Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1883 — BLACK BASS. [ARTICLE]

BLACK BASS.

There has been more confusion and uncertainty attending the scientific classification and nomenclature of the black bass than usually falls to the lot of fishes, some dozen generic appellations and nearly fifty specific titles having been bestowed upon the two species by naturalists since their first scientific descriptions by Count Lacepede in 1802. Nor has this polyonomous feature been confined to their scientific terminology, for their vernacular names have been as numerous and varied; thus they are known in different sections of our country as bass, perch, trout, chub or salmon, with or without various qualifying adjectives descriptive of color or habits. Much of the confusion attending the common names of the black bass arises from the coloration of the species, which varies great- 1 ly even in the same waters; thus they are known as black, green, yellow and spotted bass. Then they have received names somewhat descriptive of their habitat, as lake, river, marsh, pond, slough, bayou, moss, grafts and Oswego bass. Other names have been conferred on account of their pugnacity or voracity, as tiger, bull, sow and buck bass. In the Southern States they are universally known as “trout. ” In portions of Virginia they are called chub, Southern chub, or Roanoke chub. In North and South Carolina they are variously known as trout, trout-perch or Welshman; indeed, the large, mouthed bass received its first scientific specific name from a drawing and description of a Carolina bass sent to Lacepede under the local name of trout or trout-perch, who accordingly named it salmoides, meaning trout-like, or salmon-like.— Century. x