54 PRELIMINARY REPORT 



Genus LABIDESTHES Cope. 

 Labidesthes sicciilus (Cope). Brook Silverside. Skipjack. 



Color pale olive green, translucent; a bright silvery lateral band 

 present; a dark lateral line above the silvery baud; back dotted 

 with black. Body elongate, compressed; head flattened above; 

 snout slender, considerably drawn out, longer than the eye; premax- 

 illaries very protractile; edge of the upper jaw concave; scales 

 cycloid. Head contained 4-|- times in the length. Depth 6. Eye 3^ 

 Dorsal fins IV-I, 11, the first very small and the spines very weak. 

 Anal I, 23. Seventy-five scales in a line from the opercle to the 

 base of the caudal. Caudal fin forked. Length 3^ inches. 



Rare in the state. The only record of its occurrence is one 

 specimen in the. University Museum, which was picked up dead on 

 the shore of Lake Harriet near Minneapolis, April 19, 1894. 



Family CENTRARCHIDJE. The Sunfishes. 



Body much compressed and generally short; curve of the back 

 about equal to that of the belly. Mouth variable, large in some 

 and small in others; teeth well developed on tiie jaws and vomer 

 and occasionally on the palatine bones and the tongue; upper jaw 

 protractile; maxillary well developed, sometimes with a supple- 

 mental bone. Gill membranes free from the isthmus; pseudo- 

 branchia not well developed; spiny rays strong; branchiostegal 

 rays 6 or 7. Body well covered with scales, these extending on the 

 opercles and cheeks; lateral line generally complete. Dorsal fins 

 2, but connected, the anterior with G to 13 spiny rays, the pos- 

 terior of soft rays; anal fin with 3 to 9 spines; 5 to 10 pyloric caeca. 



Carniverous fishes represented in the state, according to present 

 knowledge, by six genera and eleven species. The species of this 

 order are very difiicult to determine. 



