Shufeldt — Robert Collett on Pterycombvs brama Fries. H 



the courtesy of Dr. Brunchorst, have received for examination the two 

 specimens at present contained in the Bergen Museum, I will here offer 

 a tew remarks on this remarkable species. 



Several descriptions of Pterycombus brama have appeared and conse- 

 quently the external appearance of this form, in so far as its principal 

 characters are concerned, is known, notwithstanding the fact that none 

 of the descriptions has been made from either fresh or uninjured speci- 

 mens. 



Originally the species was described by Professor B. Fries in 1837, 

 from a dried specimen obtained by the State Museum in Stockholm, and 

 the general characters in this description, given by that excellent ichthy- 

 ologist, accompanied as it is by a photograph of the dried specimen, are 

 quite fully presented ( 1 ). Professor Fries placed this new form in the 

 family Scombridae, and considered it as being most nearly related to 

 Pteroclis Gronov., a genus which later on, and for hetter reasons, has 

 been relegated to the family Coryphaenidas. 



In 1855, Professor Nilsson, in his Scandinavian Fauna, gave a new 

 description of the same specimen, which he bad examined during the 

 previous year in the State Museum (2). Nilsson here, for the first time, 

 pointed out its close relationship to Brama Schneider, and be referred 

 both to the Squarnipinnes, a group represented by species having a num- 

 ber of external characters in common with them, including the partly 

 scale-covered fins. 



The next author treating of this genus is Professor Lilljeborg, who, in 

 1865, in his letter of invitation to the Upsala Re-union on November 4, 

 1864 (published simultaneously in the Year Book of the Upsala Univer- 

 sity for 1865), made some observations based upon six other specimens 

 obtained in Norway during recent years, which the author had the 

 opportunity of examining in 18(51 in the Museums of Bergen and Christi- 

 ania (3). A supplemental description is given of one of the specimens in 

 the collection of the Bergen Museum (taken near Bergen); Lilljeborg 

 here correctly points out that the relationship of Ptert/combus (and Brama) 

 to the Squarnipinnes is only an apparent and not a real one. He is 

 inclined, to consider that these species more likely constitute an aberrant 

 group falling within the family Scombridae, with only certain affinities 

 with the Squarnipinnes. 



[n a paper read at the Congress of Naturalists in Christiania in 1868, 

 on the Fishes of Finmarken, Professor Fsmark was the next one to 

 announce the discovery of another specimen, which had been sent to the 

 Museum of the University from the fjord of Yaranger in L866 (4). 



When I published my Fishes <>f Norway in 1874, ten specimens were 

 recorded of this species as having been taken on the coasts of Norway (5). 

 Later on, or in 1879, in the first supplement to this work Hi), the added 

 information was given of an eleventh specimen, it having been taken at 

 Hammerfest in 1.S77, and in 1884, in the second supplement (8), reported 

 the taking of the twelfth specimen which was obtained at Egersund in 

 L880. However, asoneof the earliest accounts has proved to lie unreliable, 

 it is safe to say that only eleven specimens is the correct number known. 



A very interesting observation was made in 1880 in regard to this 



