ASCENSION ISLAND 57 



In addition to the earlier collections made by H.M.S. 'Challenger' (1873-76), 

 Mr T. Conry (1881), and Dr A. McCloy (1908), the British Museum has received two 

 larger and valuable lots from Ascension in recent years, one presented in 1927 by 

 Dr J. J. Simpson of the Liverpool Public Museum, the other presented in 1932 by 

 Colonel S. T. Haley. With this material available, it seems desirable to draw up a 

 provisional list of the fishes recorded from the island, and to indicate in the form of a 

 table the distribution of the various species. A glance at this table shows at once that 

 the fauna, like that of St Helena, is predominantly West Indian and Brazilian in char- 

 acter. Of the 49 species recorded, 27 or 28 occur also at St Helena, and doubtless 

 others will be found to be common to the two islands. A certain number of the species 

 also appear to occur on the coast of West Africa, but many of the records from this 

 region are unreliable. 



TRISTAN DA CUNHA 



Examples of 3 species were obtained here, including a fine specimen of a new species 

 of Decapterus, which has been described and figured by me elsewhere. 



CARANGIDAE 

 Decapterus longimanus, Norman. 



1935, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (10) xvi, p. 255, fig. i. 

 St. 4. 30-31. i. 26. Hand line, 40 m.: i specimen (holotype), 470 mm. 



CHILODACTYLIDAE 



Acantholatris monodactylus (Carmichael). 



Chaetodon monodactylus, Carmichael, 1818, Trans. Linn. Sac, xn, p. 500, pi. xxiv. 

 Chilodactylus carmichaelis, Cuvier and Valenciennes, 1830, Hist. Nat. Poiss., v, p. 360; Kner, 



1869, Reise 'Novara', Zool. i, 5. Fische, p. 90, pi. v, fig. i. 

 Chilodactylus monodactylus, Regan, 1913, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (8) xi, p. 466. 



This species was redescribed and figured by Kner from St Paul Island, in the same 

 latitude as Tristan da Cunha but 4500 miles distant. There are in the British Museum 

 collection two small specimens from Tristan da Cunha presented by the South African 

 Museum, and another larger one from the same locality collected by the Shackelton- 

 Rowett Expedition ('Quest'). This species is quite distinct from the Chilean Acantho- 

 latris gayi (Kner), of which the 'Challenger' obtained two fine examples from Juan 

 Fernandez. 1 



SCORPAENIDAE 

 Sebastichthys capensis (Gmelin). 



Barnard, 1927, Ann. S. Afr. Mus., xxi, p. 908. 



St. 4. 30-31. i. 26. Hand line, 40 m.: i specimen, 340 mm. 



Also obtained from Gough Island ('Scotia' and 'Quest'). 



^ The Chilean form is well described by Cuvier and Valenciennes (1833, H.N. Poiss., ix, p. 489) as 

 Cheilodactylus carmichaelis, and it was subsequently figured by Valenciennes (1850, in Cuvier, R. Anim., 

 Discip. Ed., Poiss. pi. xx.xi, fig. 2). 



