Animals of the 3fississippi Bottoms near Qiiinri/. 135 



placed among river fishes as far as fitness for life in the river 

 is concerned. Such species as Hyhopsis amhhps, Notropis 

 atherinoides, N. Je/u)i.iis, and Hyhoanatlms niichalis, though oc- 

 curring in small streams, generally prove abundant in our 

 rivers, and are certainly perfectly at home there. 



I have considered as pond and slough fishes, such as the 

 bull pouts, the top minnows, the two pickerels, the two crop- 

 pies, the several species of sunfishes, the large-mouthed black 

 bass, and the ringed perch. The members of this group were 

 commoner in the sloughs than were those of the preceding 

 group, but were not as abundant in species or individuals as 

 the next. In the lakes and sloughs outside the levee, probably 

 these pond fishes did not constitute more than one fifth of the 

 individuals taken ; but inside the levee they composed one half 

 of those taken in all situations. Some of them were evidently 

 breeding in these protected waters, and I do not think any 

 member of the group was doing so in the sloughs of the lower 

 bottom-land. 



The third and largest group includes river fishes, such as 

 gars, dogfish, channel cat, morgan cat, shovel fish, buffalo, carp, 

 several minnows, the Ohio shad, pike, perch, striped bass, white 

 bass, red-spotted sunfish, and the white perch ( Aplodinotus. ) 

 These fishes must have constituted in the neighborhood of four 

 fifths of the individuals in the sloughs and lakes outside the 

 levee. A number of them, notably the hickory shad and the 

 red-mouthed buffalo, occurred there in prodigious numbers. 

 As a rule, these species became gradually less and less common 

 as one went north and away from the river, and accompanying 

 this diminution in the numbers of river fishes was a gradual 

 increase in the numbers of pond fishes. There was, in fact, an 

 overlapping of the two groups in the bottom-land, the river 

 fishes being most abundant in the sloughs near the river, and 

 the pond fishes, within the levee and to the northward. Still, 

 several river fishes were very common inside the levee. Evi- 

 dently not all of the river fishes taken in the sloughs breed 

 there. Such species as the morgan catfish (Leptops), the 

 shovel fish, the minnows, and the red-spotted sunfish {Lepomis 

 humilis) had probably wandered here from the river during 

 high water and had been confined when the water became low- 



