1088 Bulletin 47, United States National Museum. 



1477. ETHEOSTOMA CCERULEUM,* Storer. 

 (BLUE DARTER ; RAINBOW DARTER ; SOLDIER FISH.) 



Head 3f ; depth 4; eye 4 to 4$ in head, little shorter than snout. 

 D. IX to XII-12 to 14; A. II, 7 or 8; scales 5-37 to 50-10, usually 

 5_45_10, pores 18 to 35. Body robust, rather deep and compressed, 

 the back somewhat elevated. Head large, compressed. Mouth mod- 

 erate, terminal, oblique, the lower jaw somewhat included, the max- 

 illary reaching front of orbit; opercular spine moderate; gill membranes 

 not connected. Palatine teeth in one row. Cheeks naked or nearly so; 

 opercles scaled; neck and breast usually naked. Fins all large; dorsal 

 fins usually slightly connected. Anal spines subequal or the first a little 

 the longer; caudal rounded; pectoral nearly or quite as long as head. 

 Males olivaceous, tessellated above, the spots running together into 

 blotches; back without black lengthwise stripes; sides with about 12 

 indigo-blue bars running obliquely downward and backward, most dis- 

 tinct behind, separated by bright orange interspaces ; caudal fin deep 

 orange, edged with bright blue ; anal fin orange, with deep blue in front 

 and behind ; soft dorsal chiefly orange, blue at base and tip ; spinous 

 dorsal crimson at base, then orange, with blue edgings ; ventrals deep 

 indigo ; cheeks blue ; throat and breast orange ; females much duller, 

 with little blue or red, the vertical fins barred or checked ; young vari- 

 ously marked, no dark humeral spot. Length 21 inches. Mississippi 

 Valley ; very abundant in gravelly streams, and ascending small brooks. 

 One of the most gorgeously-colored darters, but less graceful than most 

 of them. The most common species in most parts of the Ohio Valley. 

 (cceruleus, blue.) 



Etheostoma amilca, STORER, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1845, 47, Fox River, Illinois. (Coll. 

 S. C. Clark.) 



* Gayest of all the Darters, and indeed the gaudiest of all fresh-water fishes, is the Rainbow 

 Darter (Etheostoma comtleum). This is a litttle fish, never more than 3 inches long, and usually 

 about 2. Everywhere throughout the northern parts of the Mississippi Valley it makes its 

 home in the ripples and shallows of the rivers and in the shady retreats of all the little brooks. 

 The male fish is greenish above, with darker blotches, and its sides are variegated with oblique 

 bands alternately of indigo blue and deep orange, the orange often edged with patches of white. 

 The cheeks are deep blue, the breast deep orange, while the expanded fins are gorgeous in scar- 

 let, indigo, and crimson. The female, as is usually the case when the male of the species is 

 resplendent, is plainly colored a speckly green, with no trace of blue or orange. When the 

 war of the rebellion broke out there were some good people who were anxiously looking for 

 somes sign or omen, that they might know on which side the "stars in their courses " were 

 fighting. It so happened that in a little brook in Indiana, called Clear Creek, some one caught 

 a Rainbow Darter. This fish was clothed in a new suit of the red, white, and blue of his native 

 land, in the most unmistakably patriotic fashion. There were some people who had never seen 

 a Darter before and who knew no more of the fishes in their streams than these fishes knew of 

 them, by whom the coming of this little "soldier fish " into their brooks was hailed as an omen 

 of victory. Of course these little fishes had really "always been there." They were there 

 when America was discovered and for a long time before, but the people had not seen them. 

 The warblers lived, you remember, in Spalding's woods at Concord, but Spalding did not know 

 that they were there, and they had no knowledge of Spalding. So with the Darters in Spald- 

 ing s brooks. Still, when the day comes when history shall finally recount all the influences 

 which held Indiana to her place in the Union, shall not, among greater things, this least of 

 little fishes receive its little meed of praise? The Rainbow Darter is a chubby little fish, as 

 compared with the other Darters. In its movements it is awkward and ungraceful, though 

 swift and savage as a pike. One of the mildest of its tricks, which we have noticed, is this: It 

 would gently put its head over a stone and catch a water boatman by one of its swimming legs, 

 release it, catch it again and again release it, until at last the boatman, evidently much annoyed, 

 swam away out of its reach. It will follow to the surface of the water a piece of meat suspended 

 by a string. It is more alert in discovering this than a hungry sunfish or rock-bass, and it can 

 Oml & a pet lamb by a thread to which is fastened, a eectign of a worm. Jordan & 



