ae vie ka ANGLER, 
VOL, 
to 
Or 
JUNE, 
1895. No. 6. 

FISH AND FISHING IN 
BY WM. 
Ca 
AMERICA, 
HARRIS. 
(Continued from page 136.) 
Ictiobus velifer (the specific name 
from the Latin—‘‘ bearing sails’’) de- 
serves notice from its peculiar dorsal 
fin construction, which gives it the 
common names of sail fish, skim-back, 
quill-back, spear fish and sailing sucker; 
it is also called the carp sucker and 
river carp in some localities. The first 
three rays of the dorsal fin are very 
high, being equal in height to the base 
efethe fin; the tail is deeply forked, 
the upper lobe being longer than the 
lower; there are twenty-six rays in the 
dorsal fin and eight in the anal; the 
eye is rather large, and the snout pro- 
jects beyond the mouth, which is small. 
This fish is extremely common in the 
Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and is 
sometimes found in the waters of West- 
ern New York. It is usually pale in 
color, and seldom reaches a foot in 
length. There is another species— 
[ctiobus thompsont—which resembles 
the above, /. velifer, very much, but 
has a smaller and more pointed head, 
with the snout considerably projecting. 
It is abundant in the great lakes. 
lctiobus cyprinus is still another spe- 
cies of the buffalo fishes with the dis- 
tinguishing mark of a high dorsal fin, 
but, with this exception, and that the 
body is deeper and the eye very much 
smaller, it is, in other characteristics, 
essentially the same as /. velifer, the 
sail fish buffalo. It has the common 
names of carp sucker and silvery carp 
sucker, and those given above for /. 
velifer. Its habitat, so far as known, 
is from Pennsylvania to Virginia, being 
most abundant in the Chesapeake bay 
region. 
Under the generic name of Cycleptus 
(from two Greek words, ‘‘round” and 
‘*slender,” in allusion to the shape of 
the mouth), and the specific one of 
elongatus, we find the black horse, also 
called the gour-seed sucker, Missouri 
sucker and succerel. It has a very 
small head, short, slender and rounded 
above; the mouth is small and the lips 
are full of papille; the males during 
the breeding season have minute tu- 
bercles on the snout, and this sex may 
be known, also, by the intense black 
coloration along the dorsal line, with a 
brassy or coppery lustre on the sides; 
the females, as described by Dr. Tarle- 
ton H. Bean, are olivaceous, with 
coppery shadings. This fish has thirty 
rays in the dorsal fin and eight in the 
