ETHEOSTOMA 313 



and to back of orbit equal. Dorsal fin usually VIII or IX, 12-14 (sometimes 

 VII or X) ; two portions as a rule scarcely separated at base, sometimes apart 

 a distance equal to about % of eye; first dorsal very low, its height 48 to 64 

 per cent, of second; (first 2.6 to 3.7 in head, second 1.8 to 2.1) ; caudal rounded; 

 anal II, 6 or 7; pectorals 1.15 to 1.27 in head; separation of ventrals about 

 half their width at base. Scales 6-8, 44-57; 7-8 [10-13]; lateral line nearly 

 straight, from 5 to 15 pores usually lacking; cheeks and opercles with more or 

 less closely embedded scales; nape as a rule scaled; breast naked or wholly or 

 partly covered with embedded scales; belly covered with ordinary scales. 



Taken by us in ten collections, from eight localities, all but 

 two from southern Illinois, south of the Saline River, the excep- 

 tions coming from Robinson creek a branch of the Kaskaskia in 

 Shelby county, and from the Little Wabash River near Carmi, in 

 White county. It is distinctly a southern species, reported from 

 Georgia and Florida to southern Indiana, Kentuckj^, Tennessee, 

 and the Black Warrior River in Alabama. It is, like obeyense, a 

 species of swift clear creeks with a bottom of rock or gravel. 



ETHEOSTOMA FLABELLARE RAFINESQUE 



FAN-TAILED DARTER 

 (PL., P. 292; MAP XCVII) 



Rafinesque, 1819, Journ. de Physique, 419. 



J. & G., 513; M. V., 131; B., I, 86; J. & E., I, 1097; N., 34 (Poecilichthys flabellatus 

 and P. lineolatus); J., 42; F., 64; F. F., I. 3, 24; L,., 29. 



Length 2 to 2^ inches; body rather slender, compressed, back low, caudal 

 peduncle deep; depth 4.6 to 6.8 in length; greatest width of body about % its 

 greatest depth; depth caudal peduncle 1.8 to 2.4, usually less than 2, in its 

 length. Color (in preservative) rather dark, with small dark specks and faint 

 cross-bars; each scale of back and sides with a central dark spot, the longi- 

 tudinal rows formed by these most prominent in females and in the so-called 

 variety lineolatum*; a rather large and very black humeral spot; a dark streak 

 across opercles and through eye to end of snout; suborbital streak faint or 

 wanting; cheeks and opercles dusted with minute brown specks; males with 

 head and upper parts dark bluish black and with 10 or 12 cross-bars of same 

 color on sides, traces of these bars in females; second dorsal and caudal fins 

 finely barred; pectorals faintly barred, other fins plain; spines of first dorsal 

 in breeding males ending in fleshy pads or knobs of rust-red color, and body 

 and fins all more or less dusky. Head rather long, slender, depressed, 3.6 to 

 4.2 in length; a distinct but not deep angle at nape, from which profile is al- 

 most straight to tip of snout, which is somewhat upturned, especially in males; 

 interorbital space flat, 6.2 to 8.3; eye round, 3.8 to 5; mouth rather large, 

 terminal, oblique, tip of upper lip almost on level with upper margin of pupil; 



* E. flabellare lineolatum (Agassiz), Jordan and Evermann, 1896, Bull. IT. S. Nat. Mus., 

 No. 47, Pt. I., p. 1098. 

 29 F 



