102 FRESH-WATER FISHES OF NEW JERSEY. 
we have failed to produce for visitors what we claimed 
in publications as easily obtainable ; so we have been forced 
to the conclusion that only a series of examinations, cov- 
ering three or four years, will warrant one in asserting 
positively, that this or that species is a denizen of such and 
such waters. An instance of this presents itself forcibly 
now in the fact that during the past summer a few speci- 
mens of Pomoxis hexacanthus were caught in the Delaware 
River. -They were not caught here before 1869, and may 
not be here during the coming summer. Through canals a 
few specimens might have strayed into the Delaware, or it 
may be they were the pioneers of the species hereafter be- 
come resident, but the fact, as it now stands, goes for noth- 
ing in deciding the geographical range of that species. 
Recently discovered species. Professor S. F. Baird, during 
the summer of 1854, discovered, in New Jersey, three fresh- _ 
water percoids, the Banded Sunfish (Bryttus chetodon), the 
Spotted Olive Sunfish (Brytius obesus), and the Mud Sunfish 
(Ambloplites pomotis). Sometime later Dr. Cheston Morris 
discovered in the Delaware, near Philadelphia, the Pomotis 
(Bryttus) punctatus, which we now believe to be distinct 
from B. obesus. With reference to the three latter species, 
we have only to say that their dull coloring and general sim- 
ilarity to other species may have caused them to be over- 
looked; but we very much question if they were any way 
near as abundant before detected by Baird and Morris, as 
they now are. With the Bryttus chetodon the case is dif- 
ferent. A year later than the date of Baird’s discovery of 
this species, in Atlantic County, it appeared sparingly in 
Watson’s Creek (Mercer County), a tributary of the Dela- 
ware. Since then it has been crowding out the old time 
“Sunny” (Pomotis aureus), although never reaching over 
one-third the size of that sunfish. 
This fish (B. chetodon), considering jts clear silvery and 
jet black markings could never have been overlooked. 
Wherever it was previously to 1855 it then became an addi- 
