Scales and scale pockets are deciduous ; however, 

 the few scales we have seen lack spmes. Lateral 

 line counts of scale pockets in several specimens 

 are about 50. 



The peritoneum is black or almost so ventrally, 

 grading to a less dense distribution of chro- 

 matophores laterally, then a darker band along 

 the kidneys. The gut is immaculate. Nine to 14 

 pyloric caeca are present in 12 specimens. Most 

 specimens have considerable fat in the body cavity. 

 The swimbladder begins slightly anterior to the 

 hind cun^e of the stomach and extends posteriorly 

 to about the tip of the ventral fin. In 137 swim- 

 bladders examined, only 6 lacked any silvery pig- 

 ment and several of these were iridescent. About 

 one-half of the specimens having swimbladders 

 that were completely impregnated with silvery 

 guanine also had silverj' pigment on the head, sug- 

 gesting that strong formaldehyde solution that 

 dissolves the silvery pigment on the body may also 

 dissolve away pigment from the middle part of 

 the swimbladder. 



Pigmentation of adult specimens preserved in 

 fonnaldehyde solution is variable, but in general 

 the ventral two-thirds of the body is light. There 

 is often a brown band above the lateral line; in 

 some examples the band is barely discernible (fig. 

 7), in others quite distinct. Although the dark pig- 

 ment of the j^eritoneum may show through the 

 thin belly musculature, there is no extenially pig- 

 mented band along the niidventral line. Some 

 specimens have the throat peppered with brown 

 chromatophores (fig. 10 A) ; in many, however, 

 this region is immaculate. Specimens less than 

 about 100 mm. standard length may have a row 

 of eight or nine dusky blotches along the upper 

 third of the body, but not all do. Alcohol-pre- 

 served specimens are silvei-y below the lateral line 

 and on most, of the head. 

 Distribution 



A. striata is widely distributed in the western 

 Atlantic, ranging from the offing of Nova Scotia 

 (Schroeder, 1955), along the east coast of the 

 United States, the north coast of Cuba, around the 

 Gulf of Mexico, in the northwesteni and southern 

 Caribbean, and off the mouths of the Orinoco. 

 There are two records, however, from much far- 

 ther south off Brazil. Carvalho (1950) described 

 specimens from Banco Sao Tome at about lat. 22° 

 S., and Miranda Eibeiro (1961) described and 



FiQUBE 10. — Pigmentation on venters of four 

 western Atlantic species of Argentina: A. 

 striata, USNM 203001; B. steicarti, USNM 

 187834; C. georgei, USNM 186356; D. hrucei, 

 USNM 187793. Drawn by Mildred H. Carring- 

 ton. 



figured specimens from 24° 14' S., 44°49' W. We 

 have not examinefl material from either locality, 

 but the descriptions fit our material of A. striata. 



ADDITIONS TO A REVISION OF ARGENTININE FISHES 



25 



