168 REPOET OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



A related species, though of a different genus, was found by the new 

 settlers of Massachusetts and New York, and quite properly called 

 bass or striped bass; it is the Roccus llneaiuft of modern ichthj^olo- 

 gists. There are several other species, including the white perch, also 

 entitled to the name. All others are quite remote from the true bass — 

 even the black-basses. These last, however, must retain the name, 

 and it might be better to use always the h^'phenated form, i. e., black- 

 bass. 



Trout is another of the English names variously misapplied. In the 

 old country it is given to a single species generally distributed through 

 the island in clear cold streams. The Pilgrims found in similar streams 

 in Massachusetts a fish somewhat like it, and called it by the same name, 

 although if good Isaak Walton or some other angler had been among 

 them, he might have told them it was not a trout but a char. Others 

 found in Maine land-locked salmon, and in various large lakes another 

 good-sized salmonid {Cristivomer ■narnaycusJi)^ and applied to them 

 also the name of trout, but often with a qualifying prefix, as schoodic, 

 or sebago trout, and lake trout. The old specific name was thus applied 

 to representatives of three distinct genera; but the offense was venial, 

 as the genera are closely related and belong to the same family. But 

 this was not the case Avith others. Settlers in troutless Southern States, 

 bound to give the name to some fish, gave it to the centrarchoid fishes 

 generally known as black-basses. This perversion even found its way 

 into scientific literature, for "Citizen Bosc," French consul at Charles- 

 ton a little more than a century ago, sent specimens to Paris, with the 

 information that it was called trout, and "Citizen Lacepede" gave it the 

 specific name [^Microj)terui^'\ ■mlmoldes. Along the southern coast, too, 

 the name trout or sea trout was given to sciivnoid fishes of the genus 

 Cynoscion. When the Americans reached the Calif ornian coast they 

 found certain fishes of a peculiar family (hexagrammids), not at all 

 like trout in shape or fins, but spotted, and these also they called trout. 

 Still another fish, found in the Gila River, a slender large-mouthed 

 cyprinid, Gila gracilis, was called trout b}^ earlv explorers, and still 

 bears the name. 



But this is not all, or the worst! These old names are not only 

 widely scattered; the}^ may be more or less accumulated on one fish. 

 AVe need only take those already considered as instances. 



Cod and trout are given to the same hexagrammids along the Pacific 

 coast. The Hexagram uius drcagram//ius, for instance, is called rock 

 cod about Puget Sound, and rock trout and sea trout at San Francisco. 

 Bass may also be given in some places, as a somewhat related fish, less 

 like a bass {SehaModes melanops)^ is called black-bass. 



Trout, bass, and perch are also given to the black-basses, as already 

 indicated, in various places in the Southern States. 



Our forefathers likewise brought with them fish names which have 

 become almost obsolete in England, but which have entered on a new 



