DISPERSION OF FRESH-WATER FISHES. 125 
bays, thus finding every facility for transfer from 
river to river, There is a continuous inland pas- 
sage in fresh or brackish waters, traversable by 
such fishes, from Chesapeake Bay nearly to Cape 
Fear; and similar conditions exist on the coasts of 
Louisiana, Texas, and much of Florida. In Per- 
dido Bay I have found fresh-water Minnows! and 
Silversides? living together with marine Gobies® 
and salt-water Eels.4 Fresh-water Alligator Gars® 
and marine Sharks compete for the garbage 
thrown over from the Pensacola wharves. In Lake 
Pontchartrain the fauna is a remarkable mixture 
of fresh-water fishes from the Mississippi and ma- 
rine fishes from the Gulf. Channel-cats, Sharks, 
Sea-crabs, Sun-fishes, and Mullets can all be found 
there together. It is therefore to be expected 
that the lowland fauna of all the rivers of the Gulf 
States would closely resemble that of the lower 
Mississippi; and this, in fact, is the case. 
The streams of southern Florida and those of 
southwestern Texas offer some peculiarities con- 
nected with their warmer climate. The Florida 
streams contain a few peculiar fishes;® while 
the rivers of Texas, with the same general fauna 
as those farther north, have also a few distinctly 
tropical types,’ immigrants from the lowlands of 
Mexico. 
The fresh waters of Cuba are inhabited by fishes 
unlike those found in the United States. Some 
1 Notropis cercostigma ; Notropis xenocephalus. 
2 Labidesthes sicculus. 3 Gobiosoma molestum. 
* Myrophis punctatus. 5 Lepisosteus tristachus. 
8 Jordanella, Rivulus, Heterandria, etc. 
1 Heros, Tetragonopterus. 
