4 Bass, Pike, and Perch 



the specimen, a few of the posterior rays 

 of the fin being detached and broken off, 

 giving the appearance of a short and sepa- 

 rate fin. The specimen was sent to Paris 

 from an unknown locality in America, and is 

 still preserved in the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory at Paris, where I personally examined it. 

 It is a fine example, about a foot in length, and 

 is remarkably well preserved. As there was no 

 known genus to which the specimen with the 

 curious dorsal fin could be referred, Lacepede 

 created the new genus Micropterus. He gave 

 it the specific name dolomieu as a compliment 

 to his friend M. Dolomieu, a French mineralo- 

 gist, for whom the mineral dolomite was also 

 named. 



Originally, the small-mouth black-bass was 

 restricted to the Great Lake region, parts of the 

 Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and along the upper 

 reaches of streams flowing from the Alleghany 

 Mountains in the Southern states. It has, how- 

 ever, been introduced into all of the New Eng- 

 land and Middle states, and into many Western 

 states. It has a compressed, rather elliptical 

 body, the dorsal and ventral outlines being nearly 

 equal ; it becomes deeper with age. 



