350 



REPORT OF THE 



All the species are fresh-water fishes and are among our most beautiful and inter- 

 esting inhabitants of fresh-water streams and lakes. They are all spiny-rayed, 

 ctenoid-scaled fishes, with the same general characters as those of the Yellow 

 Perch. The darters are all very small fishes and many of them are exceedingly 

 brilliant in coloration, occupying the same aesthetic position among fishes that is 

 occupied by the warblers and humming-birds among birds. Nearly all the species 

 prefer clear, moderately cold water, and will be found on the riffles and shallows 

 where there is gravelly bottom. Many different species of darters are used more 

 or less as live bait, but usually only in the absence of anything better. Two or 

 three species, however, are more commonly used, and only these are treated in 

 detail in this paper. 



The Hog Molly, Log Perch, Hogfish, Sand Pike, or Molly-cra\vl-a-bottom, is 

 one of the largest and best known of the darters. It gets as large as 6 or 8 inches 



LOG PERCH. 



in length, though those usually seen are not over 4 or 5 inches long. This 

 species is found from Quebec and New England west through the Great Lakes 

 region and south on both sides of the Alleghanies to Texas. It is abundant in 

 Lakes Erie and Ontario, and in most of the small New York lakes outside the 

 Adirondacks, where it is not so common. I found it very abundant in Chautauqua 

 Lake, where it is called Sand Pike or Stone Pike. Of all the numerous species 

 of darters it is the one most frequently seen in the lakes. 



Head 4 to 4-)^ ; depth 5 to 6^2 ; eye 4; snout about 3; D. XIII to XVll-12 to 

 17; A. II, 9 to 12; scales 9-90 to 95-15, 76 to 93 pores; vertebrjE 23 + 21=44. 



Body elongate, little compressed ; head long and pointed, depressed and sloping 

 above ; mouth small, quite inferior, the maxillary not reaching eye ; cheek, opercles 

 and nape scaly, the breast naked ; fins rather low ; middle line of belly with a row 

 of enlarged, caducous scales; pectoral about as long as head; anal spine feeble, 

 subequal, or the second the longer; caudal truncate. 



