98 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



FUNDULUS HETEROCLITUS. 



Common KiUifish, Mud Fish, Mud-dahhler 



Water Mimiozv. 



Muiiimichos', Salt 



"The length of this species is given as three to six inches. 

 The writer after handhng thousands of them, principally from 

 the Delaware, would consider one four and a half inches long to 

 be very large. It is probable, however, that they are larger in 

 the salt water. Its range is from the Coast of Maine to the Rio 

 Grande, everywhere common in brackish waters, often burying 

 itself in the mud in shallow lagoons. This species is abundant 

 everywhere to the extreme limits of tide water. They are 

 equally at home in salt or fresh water, the clearest water or the 

 muddiest ditch or pool. They are not even averse to the filthiest 

 sewage water, collecting in vast numbers at the mouths of sewers 





Figure 25. 



Ftindulus heterocUtus: the common killifish: 

 Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus.) 



male. (From Jordan & Evermann, 



at low tide. They will be found in the most insignificant and 

 shallowest depressions on the flats or marshes, in ditches filled 

 with reeds, spatterdocks or masses of submerged plants, and in 

 muddy holes devoid of plants or other, shelter. They will push 

 through places where there is hardly enough water to cover them 

 and find their way to the source of a tiny stream of water over 

 rapids and perpendicular falls in a manner that would tax the 

 credulity of one not familiar with the ways of fishes. 



"In company with diaphanus they are to be found in the ditches 

 and marsh holes along the Delaware River all through the win- 

 ter and may be taken from under the ice in great numbers. In 



