226 LOWER VERTEBRATES. 



bays and sounds, where it seeks after food in the form of crabs, shrimps, squids, and 

 small fishes. It also enters rivers and ascends for long distances, and is frequently 

 found in perfectly fresh water. Besides the crustaceous food alluded to, the bass 

 poaches upon clams and mussels, which it obtains by delving with the snout. Pei-haps 

 its predominant food, however, is furnished by members of its own class, for it is a 

 highly carnivorous fish. 



The spawning season appears to be in May from North Carolina to New Jersey, 

 and June in New Brunswick. The eggs are very numerous ; as many as 2,248,000 

 eggs have been estimated in a fish of large size. The growth is quite rapid. 



The size sometimes reached is very large. Mr. Goode tells us that " the largest 

 striped-bass on record was one weighing one hundred and twelve pounds, taken at 

 Orleans, Mass., in the town cove. Such a fish would be at least six feet in length." 

 "But in the Potomac, Hudson, and Connecticut rivers, the largest seldom exceed 

 thirty or forty pounds, though in the Potomac fifty-pound fish are not unusual." The 

 average size, however, does not exceed twenty pounds. Indeed, the average size 

 must be much less than that. 



Few fishes are superior to the striped-bass as a food fish, " its flesh being firm, 

 finely flavored, and hard enough to bear exposure to the air for some time without 

 injury. . . . Those in the markets are chiefly obtained in seines and traps, set at various 

 points along the coast from the south side of Cape Cod to New Jersey." 



A species related to the striped-bass occurs also exclusively in fresh water, and 

 especially in the great lakes and the Mississippi basin. It scientific name is liocais 

 chrysops, and it is chiefly known as the white-bass, but not unfrequently by the same 

 name as its salt-water relative, the striped-bass. It is more conijii-essed and higher 

 than the rock-fish, and the teeth of the base of the tongue are in a single patch. The 

 color is silvery, shaded with yellowish below the lateral line, and along tjie sides are 

 narrow blackish lines, four or five above the lateral line, one along the lateral line,- 

 and a variable number below. It is esteemed as a table fish as well as a game fish, 

 although much inferior in both respects to the rock-fish. 



Two other fishes related to the European and strijicd basses are also found in 

 America. Both belong to the genus called Jforone, which has the spines standing 

 out at an angle from the lower margin of the operculum, as in the rock-fish (Hoccics), 

 but has no teeth on the base of the tongue, Avhile it has bands on the sides. 



The common white perch, JI. amen'cana, is olivaceous on the back, and silvery 

 below, with very faint lighter stripes. It chiefly frequents brackish waters, and is most 

 common about the mouths of rivers or other streams, but it also ascends into fresh- 

 water streams to a considerable distance, and is found in perfectly fresh Avater, both 

 running and in ponds. In ponds it seems to assume a somewhat darker hue than in 

 the sea. It ranges from the British provinces southward into the Gulf of Mexico, 

 although it is rare about southern Florida. In the north it is said to "hibernate in 

 the deep waters of oiu- bays, and ascend the fresh tidal rivers soon after the ice and 

 snow water have rnn off." 



Like its relative, the white perch is a greedy feeder, and affects " the spawn of 

 other fish, particularly that of the shad ; " it also feeds on " insects, crabs, minnows, 

 and on the migratory schools of young eels which are found in the months of April 

 and May in great numbers at any rapid or dam, obstructing the outward flow of the 

 tide." 



The spawning season of the white perch is May and June in the Middle and New 



