112 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



black ; dorsal, anal, and caudal, with dark irregular transverse 

 markings. Teeth on vomer, tongue, and palatines acute, they 

 are small, and recurved on maxillaries. 



The specific name, Hexacanthus, is significant ; its anal fin 

 being armed with six spines, which number of anal spines 

 exceeds that of any other percoid, — at least as far as the writer 

 has observed. 



This graceful fish is known by the Creoles of Louisiana as 

 the " Sac-a-Lai," where it is also sometimes called " Chinkapin 

 Perch." In the neighborhood of St. Louis, Mo., it was called 

 originally " Crappie," by the old French habitans, and still 

 bears that name. It is known in some of the north-western 

 lakes as " Grass Bass." It is found in the Atlantic States 

 south of Cape Hatteras, in the bayous in the vicinity of New 

 Orleans, and all the creeks, lakes, and ponds, fed by the over- 

 flow of the Mississippi, from Louisiana to Minnesota. It 

 abounds particularly in the lakelets of what is termed the 

 " American Bottom," extending along the Illinois side, oppo- 

 site St. Louis. 



The lakes, as they are called (though they are more properly 



ponds), along the alluvial banks of the Mississippi, become 



very low after a succession of dry seasons, and the fish cease 



to breed in them ; this, with excessive fishing with nets and 



hooks, almost depopulates those waters ; but when a good rise 



in the river overflows the bottom lands, the ponds are swept 



of the foul water and replenished with fresh ; and, at the same 



time, restocked with fish. Then it appears almost miraculous 



where the vast numbers of Crappies, Bass, Perch, and other 



fish come from, and there is no other way of accounting for 



this fact, than by supposing that all the lakelets and streams 



of Wisconsin and Minnesota to the north, have thrown off 



their surplus production, which they appear to have garnered 

 up. 



