ROCK BASS. 945 



by the laws of Bcientifio nomenclature, we are bound to use. By the operation of these 

 laws every genus must bear the oldest (generic) name bestowed on any of Its members, 

 unless this name has been previously used for something else, or is glaringly false (not 

 simply irrevelant or Inappropriate), or is otherwise ineligible; every species must bear 

 the first (specific) name imposed upon it (unless, as before, it be for one reason or 

 another ineligible), and the proper name of any species must be made by combining the 

 above mentioned specific and generic names. 



This is the law on the subject, an^, as elsewhere, the law is usnally, though not al- 

 ways simply right. We accept many meaningless, or even objectionable names, to 

 avoid the confusion attendant upon arbitrary changes. Were it not for these rules 

 science would ever suffer, as it has much suffered iu the past from the efforts of the 

 improvers of nomenclature — men who invent new names for old objects, for the purpose 

 of seeing their own personal designations. Smith, Jones, Brehm, Reichenow, or what 

 not, after them. In the words of "a right Sagamann," John Cassin: "There is not, 

 evidently, any other course consistent with justice and the plainest principles of right 

 and morality, and, in fact, no alternative, unless, indeed, an operator is disposed to set 

 himself up for the first of all history, as is said of an early Chinese emperor The latter 

 course, in a degree, singular as it may appear, is not eniirely unknown to naturalists, 

 especially to those who regard science as a milch cow rather than a transcendent god- 

 dess, a distinction in classification first made by the great poet Schiller." 



Now, as to the names of our species of Bisa, I take it for granted that the reader 

 knows (a) what a Black Bass is, and what it is not (b) ; that there are two species of 

 Black Bass, the large-mouthed and the small-mouthed, the latter being with most 

 anglers the Black Bass par excellence, the other the oif horse, and (c) what the difference 

 between them is. In any event you will find it witten in Professor Gill's most excel- 

 lent paper, " On the Species of the Genus Mioropterus," in the " Proceedings of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1873 " 



The earliest published notice of a Black Bass with a scientific name was one of the 

 small-mouthed kind, sent to Lacepede from South Carolina. This specimen bore with 

 it the name of "trout," after the abominable, contemptible, and pernicious and other- 

 wise detestable custom of our erring Southern brethren of calling a black bass in the 

 river, or a weak fish in the sea a " trout." Now, we may presume that the great French- 

 naturalist was puzzled by this name, and put on his spectacles to' see what in the 

 world could be " trout-like" about such a fish, with its coarse scales and spinous fins. 

 To him it looked more like a wrasse or cunner, Labrus, than a trout ; but no matter, it 

 must resemble a trout somehow or the Americans would not call it so. So he put it 

 down in his great work as Labrus salmoides, the trout-like Labrus, to the everlasting^ 

 injury of the fish, the name is not only senseless, but bad Latin, the proper foim of the 

 word being Salmonoides, 



Lacepede had another specimen of the Black Bass, without label, and from an un- 

 known locality. This one had the last rays of the dorsal broken and torn loose from 

 the rest, and was otherwise in a forlorn condition. This specimen he considered as a 

 genus distinct from the other, and he gave it the name of Mioropterus dolomieu — " Dolo- 

 mien's small fin." Dolomien was a friend of Lacepede, who had about as much to do 

 with the fish as George Washington or Victor Hugo. No one could tell, either from 

 figure or description, what this Microptems dolomieu was ; but Cuvier, thirty years later, 

 fonnd the original type and prononuoed it Black Bass, in poor condition, and declared 

 that the " genus and species of Mioropterus ought to disappear from the catalogue of 

 fishes." 



