218 BLACK BASS. 
have black, green and yellow sides, according to circum- 
stances, and often within a short distance of one another, 
though their backs are generally dusky black. 
The gill-cover has two flat points, the teeth are minute, 
while the back fin, though single, is partly divided into 
two. It contains ten hard and fourteen soft rays ; the 
pectoral has eighteen soft rays, the ventral six, the first 
one almost spinous, the anal three spines, the first very 
short, and twelve soft rays, and the tail sixteen soft rays. 
This fish has been confounded with the Lake Huron Black 
Bass, Iluro nigricans^ which is now supposed to be a 
difierent variety, characterized by two longitudinal lines 
or stripes running the entire length of its body. 
Tlie gill-rays are six and the fin-rays, as given by Dr. 
De Kay, are as follows, but I think liable to consider- 
able variation. 
D. 9.1.14 ; P. 18 ; Y. 5 ; A. 3.12 ; C. 16^. 
Black Bass, belonging as they do to the perch family, 
have many of the habits and can be captured in the 
same manner as their congeners. But, as they are infi- 
nitely superior in flavor, they are equally so in game and 
sporting qualities. They will take minnows, shiners, 
grasshoppers, frogs, worms, or almost anything else that 
can be called a bait, and like all fish, prefer the live to 
the dead. Tliey may be fished for with good stout 
tackle, gut leaders, a reel, and an ordinary bass rod, in the 
same manner as fish are generally captured by boys and 
blockheads. In June they afiect the grassy bottom in 
water fifteen to twenty feet deep, but as the season 
advances they resort to the rocky shoals and rapid cur- 
rents, where they are taken on and after the middle of 
