LEPOMIS SUNFISHES 255 



streams, and not widely distributed through the country at large. 

 Our frequency statistics, derived from 151 collections, show that 

 this is a sunfish of the creeks and smaller rivers, where its coefficients 

 are 2.98 and 2.35 respectively, the corresponding figures for the 

 larger rivers and for lowland lakes being . 17 and .14. In the up- 

 land lakes we have not taken it at all. 



Northward this species grades into a smaller dwarfish variety, 

 probably Xenotis lythrochloris, which has been taken only in the 

 clear swift water of the Fox at Ottawa, Lacon, and Algonquin ; in the 

 Du Page at Naperville ; in the Vermilion at Pontiac and Fairbury : in 

 a small creek in Du Page county ; and in Indian creek, La Salle county. 

 These small forms have the ear-flaps red and the scales of the cheek 

 smaller than typical megalotis. Their size is alone sufficient to dis- 

 tinguish them, gravid females having been found only If inches 

 long, and no specimen exceeding three inches. 



Found outside our limits in Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan ; i in 

 the south Atlantic coast in Georgia and the Florida peninsula ; 

 through the Ohio and Missouri basins to Iowa and Minnesota, and 

 thence south through Arkansas to the Rio Grande. It is said to avoid 

 muddy water, is especially abundant in small brooks, and frequents 

 deep still places in rivers and clear ponds. It is wanting in the 

 Atlantic drainage of the northern and middle states. 



The long-eared sunfish is not ordinarily more than four or five 

 inches long, and has no commercial importance. Our scanty ob- 

 servations indicate that it feeds on aquatic insects, mostly larva? of 

 gnats and day-flies. Notwithstanding its more limited distribution, 

 it is a frequent companion of the green sunfish (coefficient of asso- 

 ciation, 2.65), and inhabits similar waters where it is most abun- 

 dant. 



LEPOMIS HUMILIS (Girard) 



(orange-spotted sunfish) 



Girard, 1857, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 201 (Bryttus). 



J. & G.. 470; M. V., 118; J. & E., I. 1004; B., I, 30 (Eupomotis) ; N., 38 (Ichthelis 

 anagallinus) ; ]., 45 (Lepiopomis anagallinus) ; F., 68; L., 24; R., 34. 



Size small, length not over 3J inches; body elongate, compressed, the 

 back almost carinate for some distance in front of the dorsal; dorsal out- 

 line usually somewhat more curved than ventral; profile long and grad- 

 ual, usually nearly straight, the angle at the nape in most cases very 

 slight, and greatest in males; depth 2.1 to 2.5 in length, usually aboul 

 2.4. Color light olive, the sides sprinkled with tine dots of gold to 

 emerald; belly deep orange, dusted with brown; sides with about 20 



