B16 FOREST AND STREAM. [June 25, 1898. 
AUDUBON'S PORTRAIT OF THE PURPLE SANDPIPER. 
Fresh- Water Angling* 
No. IX. — The Two Crappies. 
BY FRED MATIIKK. 
The crappies resemble the black basses in one respect; 
there are two of them which many anglers cannot cor- 
rectly name, if indeed they have not some local name 
for one or both species which is either absurd or is 
confined to a small t^rritorj^. These are good fishes, one 
is especially so, and they should be better known and 
placed in Eastern waters which are suitable to them. 
They are not as game fighters as the black basses, nor 
even as the white and jrellow perch, yet with light 
tackle they afford sport and are excellent for the table. 
In my early days, when fishing the "sloos" of the Mis- 
sissippi River along Grant county, Wis., they were my 
favorite table fish, above the pike or anything else which 
those waters afforded. 
Local Names. 
While the local names are many, and applied indis- 
criminately to both species, there is one abominable 
corruption of the name that is often used by writers who 
should know better, and that is "croppy," or sometimes 
"'croppie." The U. S. Fish Commission publications; 
'Goode's "American Fishes"; Prof. D. S. Jordan, both 
in his "Manual of Vertebrates," Shield's "American 
Game Fishes," and his other publications; Norris, 
'"American Angler's Book," and other writers spell the 
name as I do, surely there is authority for it. 
I have a theory that the misspelling of the name comes 
from the fact that some farmers use "crap" for "crop," 
and speak of "a right smart crap o" corn," and thus 
some may suppose "crappie" to be a corruption, and 
they blunder when they try to correct the name. 
We find the names "goggle-eye" and "goggle-eyed 
perch" given to these fishes, as well as to rock bass, or 
red-eye, Ambloplites, in the South; the war-mouth also 
bears the name goggle-eye occasionally, and this shows 
how the names are mixed, not inextricably, let us hope, 
but it will take many generations and much literature to 
straighten cut the kinks. The local names will be treated 
more at length when the species are defined. 
I have a fancy for classifying these fishes by their 
mouths, as has been done m the case of the two species 
of black bass, and some years ago wrote up this mode m 
another periodical, which is not now at hand. I think 
that they mav be called "big-mouth" and "small-mouth" 
crappie, at least I will attempt it, and it may possibly 
catch the fancy of others. Dr. Henshall once called them 
"northern" and "southern" crappies, but it did not take 
root, for their range is nearly identical. 
The Small-Mouth Crappie. 
This is Pomoxys sparoidcs, Facepede; called strawberry 
bass in New York and parts of Ohio; grass bass, Ohio. 
In the latter State it is also "bitter head," "lamplighter" 
and "bank lick bass." In Illinois it is "calico bass," 
while in the Southern States it is called "goggle-eye," a 
name shared with otiier fishes, and also "speckled hen" 
and perhaps other names. For absurd names this fish 
stands high among our many ridiculoush' named fishes. 
The range of this species is the lakes and ponds of 
the Great Lake region, western New York, New Jersey, 
the streams of the Carolinas and Georgia east of the 
mountains, the Mississippi Valley especially northward; 
it being the more northerly species. It prefers clear, 
quiet waters v/here the bottom is covered with grass, and 
it shuns mudd}^ waters. The angler who judges by 
color will never be able to separate the two crappies; he 
must consider the mouth, the profile of the head, and the 
fin-rays. Both species are "undershot," as they say of 
bull dogs and pugs, but the small-mouth is the least 
so, and this makes its mouth smaller. It has 7 pr 8 
spines in its dorsal fin, while the other has but six. 
Both species are colored alike, a silvery olive mottled 
with green, but usually the small-mouth has a lighter 
green than its brother, while its forehead is but slightly 
dished in comparison. 
The Big-Mouth Crappie. 
This is the more Southern species and is known to 
science as F. anmilaris, although it is not marked with 
with rings. It has many of the local names of the other, 
and in addition to the name of crappie it is called "sac- 
a-lait" and "chinquapin perch" on the lower Mississip- 
pi, the latter name being shared with a handsome mem- 
ber of the numerous sunfish tribe. In the Ohio Valley 
if it is distinguished from its relative it is a "bachelor," 
while in Kentucky and Indiana it is a "new light" or 
"campbellite," two absurd names for a fish, because they 
are names of religious sects. 
To one accustomed to both species the greater depres- 
sion over the eye, and the elongated, thickened lower 
jaw would -roclaim the big-mouth at once, without wait- 
ing to count the dorsal spines and find that there were 
only six. These fishes are more alike than the two black 
basses, yet they are as distinct in structure and in habits. 
Their fins are alike in shape, there is little difference in 
the outlines of their bodies and they are similar in color 
and markings. 
The big-mouth loves muddy bottoms, but it is often 
found in the same waters as its congener. It is the only 
species which Norris records, but he never fished much 
in the West and South. It is the only fish called crappie 
in the "Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United 
States," Sec. i, p. 407, and by Jordan and other writers. 
The grouping of the two multi-named species under the 
generic name of "crappie," and separating them by the 
mouth, is a scheme of my own which seems to be a 
necessity in order to simplify the matter, as was done by 
Dr. Gill with the black basses a quarter of a century or 
more ago, and which after a while has been adopted by 
all except a few old fogies who still speak of "Oswego 
bass." When a man uses that term for the big-mouth 
he convicts himself of being an old fogy, who has let 
the angling world go by him and has not read Forest 
AND Stream. 
Value of the Crappies, 
The State of New York has distributed a few small- 
mouth crappies under the absurd name of "strawberry 
bass," but they should be in every pond where there 
are no trout, but where perch and sunfish abound. They 
have been neglected because we have a wealth of such 
fishes and no writer has presented the claims of these 
to the angler and fishculturist, if we except the late Prof. 
Kirtland, of Ohio, who said of the small-mouth crappie, 
using the local najjie: 
"The 'grass bass' has not hitherto been deemed worthy 
of consideration by fishculturists; yet, from a long and 
intimate acquaintance with its merits, I hesitate not to 
pronounce it the fish for the million. [Italics are Dr. 
Kirtland's.] It is a native of our Western rivers and 
lakes, where it usually resorts to deep and sluggish 
waters; yet in several instances, where it has found its 
way into cold and rapid streams, and even small-sized 
brooks, by means of the constructing of canals or by 
the hand of man, it has adapted itself to the change, and 
in two or three years stocked to overflowing these new 
localities. As a pan fish, for the table, it is surpassed by 
few other fresh-water species. For endurance and rapid- 
ity of increase it is unequaled. * * * The grass bass is 
perfectly adapted to stocking ponds. It will thrive with- 
out care in very small ponds of sufficient depth. * * 
It will in nowise interfere with the cultivation of any 
number of species, large or small, in the same waters. 
It will live harmoniously with all others, and while its 
structure and disposition restrain it from attacking any 
other but very small fry, its formidable armature of 
spinous rays in the dorsal and abdominal fins will guard 
it against attacks of even the voracious pike." 
As the food of the crappies is the same as that of the 
sunfishes and all other fresh-water fishes with compressed 
sides, i. e. small fish, crustaceans, insects and their 
larvfe, we must consider that their destructiveness is 
that of their class. I do not know of a fish, in America 
or on any other continent, which takes no animal food. 
When the carp was introduced into America it was 
heralded as "a sheep among fishes," which grew to 
great weight on vregetation alone. It is true that the carp 
eats much vegetation and is fond of that green conferva 
which ignorant people call "frog spittle," or "frog 
spawn," with which the frog has as much to do as the 
editor of Forest and Stream has, but the carp also 
loves worms, insect larvae, and will take a small fish if 
the fish can't escape. 
There may be fishes which are strict vegetarians, if so 
I don't know them. The brook suckers love trout eggs 
and work the mud for insect larvae; the sturgeons mouth 
over mud for the snails and other animal life which they 
get, and we must only consider the question of how 
much and what kind of animal life a fi.sh consumes in 
order to plant it in our lakes and streams. 
Speaking as a fishculturist, I would, if I could, ex- 
terminate every pike, pickerel and mascalunge in the 
waters of the earth, for the reason that their diet is ex- 
clusively fish, and they consume a hundred times their 
weight in other fishes and then are not as good for the 
table as some that they hav^e eaten. 
As an angler I take no note of what it costs in good 
food fish to raise a pike to lolbs, weight, if the pike 
will only condescend to take my hook. This is a logical 
appeal from Philip sober to Philip drunk. As a fish- 
culturist, the ratio of food consumed to value of fish 
for market is a vital one, as much so as the growing 
of horses, cattle, pigs and poultry is to the farmer; but 
when my fly is cast, or a baited hook is spinning astern, 
there is an alter ego, another self, w^atching for results, 
and the latter fellow never stops to consider whether his 
catch is worth all the food it has devoured to enable it 
to pull down the scales to a creditable point, or whether 
the balance is on the other side. As a fishculturist I 
would like to exterminate the whole pike family — pike, 
pickerel and mascalunge; but as an angler, thinking only 
of personal sport, the point of view differs. 
