ROOK BASS. • 223 



captured even with tlie fly, but not readily. In the St. 

 Lawrence Eiver it feeds mostly on the eel-fly, so long as 

 that lasts, choosing, I believe, the dead ones ; and in 

 July I have found them filled with that fly. They never 

 attain the size of the larger black bass, although they 

 are taken of over three pounds, but are a brave, vora- 

 cious fish, and excellent at table.* 



* It is now geiiera1l7 accepted as the scientiflc concluBion that the Oswego baas, 

 the Southern black-bass— there called the chub— and the hlg-moutbed bass, arc 

 one and the same. I know, however, that the Southern black-bass, the Grystes^ 

 salmoides, is a much finer fish on the hook and on the table than his Eupposed 

 compeer, the Oswego base, and takes the fly as freely and fiercely as the true 

 hlack-basB. The latter is now generally called the Small-moathed bass, that being 

 his distinguishing peculiarity. 



