THE FRESH-WATER FISHES OF VIRGINIA 



By LEONARD P. SCHULTZ 

 Curator, Division of Fishes, U. S. National Museum 



During 1937 and 1938 Earl D. Reid, also of the Division of Fishes, 

 and the author spent 4 weeks on four different trips for the purpose 

 of collecting fishes in Virginia. This field-work is preliminary to the 

 laboratory study of Virginia fishes. The Smithsonian Institution fur- 

 nished the traveling expenses for this field-work, and we hope to con- 

 tinue our investigations until the entire area of the State has been 

 explored. Collections have been made in the smaller streams and 

 rivers of far western Virginia, along the southern border of the State, 

 in the Pamunkey and Rapidan river basins, and in numerous tribu- 

 taries of the Roanoke, James, and New Rivers. 



In Lewis Fork, a tributary of Fox Creek, near Mount Rogers, 

 figure 53, several small native Salvelinus fontinalis were collected. It 

 would have been impossible for us to have made this collection except 

 for the guidance of J. M. Reeves, game warden at Galax. The splen- 

 did cooperation of M. O. Hart, Executive Secretary, Commission of 

 Game and Inland Fisheries of Virginia, and of various game wardens 

 has made possible, and pleasant, our field-work in the State. 



Two conclusions are apparent from our field-work. First, fish-life 

 is abundant in the upper courses of the streams in the mountainous 

 areas, where the bottom offers protection for fish and is suitable for 

 the production of fish foods. Such a stream is Crooked Creek, near 

 Galax, figure 54. Second, there is a great scarcity of fish in those 

 sections of many streams that have shifting sand bottoms, such as 

 Leatherwood Creek, figure 55, east of Martinsville. In other similar 

 streams no fish were taken by seining for a distance of half a mile. 



An interesting discovery was made in the distribution of the moun- 

 tain sucker, Thobumia rhotheca, formerly known only from the 

 James River system, but taken by us in the headwaters of the Mayo 

 River, a tributary of the Roanoke system. Figure 56 shows one of 

 us seining for this sucker in swiftly flowing water. Other unique 

 fishes also have been collected by us, such as Parexoglossum laurae 

 Hubbs, known only from the New River system, a cyprinid with a 

 very peculiar mouth (fig. 57, A) resembling that organ in Exoglossum 

 maxillingua (Le Sueur) (fig. 57, B). The latter species is commonly 

 taken in the coastal drainage of Virginia, but not in the New River. 



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