16 Book of the Black Bass. 



vagueness and inaccuracy of the drawing and its descrip- 

 tion—we might have discovered that this figure had, as 

 Lacepede says, a " verij large mouth;" and that while the 

 large-mouth black bass, or "-trout" is "very abundant" 

 in Carolina waters, the small-mouth black bass is appa- 

 rently unknown, at least in the vicinity of Charleston, 

 where Bosc collected. 



As an angler, I have fished for the black bass in all the 

 South Atlantic States, from Maryland to Florida; and 

 while I have found the large-mouth bass " very abundant " 

 in all parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and 

 Georgia, I never took a single small-mouth bass in either 

 of these latter states within a hundred miles of the coast. 

 I have taken it in the hill-country of each of these states, 

 about the head-waters of the rivers flowing into the At- 

 lantic, but I doubt very much if it is found anywhere in 

 the lowland region of that section of country. 



Dr. Edward D. Cope, who fished the streams of North 

 Carolina, in the autumn of 1869, from the Cumberland 

 Mountains to the sea, found the large-mouth bass, " abund- 

 ant in all the rivers of the state," but failed to find the 

 small-mouth bass, except in the Alleghany region of the 

 extreme western part of the state; and says that it is 

 " apparently not found east of the great water-shed."* 



If the small-mouth black bass inhabits the Atlantic 

 slopes of North Carolina, South Carolina, or Georgia, Dr. 

 Holbrook would have known it; for there has been no 

 iclithyologist, before or since his time, who understood the 

 structure and habits of the " Carolina trout " so well. The 

 best description, and the best figure of the large-mouth bass 



* A Partial Synopsis of the Fresh Water Fishes of North Caro- 

 lina. By E. D. Cope, A.M. < Pro. Am. Phil. Soc, p. 450, 1870. 



