THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine 



Serranidce — are only three in number: the white 

 bass — Boccus chrysops; the yellow bass — Mo- 

 rone interrupta; and the white perch — Morone 

 nmericana. 



The Black Basses 



Owing to the almost phenomenal interest taken 

 in fish-culture by the people and by our state and 

 national governments, entailing an annual expendi- 

 ture equal to the gross appropriations for fish- 

 culture by all other nations, nearly every pond and 

 stream of sufficient area, purity, and depth, has 

 been stocked with either the smaU-mouthed or 

 large-mouthed black bass. Hence this great game- 

 fish may be said to be living and thriving at the 

 back door of nearly every fisherman resident in 

 the country districts. 



About three hundred years ago black bass were 

 found by the Spaniards in the waters of Florida, 

 and in 1721 the Jesuit missionaries caught them 

 in several Canadian lakes. During the early years 

 of the nineteenth century a specimen black bass 

 T^as sent from the United States to the French 

 ichthyologist Lacepede, who described it and gave 

 it the generic name Micropterus, the literal mean- 

 ing of which is " small fin." This was, however, 

 a misnomer, because the fish sent to Paris had a 

 mutilated dorsal fin, some of the rays of which 



