438 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Part III 



Mediterranean and Italian specimens are naked or partly armed. 

 They show usually 4 plates, less frequently to 5. In young ex- 

 amples from Prince Edward Island the armature is often incomplete, 

 and the long ventral spines slender, frequently extending even | 

 beyond the pubic process or even twice length of the dorsal spines. 

 All my Canadian examples have the armature less complete, or 

 less in depth than in New Jersey specimens. This may, however, 

 be due to age, as my largest ones are somewhat less than Long 

 Island and New Jersey material. The Canadian specimens all 

 agree with the Virginian examples, all of which are uniformly 

 small. They have variously long or short spines. All show but 

 a single ventral ray. The characters given by Jordan and Ever- 

 mann for the nominal American forms^ are entirely fallacious and 

 my specimens violate all their alleged distinctions. 



Gasterosteus aculeatus cataphractus (Pallas) 



G. microcephalus Girard, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, p. 133. Four 

 Creek, San Joaquin Valley, Cal. 



Nos. 14,275 to 14,289, A. N. S. P., cotypes of G. microcephalus 



Girard. Others from San Francisco and Oakland, California; 



Puget Sound; Alaska. The distinctions given by Jordan and' 



Evermann for this nominal form, — its robust form and longer spines, 



do not hold. A nearly equal variation is found in my Pacific 



specimens as in the Atlantic, and the present form is only admitted 



nominally. 



Eucalia inconstans (Kirtland) 



Gasterosteus micropus Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1865, p. 81. Fort 

 Riley, Kansas. 



Nos. 14,184 and 14,185, A. N. S. P., cotypes of G. micropus Cope. 

 Others from New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa and Minne- 

 sota. They show D. v, rarely vi, unsually 10, often 9, sometimes 

 8 and rarely 7 or 11; A. i, 9 or 10, rarely 7, 8 or 11; ventral spine 

 5 to 1+1; length 24 to 65 mm. 



Apeltes quadracus (Mitchill) 



Prince Edward Island, Magdalen Islands, Maine, Rhode Island, 

 Long Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- 

 land. This large series shows a wider range of variation than is 

 usually credited to the dorsal spines. Seven examples have iii, 152 

 have IV, 283 have v, and 9 have vi. These spines are all very 



1 Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus.. no. 47. pt. 1. 1896, p. 746. 



