Black Bass Fishing. 



381 



SMALI.-MOUTHED BLACK BASS — MICROPTERUS DOLOMIEU. (LACEPEDE.) [AFTER A DRAWING 

 FROM NATURE BY DR. E. R. COPELAND.] 



" Yes," assented Ignatius, " I have heard them called black perch, 

 yellow perch, and jumping perch up the Rockcastle and Cumberland 

 rivers, and white and black trout in Tennessee." 



" Exactly," returned the Professor. " Much of the confusion 

 attending the common names of the black bass arises from the 

 coloration of the species, which varies greatly, even in the same 

 waters ; thus they are known as black, green, yellow, and spotted 

 bass. Then they have received names somewhat descriptive of 

 their habitat, as, lake, river, marsh, pond, slough, bayou, moss, grass, 

 and Oswego bass. Other names have been conferred on account 

 of their pugnacity or voracity, as tiger, bull, sow, and buck bass. 

 In the Southern States they are universally known as 'trout.' In 

 portions of Virginia they are called chub, southern chub, or Roanoke 

 chub. In North and South Carolina they are variously known as 

 trout, trout-perch, or Welshman ; indeed, the large-mouthed bass 

 received its first scientific specific name from a drawing and descrip- 

 tion of a Carolina bass sent to Lacepede, under the local name of 

 trout, or trout-perch, who accordingly named it salmoides, meaning 

 trout-like, or salmon-like." 



" How do you account for the ridiculous practice of applying 

 such names as trout and salmon to a spiny-finned fish of the order 

 of perches ? " asked Ignatius. 



" They were first given, I think, by the early English settlers 

 of Virginia and the Carolinas, who, finding the bass a game fish of 

 high degree, naturally gave it the names of those game fishes par 

 excellence of England, when they found that neither the salmon nor 

 the trout inhabited southern waters. In the same way the mis- 



