THE PERCH FAMILY. 123 



fishes; suckers, catfishes, sunfishes, &c., but principally on 

 the muscles, or various species of the bivalve genus Unio, so 

 common in the Ohio, whose thick shells it is enabled to crush 

 by means of its large throat teeth. The structure of those 

 teeth is very singular and peculiar; they are placed like 

 paving-stones on the flat bone of the lower throat in great 

 numbers, and of different sizes ; the largest, which are as big 

 as a man's nails, are always in the centre ; they are inverted 

 in faint alveoles, but not at all connected with the bone ; 

 their shape is circular and flattened, the inside always hollow 

 with a round hole beneath : in the young fishes they are 

 rather convex, and evidently radiated and mamillar, while in 

 the old fishes they become smooth, truncate, and shining 

 white. These teeth and their bone are common in many 

 museums, where they are erroneously called teeth of the 

 Buffalo-fish, or of a Catfish. I was deceived so far by this 

 mistake, and by the repeated assertions of several persons, as 

 to ascribe those teeth to the Buffalo-fish, which I have since 

 found to be a real catostomus ; this error I now correct with 

 pleasure. 



"A remarkable peculiarity of this fish consists in the 

 strange grunting noise which it produces, and from which I 

 have derived its specific name. It is intermediate between 

 the dumb grunt of a hog and the single croaking noise of the 

 bull frog ; that grunt is only repeated at intervals and not in 

 quick succession. 



" This fish is either taken in the seine or with the hook 

 and line ; it bites easily, and affords fine sport to the fisher- 

 men ; it spawns in the spring, and lays a great quantity of 

 eggs." 



The fish here described, though quite common in the Ohio 

 River, my own observation leads me to suppose is compara- 

 tively scarce in the Mississippi, above its junction with the 

 former river. 



