LARGE-MOUTHED BLACK BASS. 953 
of the bayous of the Gulf States as of the lakelets of Michigan. A still 
more wide-spread notion is that Micropterus salmoides is the Southern spe- 
cies, and Jl. dolomiew the Northern. The two are certainly native in 
Canada and throughout the Alleghany region (except streams flowing 
east, north of Virginia) to Alabama and South Carolina. I have myself 
taken both species in every considerable river basin within those limits. 
The extreme Northern limit from which any Black Bass has been recorded 
is the Red River of the North, and the specimens there obtained belong to 
Micropterus salmoides. So that Micropterus salmoides has been taken farther 
North, farther South, and farther West than its rival species, which can 
only claim the Hastern extreme. The simple fact is that both inhabit the 
same geographical area; but Micropterus salmoides takes to bayous, ponds, 
and the sluggish rivers of the far South, while Micropterus dolomieu is 
found chiefly in running streams: HWyery Western river contains both 
species, but they are not usually taken together in the same part of the 
stream. 
Diagnosis—This species may be known from the preceding by the 
larger mouth, larger scales, of which there are less than seventy in the 
course of the lateral line. The young may be known at once by the 
color, the ground here being much paler than in the other, and there 
being a broad blackish band along the sides. 
Habits.—This species is more sluggish in its habits than the preceding, 
and as above noticed, it more often frequents still waters and ponds. In 
the aquarium it is less active and less hardy than Micropterus dolomieu. 
It reaches a larger size than the Small-mouthed Black Bass. It is not 
quite so highly valued as fcod, but the difference is probably very slight, 
or even imaginary. — 
FAMILY XXI. SERRANIDA. THE SEA BASS. 
Body oblong or elongate, more or less compressed, covered with adherent ctenoid 
scales of moderate or small size; mouth horizontal or little oblique, usually large; pre- 
maxillary protractile; maxillary broad, with or without a supplemental bone, its pos- 
terior part not slipping under the edge of the preorbital; jaws with bands of teeth, 
some of the teeth sometimes enlarged and canine-like; no incisors or molar teeth; vomer 
and palatines, with bands of villiform teeth; tongue sometimes with teeth; pterygoids 
toothless; gill-rakers usually stiff and rather long, armed with teeth; gills 4, a long 
slit behind the fourth; pseudobranchize large; lower pharyngeals separate, rather nar- 
row, with pointed teeth; gill-membranes separate, free from the isthmus; branchios- 
tegals 7 or 6; cheeks and opercles scaly; preopercle with its posterior margin more or 
less serrate; opercles usually ending in one or two flat points or spines; nostrils double 3 
lateral line continuous, single, not running up on the caudal fin; skull without cranial 
