=The Sunfishes: Centrarchidæ.=—The large family of _Centrarchidæ_, or sunfishes, is especially characteristic of the rivers of the eastern United States, where the various species are inordinately abundant. The body is relatively short and deep, and the axis passes through the middle so that the back has much the same outline as the belly. The pseudobranchiæ are imperfect, as in many fresh-water fishes, and the head is feebly armed, the bones being usually without spines or serratures. The colors are often brilliant, the sexes alike, and all are carnivorous, voracious, and gamy, being excellent as food. The origin of the group is probably Asiatic, the fresh-water serranoid of Japan, _Bryttosus_, resembling in many ways an American sunfish, and the genus _Kuhlia_ of the Pacific showing many homologies with the black bass, _Micropterus_. [Illustration: FIG. 231.—Crappie, _Pomoxis annularis_ Rafinesque. Ohio River. ] [Illustration: FIG. 232.—Crappie, _Pomoxis annularis_ (Raf.). (From life by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt.) ] [Illustration: FIG. 233.—Rock Bass, _Ambloplites rupestris_ (Rafinesque.) Ecorse, Mich. ] [Illustration: FIG. 234.—Banded Sunfish, _Mesogonistius chætodon_ (Baird). Delaware River. ] =Crappies and Rock Bass.=—_Pomoxis annularis_, the crappie, and _Pomoxis sparoides_, the calico-bass, are handsome fishes, valued by the angler. These are perhaps the most primitive of the family, and in these species the anal fin is larger than the dorsal. The flier, or round bass, _Centrarchus macropterus_, with eight anal spines, is abundant in swamps and lowland ponds of the Southern States. It is a pretty fish, attractive in the aquarium. _Acantharchus pomotis_ is the mud-bass of the Delaware, and _Archoplites interruptus_, the "perch" of the Sacramento. The latter is a large and gamy fish, valued as food and interesting as being the only fresh-water fish of the nature of perch or bass native to the west of the Rocky Mountains. The numbers of this species, according to Mr. Will S. Green of Colusa, California, have been greatly reduced by the introduction of the catfish (_Ameiurus nebulosus_) into the Sacramento. The perch eats the young catfish, and its stomach is torn by their sharp pectoral spines. Another species of this type is the warmouth (_Chænobryttus gulosus_) of the ponds of the South, and still more familiar rock-bass or redeye (_Ambloplites rupestris_) of the more northern lakes and rivers valued as a game-and food-fish. A very pretty aquarium fish is the black-banded sunfish, _Mesogonistius chætodon_, of the Delaware, as also the nine-spined sunfish, _Enneacanthus gloriosus_, of the coast streams southward. _Apomotis cyanellus_, the blue-green sunfish or little redeye, is very widely distributed from Ohio westward, living in every brook. The dissection of this species is given on page 26, Vol. I. To _Lepomis_ belong numerous species having the opercle prolonged in a long flap