ETHEOSTOMA 313 



3.3; gill-membranes scarcely connected*, distances to angle and to back 

 of orbit equal. Dorsal fin usually VIII or IX, 12-14 (sometimes VII or 

 .X); two portions as a rule scarcely separated at base, sometimes apart 

 a distance equal to about § of eye; first dorsal very low, its height 48 to 

 64 per cent, of second; (first 2.6 to 3.7 in head, second 1.8 to 2.1); 

 caudal rounded ; anal II, 6 or 7 ; pectorals 1.15 to 1.27 in head; sepa- 

 ration of ventrals about half their width at base. Scales 6-8, 44-57, 

 7-8 [10-13]; lateral line nearly straight, from 5 to 15 pores usually lack- 

 ing; cheeks and opercles with more or less closely embedded scales; nape 

 as a rule scaled; breast naked or wholly or partly covered with embed- 

 ded scales; belly covered with ordinary scales. 



Taken by us in ten collections, from eight localities, all but two 

 from southern Illinois, south of the Saline River, the exceptions 

 ■coming from Robinson creek a branch of the Kaskaskia in Shelby 

 county, and from the Little Wabash River near Carmi, in White 

 county. It is distinctly a southern species, reported from Georgia 

 and Florida to southern Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the 

 Black Warrior River in Alabama. It is, like obeyense, a species of 

 swift clear creeks with a bottom of rock or gravel. 



b L 



ETHEOSTOMA FLABELLARE Rafinesque 

 (fan-tailed darter) 



Rafinesque, 1819, Journ. de Physique, 419. 



J. &G., 513; M. V., 131; B., I, 86; J. & E., I, 1097; X., 34 (Poecilichthys flabellatus 

 and P. lineolatus); J., 42; F., 64; F. F., 1.3, 24; L., 29. 



Length 2 to 2\ inches ; body rather slender, compressed, back low, caudal 

 peduncle deep ; depth 4 . 6 to 6 . 8 in length ; greatest width of body about \ 

 its greatest depth ; depth caudal peduncle 1 . 8 to 2 . 4, usually less than 2 , in 

 its length . Color (in preservative) rather dark, with small dark specks and 

 faint cross-bars; each scale of back and sides with a central dark spot, the 

 longitudinal rows formed by these most prominent in females and in the 

 so-called variety lineolatumf ; a rather large and very black humeral spot ; 

 a dark streak across opercles and through eye to end of snout; suborbital 

 streak faint or wanting; cheeks and opercles dusted with minute brown 

 specks; males with head and upper parts dark bluish black and with 10 

 or 12 cross-bars of same color on sides, traces of these bars in females; 

 second dorsal and caudal fins finely barred; pectorals faintly barred, 

 other fins plain ; spines of first dorsal in breeding males ending in fleshy 

 pads or knobs of rust-red color, and body and fins all more or less dusky. 

 Head rather long, slender, depressed, 3 . 6 to 4 . 2 in length ; a distinct but 

 not deep angle at nape, from which profile is almost straight to tip of 

 snout, which is somewhat upturned, especially in males; interorbital 



*" Rather broadly connected" (Jordan and Evermann, 1. c). 

 f.E. flabellare lineolatum (Agassiz) , Jordan and Evermann, 1896, Bull. U. S. Nat. 

 Mus., No. 47, Pt. I., p. 1098. 



