POISONOUS FISHES 151 



given to the dissected fish, which was then placed in a barrel of 10 per- 

 cent formalin, for future taxonomic purposes. The material in the deep 

 freeze remained frozen until tested in the laboratory at Loma Linda, 

 California. 



Except for the families of Exocoetidae, Muraenidae, and Scaridae, 

 all of the fishes listed in this report were identified by Dr. Boyd Walker 

 of the Department of Zoology, University of California at Los Angeles. 

 The exocoetids were identified by Dr. Grace Orton of the Scripps Insti- 

 tution of Oceanography of the University of California at La Jolla. 

 Dr. Leonard P. Schultz of the U.S. National Museum identified the 

 scarids. The muraenids were identified by the authors. Our sincere appre- 

 ciation is expressed to these individuals for their valuable contributions 

 to this report. 



There is no single comprehensive systematic treatise on the fishes of 

 the Galapagos Islands. The following works were useful: Beebe and 

 Tee- Van (1941), Clark (1936), Fowler (1938 and 1944), Garman 

 (1899), Gilbert and Starks (1904), Giinther (1869), Heller and Snod- 

 grass (1903), Herre (1936), Jordan and Evermann (1896), Jordan, 

 Evermann and Clark (1930), Meek and Hildebrand (1923), and Snod- 

 grass and Heller (1905). Hildebrand's (1946) "A Descriptive Catalog 

 of the Shore Fishes of Peru" was particularly useful. The nomenclature 

 proposed by Hildebrand is largely followed in this report. 



The reader is referred to a previous report (Halstead and Bunker, 

 1954a) on the poisonous fishes of the Phoenix Islands for a resume of the 

 screening techniques of earlier workers. The technique described here has 

 been adopted as the routine screening procedure for this laboratory and 

 is a modification of one originally suggested by Doctors Karl F. Meyer 

 and Hermann Sommer of the University of California. 



Samples were removed, when possible, from the muscle (M), liver 

 (L), intestines (I), gall bladder (GB), and gonads (G), from each fish 

 to be tested. With small specimens, it was sometimes necessary to remove 

 the entire viscera (V) as a single sample, and in rare instances it was 

 necessary to use the entire fish to obtain sufficient material for extraction 

 purposes. An effort was made to secure about 7 gm. of flesh for each 

 sample. Tw^o ml. of distilled water were added for each gram of flesh. 

 The material was then homogenized in a Waring Blendor and the 

 homogenate centrifuged at 2000 r. p. m. for 25 minutes. One ml. of the 

 clear supernatant fluid was injected intraperitoneally in each of four 

 weanling white laboratory mice of the California Caviary Strain (CCi) 



