COMPARISON OF ITILLOWFIN TUNA OF HAWAIIAN WATERS AND THE AMERICAN WEST COAST 355 



does not completely eliminate the effect of size 

 of organism on the character being compared. 

 Second, there sometimes occiu* rather marlced 

 changes in growth rate of one part relative to 

 another at certain sizes, so that a regression which 

 over a considerable range may be represented by 

 a particular equation may not be so represented 



at all when the range is slightly extended. In- 

 deed, as has been shown bj' Martin (1949), there 

 seem to be sharp inflection points in the relative- 

 growth curves of several fish species. The 

 avoidance of misleading conclusions demands 

 that these matters be kept in mind in analj^ses of 

 morphometric data. 



Table 1. — Morphometric measurements and counts for Yellowfin tuna (Neothunnus macropterus) from the Hawaiian 



Islands Feb. 21-Sept. 28, 1949 



