1871' ] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 133 



ON A NEW GENUS AND SPECIES OF SCOMBRIDiE. 

 BY W. N. LOCKINGTON. 



Since D. W. B. Ayres, between the years 1854 and 1863, de- 

 scribed nearly seventy species of fishes from the West Coast of 

 N. America, principally from the neighborhood of- San Francisco, 

 until my own scattered notes appeared in the Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. 

 1876, very little has been done in ichthyology by naturalists resi- 

 dent on this coast. In 1863-1864, Dr. J. G. Cooper, at that time 

 attached to the Geological Survey of Cal., described eight species; 

 and about the same time Mr. A. Garret, during a visit to this coast, 

 described a Muraenoid fish in a paper principally devoted to the 

 fishes of the Sandwich Islands. All these papers were published 

 in vol. iii. of the Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. 



Meanwhile the ichthyology of this coast has received careful 

 attention from Gill, Giinther, and Steindachner, the last of whom 

 visited us with the Hassler Expedition, resided here a short time^ 

 and took away with him numerous specimens. 



It has for some time been my endeavor to collect together and 

 identify such of the species described by the above authors, and 

 by Girard in vol. x. of the Pac. Kail. Reports, as occur in or near 

 the Bay of San Francisco, and to add to our knowledge of them 

 whatever information I can collect respecting their distribution, 

 life-colors, variations, etc. 



In so doing I have meet with the following new form. 



CHRIOMITRA, nov. gen. 



Body elongate, fusiform, cleft of mouth wide. First dorsal sepa- 

 rated from the second by an -interspace, seven or more spurious 

 fins behind dorsal and anal. No corselet or pectoral region, body 

 naked or covered with small scales. Teeth of moderate strength 

 in the jaws, none on the vomer or palatines. A longitudinal keel 

 on each side of tail. Seven branchiostegals. Dorsal spines 15. 

 Pectoral fins inserted at the level of the eye. This genus is dis- 

 tinguished from Scomber by the greater number of the finlets, 

 and by the want of a uniform covering of scales; from Orcynus 

 and Sarda by the absence of a corselet, and the presence of an 



