18 Book of the Black Bass. 



And yet we deceived ourselves, with all this evidence 

 staring us in the face, with the flimsy delusion that Bosc's 

 drawing of the " Carolina trout " was a small-mouth bass, 

 simply because Cuvier pronounced it synonymous with 

 Cichla variabilis Le Sueur and Micropterus dolomieu 

 Lacepede. 



Now, if we conclude from this that Labrus salmoides is 

 the large-mouth black bass, then the small-mouth black 

 bass claims its birthright of Micropterus dolomieu, which 

 unquestionably belongs to it. 



This, in short, seemed to be the view of Dr. Vaillant, 

 and it seemed to me to be the correct one, though he took 

 the figure of Grysles salmoides as additional evidence, the 

 said figure being made from a large-mouth black bass, as 

 is very evident from a glance at the reproduction of the 

 original, which is given in this connection. 



Being thoroughly convinced that Labrus salmoides was 

 a large-mouth black bass, from my own knowledge of the 

 Carolina " trout," and from the views of Agassiz, Holbrook 

 and Vaillant, I had fully determined to restore Lacepede's 

 names, viz : Micropterus salmoides for the large-mouth bass 

 and Micropterus dolomieu for the small-mouth bass, in the 

 first edition of this book. 



There was but one contingency that could have proved 

 the right of the small-mouth bass to the name Micropterus 

 dolomieu in a stronger, or absolute manner, and it would 

 be stronger, because incontrovertible, namely: the priority 

 of Laceplde's description of Micropterus dolomieu to his 

 description of Labrus salmoides, and it was my belief that 

 such a contingency really existed, for the following reasons : 



In collating the bibliography of the black bass for the 

 first edition of this book, I discovered an apparent dis- 

 crepancy, which, if it really existed, had an important and 



