SYSTEMATIC CATALOGUE OF FISHES. 



271 



dorsal fins, and dark longitudinal stripes along sides. Two species, one in Great 

 Lakes and Mississippi basin, the other coastwise. (Roccus, a latinization of the 

 vernacular name, rock.) 



238. ROCCUS LINEATUS (Bloch). 

 "Rock"; "Rock-fish"; Striped Bass. 



Sciwna lineata Bloch, Ichthyologie, ix, 53, pi. 305, 1792; "Mediterranean Sea" (?). 



Roccus lineatus, Cope, 18706, 448; Neuse River. Yarrow, 1877, 211; Fort Macon, New River, Neuse River, 

 Jordan & Gilbert, 1879, 380; New and Neuse rivers. Smith, 1893a, 192, 196, 200; Pasquotank River, 

 Albemarle Sound, Roanoke River at Plymouth and Weldon. Jordan & Evermann, 1896, 1132, pi. 

 clxxx, fig. 478. 



Roccus septentrionalis, Jenkins, 1887, 89; Beaufort (after Yarrow.) 



Diagnosis. — Body long, slightly compressed, depth contained 3.5 to 4 times in total 

 length; head less than .33 length; mouth large, maxillary extending nearly to middle of eye, 

 lower jaw projecting; base of tongue with 2 parallel patches of teeth; eye small, .15 to .20 

 length of head, .5 to .66 length of snout; preopercle with weak serrations; gill-rakers long and 

 slender, about 20 in number; scales in lateral series 65 to 70; fins rather small; dorsal rays 

 xi + i,12, longest spine less than .5 length of head; anal rays iii,ll; caudal forked. Color: 

 above olive, sides and below white; back and sides marked by 7 or 8 black longitudinal stripes, 

 one along the lateral line; fins pale or dusky, {lineatus, striped.) 



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Fig. 119. Striped Bass; Rock-pish. Roccus lineatus. 



This is the largest and one of the best of Arrierican fresh-water or anadrom- 

 ous spiny-rayed fishes. It ascends streams along the entire Atlantic coast fpom 

 New Brunswick to Alabama, being most numerous between Massachusetts and 

 North Carolina. It has also been introduced on the Pacific coast^and several 

 million pounds are now caught for market annually in California. It ascends all 

 suitable rivers in North Carolina, and is especially abundant in the Albemarle 

 region. 



Striped bass weighing 60 or 75 pounds are not uncommon, and ocasionally 

 their weight exceeds 100 pounds. At Dr. Capehart's shad seine-fishery at Avoca, 

 North Carolina, fish of 105 pounds have been taken. Dr. Goode reports one 

 caught in Massachusetts that weighed 112 pounds, supposed to have been the 

 largest specimen known. At Edenton, North Carolina, in April, 1891, the writer 

 saw several striped bass, from dutch nets in the sound, each of which weighed 



