io8 AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



Solitary Species of Sluggish Habit Inhabiting Fresh Water. 



KUPOMOTIS GIBBOSUS. 



Common Siiniisli; Sunny; Pumpkin Seed. 



"This is the most abundant and widely distributed among the 

 sunfishes. It is generally found among or near aquatic plants 

 where there is such shelter ; but also often found in abundance in 

 open ponds and the merest puddles affording no protection. 

 This is undoubtedly the most useful species of sunfish as a 

 destroyer of mosquito larvae." 



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Figure 31. 



Eupomotis gibbosus: the common Sunfish. (From Jordan & Evermann, Bull. 47, U. 

 S. Nat. Mus.) ' 



It is this species more than any other that keeps the ditches 

 and streams in cranberry bogs free from wrigglers. I have 

 searched these ditches again and again in vain, except where they 

 were practically dry, and only a few pockets were left. Wherever 

 there was any appreciable quantity of water this species was 

 found. I have also seen, where the water was drawn from a 

 flooded area, thousands of the sunfishes left exposed on the 

 mud — a population that had not been suspected, but which, 

 without doubt, had rendered good service in preventing that area 



