NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



PART III. 



PISCES. 



ACANTHOPTERYGII. 



PERCOIDE.E. 



[1.] 1. Perca flavescens. (Cuvier.) American Perch. 



Family, Percoidese. Genus, Perca, Cuv. 



Yellow perch [Bodianus flavescens). Mitchill, Ph. Trans. New York, i., p. 421. No. 7. 



Smith, Fish of Mass. 

 Perca flavescens. Cuv. Reg. An., ii., p. 133. 

 La perche jaunatre d'Amerique {Perca flavescens). Cuv, et Val., ii., p. 46. 



Plate lxxiv. 



This fish has a close resemblance to the river Perch of Europe. Our specimen 

 was taken in Lake Huron, where it frequents steep banks and affords much sport 

 to the angler from the eagerness with which it snaps at the bait. In the month of 

 May it spawns and then resorts in great numbers to the mouths of rivulets. It 

 does not, as far as I could learn, exist in any of the streams that flow into Hudson's 

 Bay or the Arctic sea, and most probably it does not range farther north than the 

 49th or 50th parallels of latitude, between which the rivers that fall into the chain 

 of Great Canadian Lakes originate. Dr. J. V.C. Smith, author of a popular work 

 on the Fish of Massachusetts, enumerates the Perca fluviatilis among the fish of 

 that State, but he has most likely been misled by the report of anglers who have 

 mistaken the P . flavescens for it. It is certain, that no naturalist who had the 

 opportunity of comparing these two species with one another, would have placed them 

 in different genera, as Dr. Smith has done. Dr. Mitchill includes in Bodianus fish 

 of several genera together with the subject of this a?ticle, which is a true perch ; 

 while under Perca he places only Labrax lineatus and Centropristis nigricans of 



B 



