208 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
each month from March (24) to November (1), except September. During 1915 they 
were recorded only in spring and (once) in the fall ; it is possible that they are commoner 
before the spawning time, but this is doubtful. At present there is no reason to con- 
sider the power development an injury to the fish. Keokuk is somewhere near the 
southern limit of its range, but it has been well established below the dam. Forbes 
and Richardson (1908) found it in Illinois “from the Mississippi near Cairo, more than 
300 miles below Keokuk, to extreme northwest Illinois and thence to the Calumet 
River.” While “its center of abundance is in the Great Lakes region * * *, 
it is also distributed widely over the Ohio Basin and the northern part of the Missis- 
sippi Valley.” They record, however, that it was formerly much more abundant 
than at the time of their writing (about 1908). 
So far as the information obtained orally in 1926 can be depended upon, the 
following conditions now apply: The white bass, formerly quite abundant in the 
upper part of the river, has almost disappeared within the past two or three years. 
In the region from Fairport to Keithsburg, above the upper limit of Lake Keokuk, 
the two species are about as abundant as they have been within the memory of 
local fishermen. From Keithsburg to Keokuk both species occur, but in comparatively 
small numbers. Below Keokuk white bass appear in undiminished numbers, or 
perhaps in increased abundance; they are taken chiefly in late fall and early spring. 
Yellow bass are not plentiful near Keokuk. 
The history of the basses during recent decades is evidently another of the now 
familiar tragedies connected with the fishery resources of the Mississippi Basin. The 
conditions are possibly obscured a little by the fact that not only are the white and 
yellow basses placed in one statistical category, but there is lumped with them the 
rock bass, a fish of very different relationships — one of the sunfishes, in fact. The 
figures that follow, showing the yield of rock, yellow, and white bass from the Missis- 
sippi River and tributaries, are again those assembled by Sette (1925, p. 209). 
Pounds 
1894 510, 763 
1899 278,457 
1903 104, 557 
1908 83, 000 
1922 74, 862 
SUMMARY 
The white and the yellow basses occur at Keokuk, but the former is the more 
common species. We have no evidence of ill effect of the dam on either species and 
as yet no information regarding the effect of the lake. The combined yields of white 
and yellow basses and the rock bass (a sunfish) have shown an apparently unin- 
terrupted decline during the past 30 years. 
THE DRUMS (Sciaenidae) 
The family of drums is another large group composed chiefly of marine species. 
The name drum is directly applicable only to those members of the family that make a 
croaking or drumming sound, but it fits with obvious aptness our only American 
species of fresh waters — the drum, sheepshead, or so-called “white perch” of the 
Mississippi. The equipment and method by which the drumming sound is pro- 
duced in many representatives of the family is well described by Smith (1907, p. 307). 
