LEPOMIS SUNFISHES 247 



fish of the bayous, mud-bottomed ponds and lakes, and low- 

 land streams. 



It reaches a length of about 10 inches, and is a fair angler's 

 fish, in that respect something like the rock bass. Owing to the 

 character of the water from which it is most frequently taken, 

 its flesh is apt to taste of mud, and it is not abundant enough 

 on commercial fishing grounds to make it a species of any con- 

 siderable importance. 



Nearly half the food of half a dozen specimens examined by 

 us many years ago was found to consist of fishes, and the re- 

 mainder of insects mostly of water-bugs and larvae of May-flies, 

 with which, however, some terrestrial insects were commingled. 



GENUS LEPOMIS RAFINESQUE 



SUNFISHES 



Body oblong, deep and compressed; operculum ending behind in a con- 

 vex bony or osseo-membranous process or flap; preoperculum entire; mouth 

 large or small; supplemental maxillary developed in large-mouthed forms; 

 teeth on vomer and usually on palatines; none on tongue or pterygoids; lower 

 pharyngeal teeth conical, more or less acute, the bones narrow and weak, 

 flattened or hollowed out underneath, and with the outer margin straight or 

 concave, the width of the toothed portion being about 3 in its length; gill- 

 rakers various, never very long; dorsal spines 10; anal spines 3; caudal emar- 

 ginate. 



Fresh waters of the eastern United States, Canada, and 

 Mexico; species about 15; 8 species found in Illinois. 



The genus Lepomis, as here understood, includes Apomotis of 

 various authors. The forms that have been known under these 

 two names agree in their pharyngeal dentition,* which is re- 

 markably different from that of the genus Eupomotis (see Fig. 

 64-67) . The fact that the opercular flap is usually either en- 

 tirely black or black with a definite border above, behind, and 

 below, serves as a useful distinction of the species of this genus 

 from the single commonly distributed species of Eupomotis 

 (E. gibbosus), in which there is always a conspicuous roundish 

 spot of red at the lower posterior corner of the opercular flap. 



The species of this genus and the next constitute the true 

 sunfishes, as distinguished from the crappies, rock bass, war- 

 mouths, and black bass. In the southern half of the state, where 



* We have not found the "complete gradation in the character of pharyngeals between 

 Lepomis * * * and Eupomotis both as to the width and form of the bones themselves 

 and the form of the teeth" that was described by McKay (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1881 p. 88). 

 (See Richardson 1904 Bull. 111. State Lab. Nat. Hist. Vol. VII., pp. 27-32.) 



