300 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



Described originally from Illinois specimens, it has since been 

 found from Indiana and Iowa to Alabama, and southwest to the 

 Angelina River in Texas. 



Females distended with eggs have been taken by us late in May. 



Genus CRYSTALLARIA Jordan & Gilbert 



Body slender, elongate, subcylin'drical, pellucid in life; mouth small, 

 horizontal; premaxillaries not protractile; teeth on vomer; vertebras 

 (C. asprella) 47 (23+24)*; pyloric caeca 3*; belly naked or with a few 

 ordinary scales. In its protractile premaxillaries, as well as in habit, 

 resembling Hadropterus, but the body hyaline in life as in Ammocrypta. 

 One species known, a darter of rather large size, first obtained by the 

 senior author in Hancock countv, Illinois. 



CRYSTALLARIA ASPRELLA (Jordan) 



Jordan, 1878, Bull. 111. State Lab. Nat.^Jist., I. 2, 38 (Pleurolepisi. 

 J & G., 490 (Ammocrypta); M. V.. 123 (Etheostoma) ; B , I, 104; J. & E., I, 1061; 

 F., 66 (Ammocrypta); L., 28. 



A slender species, with extremely small scales, and pellucid in life. 

 Easily known by these marks and by the peculiar broad saddle-like 

 bands across the back, which are continued obliquely downward and for- 

 ward to the lateral line in this species. Length 3 to 4 inches ; body very 

 long and slender, not at all compressed, being nearly uniformly cylin- 

 drical from nape to front of second dorsal; depth 7.8 to 9 in length; 

 caudal peduncle very slender, its depth 3.7 to 4.7 in its length. "Color 

 hyaline-olive with 3 or 4 dark, broad cross-bands meeting over the 

 back, the width of the first 3 about equal to depth of body, the fourth 

 narrower, and all extending somewhat obliquely downward and for- 

 ward to the lateral line; a dark lateral band along side, made up of 

 about 10 more or less confluent dark quadrate blotches, darkest where it 

 crosses through the cross-bands " (Jordan and Evermann). "In life the 

 oblique bands are of a golden, iridescent color; cheeks below eye bright 

 iridescent silvery; pupil black with brassy rim; iris chiefly duskv ; spots 

 on sides dusky with traces of golden between" (H. Garman). Head 



3.7 to 4.5, its width 2 to 2.3 in its length; interorbital space very 

 narrow, concave, 8.3 to 9.7; eye somewhat elliptical, 3.3 to 3.9 in 

 head; nose decurved and broadly rounded anteriorly, somewhat shovel- 

 shaped, 2.6 to 3.2 in head; mouth rather broad, subterminal, the max- 

 illary not reaching to front of orbit; cleft 3.5 to 3.9 in head; lower jaw 

 included; gill-membranes only slightly connected, distance from muzzle 

 io angle usually less than to back of orbit. Dorsal fin XII or XIII. 

 13 15; soft and spinous portions separated by a distance almost equal 

 io diameter of eye; spinous dorsal high in front; height of first dorsal 



1.8 to 2.5 in head, second 1.7 to 2.2 (height of first 82 to 105 per 



*In a single specimen (Acces ions No 27670, 111 State Lab Na1 Hist.). 



