302 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
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Fic. 42.—Notropis hudsonius. After Jordan and Evermann. 
A third section (Hudsonius) includes fishes with large and nor- 
mally formed scales, which are regularly imbricated; pharyngeal 
teeth, besides the main row (four), are generally existent to the 
number of one or rarely two in a second, but there is considerable 
variation in this respect (1, 4—4, O or I, 4—4, I or I, 4—4, 2 or 
2, 4—4, 1).. About a dozen species are known, the most notable 
being the Notropis hudsonius which has received such names as 
spawneater and spot-tail, and shares with many others those of 
minnow and shiner. It reaches a maximum length of six inches. 
While especially “abundant in the Great Lakes, and not rare east 
of the Alleghany Mountains,” it also extends westward to Dakota 
and southward to South Carolina. It is known to many as “ the 
choice live bait of the St. Lawrence angler,’ and fishermen along 
the Hudson commemorate, in a name they have given to it (spawn- 
eater), the belief that it is especially injurious to the spawn of more 
valued fishes. 
Most of the numerous other species of Notropis, confounded 
under the general name of minnows, are much smaller than those 
mentioned. 
Another interesting American Cyprinid, related to Notropis but 
“ one of the most remarkable of our little minnows,” is the Ericymba 
buccata, which nevertheless appears to have no distinctive vernacular 
name and is merely one of the host confounded under the designa- 
tion of minnow. The species is distinguished from all others by the 
porous or cavernous condition of many of the head bones, especially 
the lower jaw, interopercular and suborbital bones, and the swollen 
appearance of the tunnels or channels perforated by the pores. It 
is to this condition that the name Ericymba refers, it being derived 
