INTRODUCTION. 



About fourteen years have uow elapsed since the publication of Dr. D. 

 H. Storer's " Synopsis of the Fishes of North America."* That work is 

 the last, and, indeed, almost the only special work that has ever been 

 published, professing to give a complete enumeration of the various 

 species of fishes which have been described as inhabitants of the waters 

 that bound, or course through, our continent. During the interval that 

 has elapsed between its composition and the present day, the progress of 

 Ichthyology, in common with every other branch of Natural Science, has 

 been such, that the " Synopsis of the Fishes of North America " presents 

 a very inadequate view of the present condition of our knowledge. It 

 appeared desirable that a list of the numerous species described in various 

 special works and the Transactions of learned societies should be pub- 

 lished, in order to exhibit the extent of our Fauna. The following Cata- 

 logue has therefore been prepared, and is believed to be a close approxi- 

 mation to the correct nomenclature of species of our coast. 



Dissatisfied with all the existing schemes of classification, we have not 

 strictly adhered to any one, as will be sufficiently evident on examination 

 of the Catalogue. The following arrangement approximates most nearly 

 to that of the late celebrated and learned Johannes M filler, but the orders of 

 Pharyngognathi, Anacanthini and even Malacopteri have been rejected 

 as such, they having apparently no real existence in nature ; for conve- 

 nience of classification, some have been retained as suborders. 



We f have already remarked on the close affinity of several genera of 

 the Miillerian Pharyngognathi to others of that biologist's Acanthopteri ; 

 we have cited the mutual resemblance of Pterophyllum of Heckel and 

 Platax of Astronotus of Swainson and Lobotes, and of Amblodon % of 

 Rafinesque and Corvina, and have remarked that Cuvier had even re- 

 garded the respective analogous genera as identical, while the Miillerian 

 classification would refer them to different orders. We may further re- 

 mind the reader of the very close affinity of the Pseudochromoids to the 

 true Chromoids, and that Malacanthus, which has by all naturalists been 



*"A Synopsis of the Fishes of North America," by David Humphreys 

 Storer, M. U., A. A. S. Cambridge, 1846: ib. in "Memoirs of the American 

 Academy," vol. ii. 



f " Notes on a collection of Japanese Fishes, made by Dr. J. Morrow," by 

 Theo. Gill, in Proc Acad, of Natural Sciences, for 1859, p. 148. 



\ "Notice of a collection of Fishes from the southern bend of Tennessee 

 river, in the State of Alabama," by L. Agassiz, in American Journal of Science 

 and Arts, second series, vol. xvii. p. 307. 



