984 Bulletin 47, United States- National Museum. 



4; LONNBERG,* 0fvers. Kong. Vetensk. Akad. Forh., 123, 1894; Boulenger, Cat, 1,34. 

 Family CXLI. CENTRARCHHLE.t 



(THE SUNFISHES.) 



Body more or less shortened and compressed ; the regions above and 

 below the axis of the body nearly equally developed, and corresponding 

 to each other, and the pseudobranchias imperfect. Head compressed. 

 Mouth terminal, large or small. Teeth in villiform bands, the outer 

 slightly enlarged, without canines; teeth present on premaxillaries, 

 lower jaw, and vomer, and usually on palatines, also sometimes on tongue, 



* Dr. Einar Lbnnberg gives the following account of the specimens observed by him about 

 Orlando, Florida, and provisionally named "Elassoma orlandicnm" : 



" Localities Fern Creek and small lakes around Orlando, Orange County; Tohopekaliga and 

 other waters around Kissimmee, Osceola County; Arcadia, DeSoto County. 



" This little fish seems to be extremely variable. When I obtained my first specimens in Fern 

 Creek I surely believed that I had found a new species. I was led to that opinion by the num- 

 ber of spines and soft rays in the vertical fins. Jordan (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1884) describes 

 Elassoma evergladei with 4 spines and 9 or 10 soft rays in the dorsal and 3 spines and 5 soft rays 

 in the anal. On my specimens I counted 5 spines (in one only 4) and 11 or 12 soft rays, and the 

 formula of the anal was III, 7. There was thus 1 spine and 1 or 2 soft rays in the dorsal and 2 

 soft rays in the anal more than in the typical E. evergladei. I therefore believed it just to estab- 

 lish a new subspecies with the name orlandicum, the more as also the color, etc., was different. 

 Later on I found in the literature that Woolman (1. c. p. 299) had found in Pemberton Creek 

 variations in another direction, that is with the formula III, 8 for the dorsal, and IV, 5 for the 

 anal. But in the Santa Fe River the specimens were more similar to mine with dorsal IV, 

 9-12; anal III, 5-7. Through this the variability of E. evergladei becomes still more evident. 

 The fins are larger in the males, as the following measurements will show: 



"My largest specimen measured 25 millimeters without the caudal, which is rounded, not 

 slightly emarginate. Woolman's figure (1. c., PL LIII) has the caudal rounded, too. In the 

 females the ventrals reach to the anal; in the males the filament from the fourth ray surpasses 

 the spines of anal. Intestinal canal short, no appendices pyloricae. Eggs large, but few in 

 number. December and January seem to be the spawning season of this little fish, and in that 

 time the male has such a bright color that it must be regarded as one of the handsomest fresh- 

 water fishes. It is black, with 7 more or less complete vertical cross bars of bright metallic blue. 

 A semicircular blue spot below and behind eye. At the base of the caudal there are 2 whitish 

 blue or blue spots surrounded by black. The ventral fins almost blue with black border. At 

 the base the dorsal has 2 bands of blue spots; the anal has 1 or 2 ba7ids of the same kind. A 

 little within the black margin of all the vertical fins, the chief color of which is black, is a 

 broad, blue band, which is broadest and brightest on the anal; pectorals not colored. After 

 the spawning time the blue will change to paler greenish blue but still metallic. In spirits 

 the blue color is lost and the fishes become blackish with paler band where the blue has 

 been. Both the caudal spots are always conspicuous. The female is not so bright. Its color 

 is a kind of rusty brownish with darker spots. These are sometimes arranged in three ranges 

 along the side. The l>elly is always paler and the entrails shine through, the liver reddish and 

 the intestines dark, if they contain anything. At the base of the caudal two whitish, dark- 

 bordered spots. Dark spots on the rays make one band on the anal, two on the dorsal, and three 

 on the caudal." 



t For a useful review of the species of this family see Bollman in Report U. S. Fish Comm., 

 xvi, 1888 (1892), 557-579, plates LXVIII-LXXII. 



