Bass
Bass names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Bass a name used in a confused manner for unrelated fishes
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name used in a confused manner for unrelated fishes. The sea-bass is a perch, others are related to the sunfish. The striped bass, three to five feet long, is a fine, gamy sea-bass entering rivers from Nova Scotia to Florida to spawn. Its relative, the white bass, with an arched, greenish back and silvery sides, with several dusky streaks, is found in the waters of the upper Mississippi Valley to the Great Lakes . There is also a black, mottled sea-bass on the Atlantic coast. Unrelated to these, and found in the waters of eastern North America from Canada to the Gulf, are the black basses. Of the smaller-mouthed species, a writer quoted by Jordan says: "The black bass is eminently an American fish; he has the faculty of asserting himself and of making himself completely at home wherever placed. He is plucky, game, brave, unyielding to the last, when hooked. He has the arrowy rush and vigor of a trout, the untiring strength and bold leap of a salmon, while he has a system of fighting tactics peculiarly his own. I consider him, inch for inch, and pound for pound, the gamest fish that swims." Ex-President Cleveland maintained that this bass is superior to the trout as a game fish. The large-mouthed black bass, or Oswego bass, known also as the green bass and bayou bass, is larger and is more sluggish than his fellow. The rock bass, a handsome fellow, closely related to the sunfish, is a favorite with young anglers. See Fishes
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of a number of fishes of several genera, but originally belonging to a genus of sea fishes (labrax) of the perch family, distinguished from the true perches by having the tongue covered by small teeth and the preoperculum smooth. L. lupus, the only British species, called also seadace, and from its voracity sea-wolf, resembles somewhat the salmon in shape, and is much esteemed for the table, weighing about 15 pounds. L. lineatus (roccus lineatus), or striped bass, an American species, weighing from 25 to 30 pounds, is much used for food, and is also known as rockfish. Two species of black bass (micropterūs salmonides and M. dolomieu), American fresh water fishes, are excellent as food and give fine sport to the angler. The former is often called the large mouthed black bass, from the size of its mouth. Both make nests and take great care of their eggs and young. The centropristis nigricans, an American fish of the perch family, and sea weighing two to three pounds, is known as the sea bass.
Bass in music. (1)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in music. (1), The string which gives a bass sound. (2) An instrument which plays the bass part; especially of the violoncello or bass-viol, and the contrabasso or double bass. Both this and the previous sense are found in the following example: (3) The lowest of the principal human voices; those higher in pitch being, respectively, baritone, tenor, alto or contralto, mezzosoprano, soprano. (4) The portion of a choir singing the bass part; also the portion of string band playing the bass part. (5) The lowest instrument of any class or family of instruments; as bass clarionet, bass flute, bass horn, bass trombone, bass tuba, bass viol or base viol. (6) The string of lowest pitch on a string instrument having deep sounds. (7) Bass clef: The lowest sign of absolute pitch used in music; the F clef. A fundamental bass: The supposed generator or foundation of any harmonic combination. Thus C is said to be the fundamental base of the chord G, C, E. Thorough or continuous bass: Originally the bass part figured for the player on a harpsichord or organ. Hence, the art of adding chords to a figured bass; the art of harmony.
Bass JOHN FOSTER, American war correspondent
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN FOSTER, American war correspondent, born in Chicago, 1866; graduated at Harvard University, during the second half of the 19th cen- 1891. He served as a newspaper correspondent during the Cretan insurrection (1895); traversed the country where the Armenian massacres took place (1896); was at the front in the Greek war of 1898, and in the Spanish- American war of the same year. He was in China during the Boxer rebellion in 1900, and was for several months with Kuroki's army in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904. During the World War he followed the Russian campaigns of 1914-1915, was on the French and Balkan fronts 1915-1917, and covered the Italian military operations in 1918. A B C BASS A. Striped Bass. B. Black Bass. C. Rock Bass.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's warning in 1910 that "bass" is "a name used in a confused manner for unrelated fishes" still holds, but the labels have been tidied up. The striped bass that Collier's called Labrax (or Roccus) lineatus in 1921 is now Morone saxatilis, the European sea bass is Dicentrarchus labrax, and the Atlantic black sea bass is Centropristis striata rather than C. nigricans; the black basses keep the genus Micropterus, though where the old accounts saw two species ichthyologists now recognise well over a dozen, several named only in recent decades. The largemouth has since been stocked around the world and is treated as a serious invasive in parts of Europe, Africa and Japan, while Atlantic striped bass stocks collapsed in the 1980s, were placed under strict catch limits, and were declared recovered in the mid-1990s. The musical senses of the word, listed exhaustively by Collier's, read exactly as they would in a modern dictionary.
Written for this edition, 2026.