THE YELLOW BASS AND OTHER BOYS FISHES. 4 1 I 



fresh forests and dewy meadows, the interested faces at the 

 wayside windows. Then at the pond the casting of the seine 

 for minnow-bait, the embarkation in the boat, the careful 

 adjustment of sinker and float, and the long, delightful, lazy 

 day, floating over jungles of Eel-grass and meadows of lily 

 pads; now pulling in by the score the Shiners, Pumpkin-seeds 

 and Perch; now passing hour after hour without a bite. 



"Just as the nightingale and the lark, though eminent 

 among the lesser song-birds of Europe, would, if native to 

 America, be eclipsed by the feathered musicians of our groves 

 and meadows, the Perch and Sun-fish yielded to the superior 

 claims of a dozen or more game fishes. The Sun-fish and 

 the Perch must not be snubbed, however, for they are prime 

 favorites with tens of thousands of anglers who cannot leave 

 home in quest of sport. They will thrive and multiply, almost 

 beyond belief, in ponds and streams too small for Bass, and 

 too warm for Trout and Land-locked Salmon; and I proph- 

 esy that they will yet be introduced in all suitable waters 

 throughout the continent, which they do not now inhabit." 



Besides the real Sun-fishes, which the books call Lepomis, 

 there are other fishes more like them and o{ the same family, 

 which form a regular gradation in size and gameness, from 

 the Pumpkin-seed to the king of our western and southern 

 rivers, the Black Bass. And the boy recognizes this series. 

 He knows that to catch a Red-eye is to place himself on the 

 grade of promotion; above the Red-eye comes the Crappie, 

 and above the Crappie the Calico Bass. One step more 

 to the Black Bass. Could there be a more natural grada- 

 tion? Yet that these species are only Sun-fish of a larger 

 growth goes without discussion. 



THE COMMON SUN-FISH, PUMPKIN-SEED OR SUNNY Lepomis 



gibbosus (Linnaeus). 



Description. Body deep, very gibbous, both dorsal and ven- 

 tral outlines strongly curved; depth in adult, a little more 

 than half its length without caudal; the head a little more 



