200 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OP 



tnbutions to British Ichthyology are, with this introduction, especially sub- 

 mitted to the naturalists of Britain, to whom it remains to verify or disprove 

 the validity of the conclusions arrived at. I shall only remark that the fail- 

 ure, after so long a period, to find any species more conformable to the notice 

 of Ophidium imberbe than the one herewith identified with it, is itself most 

 suggestive. 



1. Ophidium imberbe L., Montag. 



For half a century a nominal species of fish has been retained in the cata- 

 logues of the British fishes under the name of "Ophidium imberbe L.," and in 

 later times under that of " Gymndis imberbis." As no critical investigation 

 into the history of this species has yet been given, it is thought that such 

 will not now be superfluous, since thereby a name symbolic of no distinct 

 organismmay be eliminated from the systematic and faunistic works, and 

 the false ideas connected in recent times by means of it with the geographi- 

 cal distribution of two remarkable genera be dissolved. 



Commencing with the general introduction of the binomial nomenclature, 

 Lmnjeus, in the tenth edition of the Systema Natura?,* defined anew the 

 genus Ophidion,f then placed by him at the end of the Jugulares, and assigned 

 to it five branchiostegal rays, and ventral fins with two rays, the external of 

 which is spinous. In the genus thus defined, he respectively placed, 1. O. bar- 

 batum, 2. 0. imberbe. 3. 0. macrophthalmum. The first has articulated bifid ven- 

 tral fins modified as barbels,! situated below the chin, and is the type of a 

 family closely related to the Brotuloids and Gadoids. The third is evidently 

 the species afterwards described as Cepola rubescens by Linna5us,|| as was sub- 

 sequently shown by Linnaeus^ and Cuvier.** Thus, neither of these species 

 answered to the terms of the diagnosis. The Ophidium imberbe was noticed 

 in the words " 0. maxillis imberbibus, cauda obtusiuscula, D. 19. P. 11. V. 

 2. A. 41. C. 18. Hab. in Europa." This diagnosis, in connection with the 

 notice of the ventrals in the generic diagnosis, enables us at once to identify 

 the species with the common gunnell of Europe, no other having even ap- 

 proximately such a radial formula. But references are made to the 0. cirris 

 carens of Artediff and the Fauna Suecica.%% Artedi based his species in the 

 " Synonymia" on, 1st, the Ophidian flavum vel Ophidion imberbe of Rondeletg 

 and the notices of the same derived from Rondelet by Willoughby|||| and 

 Ray; and, 2d, the Ophidion flavum imberbe of Schonevelde^f and Ophidion of 



* Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 1259. 



t " Caput nudiusculum. 



" Mentor, branch, patula radiis V. 



" Corpus ensrtorme. Pinna dorsalis anique units caudse. rinns venirales radiis duobus : ex- 

 teriore spinoso." Linn., Syst. Nat., ed. 10, i. 259. 



% I have already shown that the so-called barbels of Ophidion barbatum are true ventral fins on 

 account of their articulation and attachment, and not homologues with the barbels of the Mul- 

 loids and Polymyxioids. 



(S The Brotuloids form a very natural family, but its distinctive characters have hitherto been 

 only hinted at. Anions' the most trenchant are the closure of the cranial cavity in front and the 

 consequent development of a more or less complete bony septum ; the compression downwards of 

 the sides of the cranium and angularity below, and the great development of the exoccipitais, 

 which unite and extend obliquely upwards behind the supraoccipital : the forms of the supramax- 

 illars already described by me, and the development of a genital papilla in the males. 



| The Cepola rubescens must be called Cepola macrophthalmus. The diagnosis and radial for- 

 mula " O. maxillis imberbibus, pinna cauda acuminata. D, 69. P. 15. V. 6. A. 62. C. 12. Hab. 

 in M. Med.,'- enables one at once to identify the species. 



1T Binnasus, Syst. Nat., ed. 12. ed. Gmel., 1187. 



** Cuvier et Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. des Poissons, xi. 389. 



tt Artedi, Genera, 25. Syn. 42. 



JJLinnEeus, Faun. Suec, 289. 



% Rondeletius, lib. xiv. cap. 2, p. 398. 



|[||' Willoughby, p. 113. Hay, Syn., p. 39. 



%1 Schonevelde. Ichthyologia, &c., quae in florentissimis duratibus Slesvici & Holsatise, &c, 1524, 

 p. 53. 



[Sept. 



