BLACKFISH, the name applied to various dark-coloured fishes. In England, it is Centrolophus niger, a scombroid fish about eft. long and shaped like a perch. In the United States, it most commonly refers to the tautog (q.v.), but is also used of a sea bass (Centropristis striates) of Atlantic waters, and a minnow (Orthodon microlepidotus) of central California. In Alaska, the blackfish is the small, fresh-water Dallia pectoralis. By whalers the word is used to denote Cetacea (q.v.) of the genus Globi cephalus, which includes the ca'ing or pilot whale (G. melas).