Basse (Labrax), a genus of marine fishes of the Perch family. They were known to the Greeks under their generic title, and Aristotle noted the rough teeth on the tongue, the scales on the gill-cover, and the spines on one of the gill-covered bones (operculum), which distinguish them from the ordinary perches. The British species (L. lupus, or formerly Pera labrax) migrates in shoals, from June onwards, to the south coasts of England and Ireland; often ascends rivers, and has been improved by captivity in fresh-water ponds. It is often taken by the small seine-net, or by the trolling rod with sand-eel bait, and it will rise to the fly. The Romans called it Lupus (its present specific name) in reference to its voracity, and ancients and moderns unite in the appreciation of its delicacy. The shape is salmon-like, and in Kent it is called the White Salmon or Salmon-dace. There are two dorsal fins, the first spinous, the second flexible. The colour is without the zebra-like bars of the perch, and shades off from dusky blue above to silvery white beneath, where it is as 'bright as a new shilling.' It weighs as much sometimes as 15 lb., but usually much less.
The Striped Basse or Rock-fish of the United States (L. lineatus) very nearly resembles the Common Basse, but attains a larger size, and is marked by seven or eight longitudinal black lines. The name Stone Basse is given to various forms, but especially the Polyprion cernium, a fish very rare on the coasts of Britain, but abundant in more southern parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and found on the American coasts and in the Mediterranean. In general appearance it resembles the common perch more nearly than the basse, but differs from both in having only a single elongated dorsal fin. It is sometimes called the Wreck-fish in reference to the way in which it follows wreckage, or ships on which barnacles are growing, and this it does apparently for the sake of small animals associated with the barnacles. It is easily taken, and is esteemed excellent for the table.