ROCCUS STRIPED BASS 3 1 9 



Genus ROCCUS Mitchill 



(striped bass) 



Bodv deep and compressed; lower jaw projecting; no supplemental 

 maxillary; lower margin of preopercle simply (not antrorsely) serrate or 

 entire; base of tongue with 1 or 2 patches of teeth; dorsal fins entirely 

 separate; anal spines 3, graduated in size; scales ctenoid. Species 2, 

 American, one inhabiting fresh waters of the Mississippi Valley, the other 

 being the striped bass of the Atlantic (R. lineatus) . 



ROCCUS CHRYSOPS (Rafinesque) 



(WHITE BASS) 



Rafinesque, 1820, Iehth. Oh., 22 (Perca. 



G., I, 67 (Labrax multilineatus and notatus); | & G., 520; M. V., 137; B . I, 128 



(Morone multilineata) ; 1 & E., I. 1132; N. 36; J.. 44; F., 63; F. F . I 3, !7; 



L.. 29. 



Length 12 to 18 inches; body rather deep and compressed and back 

 elevated; profile angled at nape; depth 2.6 to 2.9; greatest width about 

 2 greatest depth; depth caudal peduncle 1 .2 to 1 .3 in its length. "Color 

 silverv, tinged with golden below; sides with narrow dusky lines, about 

 5 above the lateral line, 1 along it, and a variable number below it, 

 these sometimes more or less interrupted or transposed" (Jordan and 

 Evermann) . Head subconic, flattened at sides, 3 . 1 to 3 . 4 ; width of head 

 1 . 8 to 2 . 1 ; interorbital little convex, 3 . 4 to 4 . 1 ; nose longer than eye, 

 3.4 to 3.8; mouth terminal, oblique, maxillary to middle of orbit, 2.2 

 to 2.4 in head; lower jaw strongly projecting; gill-rakers long as gill-fila- 

 ments, X+14. Dorsal IX— I, 13 or 14; longest spine about 2 in head; 

 base of soft dorsal 1 .25 in base of spinous; caudal forked; anal III, 1 1 to 

 13, the spines graduated, first about half as long as second, and second 

 distinctlv longer than third; ventrals § to vent; pectorals 1 . 6 to 1 . 9 in 

 head. Scales 8 or 9, 52-57, 13 or 14, very strongly ctenoid; lateral line 

 usually complete and nearly straight; cheeks and opercles fully scaled, 

 rows 10 to 12. 



A species, in Illinois, of the larger rivers and bottom-land lakes, 

 but found alsi i in Lake Michigan. It has come to us in fifty-six col- 

 lections (mainly from seine hauls of the fishermen), made through- 

 nut the state from the Mississippi near Cairo to extreme northwest 

 Illinois, and thence to the Calumet River. We have not obtained it, 

 however, in the Wabash or Kaskaskia drainage; and it has been 

 absent also from all our collections in the glacial lakes of n< irtheast- 

 ern Illinois. It appears to be primarily a lake fish, and secondarily 

 one of the larger rivers, our coefficients for these waters being, 

 respectively, 2.8 and 1.7, and the collections from the smaller 

 Streams i if insignificant number. It has been much the most abun- 



