THE SKELETON OF THE BLACK BASS. 
313 
paper as a whole was devoted to the osteology of Amia , and what I had to say there 
about that of the black bass was only by way of comparison. While I shall take 
advantage of those previous researches, the present memoir is primarily intended to 
give an account of the skeleton of this well-known bass in its entirety, and, as will be 
observed, a full-page plate is likewise here given which presents a side view of the 
entire skeleton of the small-moutlied black bass ( Micropterus'dolomieu ). This is from 
a photograph made from a specimen prepared by Dr. Jacob L. Wortman. Fig. 
27 of my Amia paper gives a left lateral view of the skull of Micropterus salmoides , 
natural size, being reproduced from a drawing made by me from my own dissections. 
This figure is here reproduced as tig. 2 of the present memoir There is also given in 
Fig. 2. — Left lateral view of skull of M. salmoicles , Avitli the skeleton of other parts connected with it posteriorly. 
Natural size and drawn from the actual specimen ky the author from his own dissections, lettering the 
same as in tig. 3 and other figures of the memoir. 
fig. 3 of the text the right lateral view of the skull of the small-mouthed black bass, a 
drawing made from my own dissections and not before used in any ichthyological paper. 
This cut will prove especially useful, inasmuch as the skull from which it was drawn is 
the same as that in the complete skeleton of the small-mouthed black bass in plate 44. 
In no other class of backboned animals is the slcull so large in proportion to the skel- 
eton of the trunk or body as it is in fishes, and to this statement the black bass offers 
no exception. The study of the skull in osseous fishes generally was for a long time 
considered, even by anatomists, one of the most difficult of all problems in biology, and 
even at the present time it is by no means an easytask. Duringthe lastteu or fifteen 
years, however, owing to the numerous text-books and various manuals devoted to the 
elements of anatomical science, this subject has been very much simplified. 
