sharply defined, and the 
black spot oil the membrane of the last dorsal spines, well defined in P. 
JfuviafiU.s, is usually wanting. The most important characters, the dif- 
ference in the insertion of the dorsal, and in the gill-rakers and jiseudo- 
branchia', have not been noticed bj" those writers who have decided 
that our species is identical with the European. 
(Perea americana Sclirauck, about 1790, fide Gill: Bodiantis jlaresecnn Mitch. Trans. 
Lit. & Pliil.Soc. N. Y. 1815, 421: Perea flarescens Holbrook, Iclith. S. C. 1800, 2: Perea 
Jlarcscens, acuta, and r/racihs Giiiither, i, 59-00: Perea JiuvialiJis var. Steiudachuer, 
Sitzungsber. Wiener Akad. 1878.) 
