Distinctive Featukes. 45 



CHAPTER III. 



GENERAL AND SPECIFIC FEATURES. 

 " Like — but oh ! how different ! " — Wordsworth. 



As has been shown in the preceding chapter, the genus 

 MiCEOPTEEUS includes but two species, viz: Micropterus 

 dolomieu Lacepede, the small-mouth black bass, and Mi- 

 cropterus salmoides (Lacepede) Henshall, the large-mouth 

 black bass, or, as it is sometimes erroneously called, the 

 Oswego bass. The small-mouth bass exhibits some minor 

 points of difference between its northern and southern 

 forms, which, however, are not of much moment, as they 

 shade into each other, and are to be regarded as merely 

 geographical variations. 



Dr. Edward D. Cope took several large-mouth bass, in 

 Texas,* which, while agreeing in all other features with 

 the same species of the northern states and of Florida, 

 differed somewhat in the smaller size of the scales of the 

 cheeks, and in the scaling of the gill-covers. They also 

 differed slightly in coloration and markings by showing 

 several dusky, longitudinal streaks, especially noticeable 

 below the lateral line. I observed these several variations, 

 though not quite so pronounced, in several large-mouth 

 bass taken in the St. Francis River, Arkansas, in the au- 

 tumn of 1885. 



Possibly no genus of fishes has been the occasion of so 

 much confusion, scientifically and popularly, as the black 



• On the Zoological Position of Texas. By E. D. Cope. > Bull. 

 U. S. Nat. Mus., XVII, 1880, 31. 



