9 -REPORT OF INVESTIGATIONS RESPECTING THE FISHES OF ARKANSAS, 
CONDUCTED DURING 1891, 1892, AND 1893, WITH A SYNOPSIS OF PRE- 
VIOUS EXPLORATIONS IN THE SAME STATE. 
By SETH EUGENE MEEK, 
Associate Professor of Biology and Geology, Arkansas Industrial University. 
INTRODUCTION. 
During tlie summer of 1891, tlie writer, accompanied by Prof. P. H. Eolf, of the 
Florida Agricultural College, spent five weeks in exploring certain parts of Arkansas, 
with tbe combined objects of obtaining information respecting the character of the 
different streams and the abundance and variety of their fishes, for the xmrposes of 
the II. S. Fish Commission, and of securing data to be used in the jireparation of a 
rex)ort uiion the fishes of Arkansas, for the State Geological Survey. The latter reiiort 
was written a year ago, but the comxiletion of the xiresent paiier has been delayed in 
order to include the results of later investigations made in 1892, the writer, in the 
meantime, having become a resident of the State, and having thus secured opportuni- 
ties to work upon this subject to much better advantage. 
In the sxulng of 1892, with the cooperation of Prof. J. McXeili and two students of 
the Arkansas Industrial University, visits were paid to several streams lying east of 
Fayetteville, namely: "War Eagle Eiver near Pluntsville; KingEiverat Marble; Big 
Buffalo Eiver near Loafer’s Glory; Little Buffalo Eiver near Jasper; Walnut Fork of 
the Piney Eiver at Swain; Mulberry Eiver west of the Loafer’s Glory; White Eiver 
near Thompson. 
The high water during this period of the year xirevented our obtaining as much 
material as Ave would othenvise have expected, and W^ar Eagle and Mulberry rivers- 
were so much swollen as to make any collecting in them imi)ossible. These investiga- 
tions, however, weie not Avithout some good results, and subsecpiently they Avere 
extended to the streams in the neighborhood of FayetteAulle. 
The body of this report deals only with the explorations comlucted during 1891,, 
1892, and 1893, but it closes with a synopsis of the published results of all former 
ichthyological Avork carried on within the borders of this State. Very much remains, 
yet to be done in this direction, however, before we can expect to obtain even a fair 
knowledge of the fishes of the State and of the relations of the different riA-er basins. 
The lowlands haAm hitherto been almost entirely neglected and scarcely enough has 
been ascertained regarding that region to indicate, even in a superticial way, the char- 
acter of its fish fauna. 
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