sa 
297 
- APPENDIX. 
Notice of a collection of Fishes from the southern bend of the 
Tennessee River, in the State of Alabama ; by L. Agassiz. 
Tue only information we have at present upon the fishes of 
‘the Tennessee River, has been published by Dr. D. H. Storer, 
who mentions nine species from the vicinity of Florence, Alabama, 
in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History for 
1845, and of which short descriptions appeared in his Synopsis 
of the Fishes of North America, in 1846. Having lately received a 
collection of not less than thirty-three species from the same water 
system, brought together by the untiring efforts of Dr. Newman, of 
Huntsville, who has most kindly placed them in my hands for 
description, it seems desirable that an early notice of the general 
character of the ichthyological fauna of that region should be 
published, to serve as a staudard of comparison with the fishes of 
the other western and southern rivers, in the study of their geo- 
graphical distribution. I arrange them below according to their 
natural affinities. 
PERCOIDS, Cuv.—Whether the genera Perca, Labrax, and 
Lucioperca, are really wanting in the Tennessee River remains to 
be ascertained. No specimens of these genera were found among 
those forwarded by Dr. Newman; though many less conspicuous 
forms were collected. ‘Thus far the genera Grystes, Centrarchus, 
a omotis, as understood at present by ichthyologists, are the 
ti representatives of the family of Percoids in the ‘Tennessee 
iver, 
Grystes, Cuv.—I have already shown in my “ Lake Su- 
Perior” that the genera Girystes and Huro of Cuvier do not differ 
essentially one from the other, and must therefore be united into 
One natural group; moreover when the fishes of Kentucky shall 
be better known, it may become necessary to substitute for either 
them the name of Lepomis, introduced in ichthyology by 
finesque, as early as the year 1820, for the western species of 
this genus. If I hesitate to make the change now, it is simply 
ause I have not the means of deciding upon the value of his 
Many species. The species of this group are indeed very difficult 
‘ocharacterize. They differ chiefly in the relative size of their 
les, the presence or absence of teeth upon the tongue, though 
Cuvier denies the presence of teeth on the tongue of any of 
Srniss, Vol. XVII, No. 50.—March, 1854. a8 Ein 
