LAKGE-MOUTHED BLACK BASS. 953 



of the bayous of the Gulf States as of the lakelets of Michigan. A still 

 more wide-spread notion is that Micropterus salmaides is the Southern spe- 

 cies, and M. dolomieu the Northern. The two are certainly native in 

 Canada and throughout the Alleghany region (except streams flowing 

 east, north of Virginia) to Alabanaa and South Carolina. I have myself 

 taken both species in every considerable river baain within those limits. 

 The extreme Northern limit from which any Black Bass has been recorded 

 is the Red River of the North, and the specimens there obtained belong to 

 Micropterus salmoides. So that Micropterus talmoides has been taken farther 

 North, farther South, and farther West than its rival species, which can 

 only claim the Eastern extreme. The simple fact is that both inhabit the 

 same geographical area ; but Micropterus salmoides takes to bayous, ponds, 

 and the sluggish rivers of the far South, while Micropterus dolomieu is 

 found chiefly in running streams; Every Western river contains both 

 species, but they are not usually taken together in the same part of the 

 stream. 



Diagnosis. — This species may be known from the preceding by the 

 larger mouth, larger scales, of which there are less than seventy in the 

 course of the lateral line. The joung may be known at once by the 

 color, the ground here being much paler than in the other, and there 

 being a broad blackish band along the sides. 



Habits. — This species is more sluggish in its habits than the preceding, 

 and as above noticed, it more often frequents still waters and ponds. In 

 the aquarium it is less active and less hardy than Micropterus dolomieu. 

 It reaches a larger size than the Small-mouthed Black Bass. It is not 

 quite so highly valued as food, but the difierence is probably very slight, 

 or even imaginary. 



FAMILY XXI. SERRANID^. THE SEA BASS. 



Body oblong or elongate, more or less compressed, covered with adherent ctenoid 

 scales of moderate or small size; month horizontal or little oblique, usually large ; pre- 

 maxillary protractile ; maxillary broad, with or without a supplemental bone, its pos- 

 terior part not slipping under the edge of the preorbital; jaws with bands of teeth, 

 some of the teeth sometimes enlarged and canine-like ; no incisors or molar teeth ; vomer 

 and palatines, with bands of vlUiform teeth ; tongue sometimes with teeth ; pterygoids 

 toothless ; gill-rakers usually stiff and rather long, armed with teeth ; gills 4, a long 

 slit behind the fourth ; pseudobranchise large ; lower pharyngeals separate, rather nar- 

 row, with pointed teeth ; gill-membranes separate, free from the isthmus ; branchios- 

 tegals 7 or 6 ; cheeks and operoles scaly ; preopercle with its posterior margin more or 

 less serrate ; opercles usually ending in one or two flit points or spines; nostrils double ; 

 lateral line continuous, single, not running up on the caudal fia ; skull without cranial 



