LAMPREYS AND FISHES OF INDIANA. 281 



brown. Some indications, distioct or vague, of brown cross bars. A 

 •dark spot in the shoulder, and a dark bar at the base of the caudal. 

 Pectorals, dorsals, and anal finely cross-barred with black ; nearly wholly 

 black in some males. Length about two aud one-half inches. 



Southern Indiana to West Florida ; not common. In Indiana it has 

 been taken only at New Harmony, Posey County. It lives in shallow 

 sandy streams. 



Etheostoma cceruleum Storer. 

 Blue Darter; Rainbow Darter. 



Poeciliehthys G(eruleus, Jordan and Gilbert, 1882, 8, 517. 



Body moderately stout aud considerably compressed. Depth in the 

 length, four and one-fourth. Head large and compressed ; in the length 

 three and three-fourths. Interorbital space narrow. Profile moder- 

 ately convex. Mouth of medium size, the maxillary reaching to the 

 front of the eye ; terminal and oblique. Palatine teeth present. Cheeks 

 naked or nearly so ; opercles scaled. Dorsal rays X, 12 ; anal, II, 7. 

 Scales 5-45 to 50-8, with pores on about thirty-three. Males highly 

 colored ; sides with about a dozen indigo blue bands running downward 

 and backward, the hinder half dozen the most distinct. The interspaces 

 bright orange. Breast and belly orange ; also the gill-membranes. 

 Dorsal fins banded with indigo and orange, the spinous portion mostly 

 indigo, the soft portion mostly orange. Anal and caudal indigo. Females 

 smaller and plainer. Sides with vertical dusky bands, but with little 

 orange or blue. Belly pale, back often yellowish. Sometimes there are 

 dark longitudinal bands along the sides, one for each row of scales (the 

 so-called variety spectablle). Length about two and one-half inches. 



Distributed in gravelly streams from Indiana to Kansas. Carroll 

 County (23, '88, 51) ; Clark and Ohio counties (23, '88, 56) ; Franklin 

 County (5, No. 2, 11); Monroe County (i, 85, 411); Marion County 

 (1, '77, 43, 375); St. Joseph's River, Kankakee River, Maumee River, 

 Tippecanoe River (1, '77, 43, 48); St. Joseph's River (i, '88, 155); 

 Marshall County (4, '88, 156); Lawrence County (23, '84, 205); Mar- 

 shall, Cass and Whitley counties (4, '88, 165) ; Knox County (4, '88, 

 165) ; Owen County at Spencer (4, '88, 167); Vigo County (10, '96) ; 

 Eel River basin (^,''94, 39). See also 2^, '93, 105. 



A very gaudily colored fish. For that reason, perhaps, sometimes 

 called "'soldier fish." It is a common species in gravelly streams Dr. 

 Forbes found (14; No. 3, 23) that it subsists on the larvse of small dip- 

 tera, ephemerids and case worms. 



