BIOLOGICAL PAPERS. 177 



A NEW SPECIES OF FISH. 



By F. F. Ceeveccedk, Onaga, Kan. 

 Read (by title) before the Academy, at Topeka, January 2, 1903, 



"VTTHEN the writer first came to Kansas, over thirty years ago, it 

 ' * was one of the principal pastimes of his boyish days to i^lay in 

 the streams in the spring of the year, when they ran nice and clear, 

 and catch and release the small fishes that gathered on the riffles, pre- 

 sumably to spawn. Among these was a pretty little fellow colored 

 with red and blue, and of quite small size compared with the other 

 species frequenting the riffles with him. After a few years, when the 

 country got more thickly settled and more land was brought under 

 cultivation, and the streams after every rain of any consequence ran 

 thick with the soil washed from the fields, and the deeper holes be- 

 came filled with the heavier dirt, the fish was seen no more. Last 

 spring, while collecting small fishes on the riffles on French creek — 

 which flows from Nemaha county into the Vermillion near Onaga — 

 with which to stock a recently finished pond on the writer's place, 

 there was noticed a little fish darting among the stones that had a 

 somewhat familiar look. A specimen was soon caught, and proved to 

 be the fish, or one resembling it, which had so attracted our notice 

 years ago. ( It is well to notice here that, on account of the ab- 

 sence of any heavy rains early last spring, the creek in question was 

 running perfectly clear, so anything swimming about in the shallower 

 parts was easily seen.) As it was quite early yet, it being early in 

 April, the fish did not have the bright colors, which it assumes later 

 in the season, up to about the middle of May. Later on, when they 

 had assumed their bright colors, a number were caught, and an effort 

 was made to identify the species, with the help of David Starr Jordan 

 and Barton Warren Evermann's admirable monograph on the fishes of 

 North America, forming Bulletin No. 47 of the United States National 

 Museum, but it was found that it did not agree with any species de- 

 scribed there, and the conclusion was reached that ours was a new 

 species, and so it was decided to describe it. 



Etheostoma arcus-celestis, n. sp. 

 Total length less than two inches ; usually one and three-fourths to 

 one and seven-eighths inches. Body one and five-eighths inches. 

 Head three and three-fifths in body ; depth four and one-third in 

 body ; eye four and one-half in head. Dorsal fins IX to X, mostly 

 IX-11 ; anal, II-7. In the first dorsal, the third, fourth and fifth 

 spines are the longest ; in the second dorsal, the middle rays are 

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