132 FISHES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

fishes in the streams, consuming especially large quantities of the ale- 
wife or river herring and the young of the shad. In the shallow bays 
along the coasts its food consists of killifish, silversides, anchovies, lant 
and other small fishes, besides crabs, squid, clams, mussels and other 
marine invertebrates. Its movements while feeding depend greatly 
upon the tides. It is to be found frequently at the mouths of small 
creeks and in tideways, where it lies in wait for the large schools of small 
fishes, which constitute its food. 
The largest striped bass recorded was said to weigh one hundred and 
twelve pounds. At Avoca, North Carolina, Dr. Capehart took a striped 
bass weighing ninety-five pounds. It reaches a length of four and one- 
half or five feet. 
Spawning takes place from April to June, either in the rivers or in 
the brackish waters of bays and sounds. Eges have been hatched arti- 
ficially in May on Albemarle sound. Dr. Capehart took a fifty-eight- 
pound spawning fish April 22,1891. The eges are smaller than those 
of the shad and after fertilization they increase greatly in size and 
become light green in color. This fifty-eight-pound fish probably 
contained more than one-half million eggs. Dr. Abbott has found the 
young an inch long in the Delaware the second week in June and by 
the middle of October some of these had grown to a length of four and 
one-half inches. The striped bass has been kept in a small pool of fresh 
water and fed upon crabs and oysters increasing 1n about eleven months 
from six inches in length to twenty inches. In a Rhode Island pond it 
is stated that bass weighing one-half pound to one pound in June had 
reached a weight of six pounds in the following October. 
In fresh water salted eel tail is a favorite bait for taking striped bass, 
and the spoon or spinner is also a good lure, but live minnows are pre- 
ferred to all other baits. For surf fishing shedder crab well fastened to 
the hook is a very killing bait. 
150. Roccus chrysops RarinesQue. 
The White Bass. (Figure 71.) 
The white bass has the body oblong, elevated and compressed; its depth contained 
two and one-half times in the total length without caudal, the length of the head 
about three and one-third timesin this length; head sub-conical, depressed over eye; 
mouth moderate, the maxillary reaching to below middle of eye; length of eye al- 
most equal to length of snout; villiform teeth in bands on jaws, palatines, vomer 
and tongue; the dorsal outline is much curved, the fins well separated. 
D. IX, I, 14; A. III, 11 to 12. Scales 8-60-13. General color silvery, tinged with 
golden on sides; eight or more blackish longitudinal streaks on sides, those below 
more or less interrupted. 
The white bass is sometimes called striped bass, and is probably the 
silver bass of Canada. Its center of abundance is the Great Lake re- 
gion, but it is also widely distributed over the Ohio and Mississippi 
valleys. In Pennsylvania the species is found in Lake Erie and in the 
