THE BASS, BREAMS, AND RED MULLET 115 



rarely show the brown tints, being a bright sea-green, and 

 are more silvery than the adult, being spotted in their early 

 months of full development. Willoughby had drawn atten- 

 tion to this spotted character in the young, and was wrongly 

 corrected by Couch, who seems, curiously enough for one 

 with so many opportunities of seeing young bass in the 

 Cornish seine nets, to have overlooked that phase. The 

 spotted or striped condition of young animals in contrast with 

 their elders is common enough among fishes {e.g. cod, allis 

 shad, etc.). It is even found in other classes of animals and 

 may have ancestral significance. Even in the full-grown stage 

 the bass retains a single large dark spot on the gill-covers. 

 Its front dorsal fin has nine spines (as against twelve or 

 fourteen in the perch), and is carried by the fish like that 

 of the river perch, though lacking its red tints. There are 

 also sharp spines before the other fins and on the gill-covers, 

 which make the bass a difficult fish to handle. The greatest 

 weight to which the fish grows is probably about 24 lb., 

 but larger bass seem scarce of late years, possibly owing to the 

 increased popularity of sea fishing for sport, and the conse- 

 quent attention now given to the capture of a fish that is not 

 commonly fished for by professional fishermen in a systematic 

 manner. Records of even 12 or 1 5 lb. bass are much rarer 

 than they were ten or fifteen years ago, and a fish of 10 lb. 

 nowadays attracts attention. The Devon Teign is a favourite 

 river with bass fishermen, and the largest fish caught (by 

 myself) in its waters during the year 1902 weighed just 

 i\\ lb. The account here given of the habits of bass in 

 the Channel is entirely the result of personal observation 

 during several successive summers spent in pursuit of the fish 

 in the estuary of that river, supplemented by reference to 

 such residents as Mr. G. H. Johnson, who have made a 

 study of the fish in that locality over a considerable period 

 of time. It is, in fact, to those who fish for sport that much 

 of our present knowledge of the bass is necessarily owing, 



