6 Book of the Black Bass. 



various ages, of the small-mouth black bass, as Cichla 

 variabilis, (this name was never published by Le Sueur, 

 but specimens sent by him and thus labeled, are still pre- 

 served in the Museum D'Histoire Jfaturelle at Paris,) 

 Cichla fasciata, Cichla ohiensis and Gichla minima, and 

 the large-mouth bass from Florida as Cichla fioridana, thus 

 dissenting from, or entirely ignoring, Eafinesque. 



In 1828, the great Cuvier and his coadjutor, Valenci- 

 ennes, received from Lake Suron a specimen of the large- 

 mouth black bass, and which, as in the case of the first 

 small-mouth bass sent to France, was, curiously enough, 

 an abnormal or mutilated specimen, having likewise a de- 

 formed dorsal fin. In this instance, the last two rays of the 

 spinous dorsal fin were torn off, thus leaving, apparently, 

 two separate and distinct dorsal fins, the first •composed of 

 six spines, and the second of two spines and twelve or thir- 

 teen soft rays. This specimen was sent to them under the 

 local name of "black bass," or "black perch;" and not 

 suspecting the mutilation of the specimen, they named it 

 Huro nigricans — the " black huron." 



In the following year, 1829, Cuvier and Valenciennes 

 obtair!£d two specimens, through M. Milbert, of the large- 

 mouth bass, from New York, im^der the name of " growler," 

 and four specimens of the small-mouth bass, through Le 

 Sueur, from the Wabash Eiver, in Indiana, all of which 

 they identified with Lacepede's Labrus salmoides, and Le 

 Sueur's Cichla variabilis, and which they named Grystes 

 salmoides. Subsequently Cuvier and Valenciennes an- 

 noimced that Lac6pede's Micropterus dolomieu was also 

 identical with their Grystes salmoides.* 



* These specimens I have also personally examined. The two 

 examples sent to the museum at Paris by Milbert, and from one of 



