ELACATE CANADA. 99 



Geographical Distribution. The range of this animal is great, as it is com- 

 mon to the Atlantic shores of America ; its known southern limit on our conti- 

 nent is Brazil, and its northern, Massachusetts Bay, where it has been observed 

 by Dr. Storer. 



General Remarks. This fish, it appears to me, is the Gasterostens canadus of 

 Linnseus, which he describes from a specimen sent him by Dr. Garden, of Charles- 

 ton, and I have, consequently, restored his specific name. His description in the 

 Systema Natura: agrees well enough in most respects with the animal now under 

 consideration, with the exception of the ventral fin; which, he says, has seven 

 rays, instead of six ; and to the pectoral he gives but tivo rays, which, as Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes well remark, is doubtless a typographical error, hvo for twenty 

 rays, which is the exact number. 



Lacepede arranged this fish in his genus Centronotus, and described it under a 

 new specific name, " Gardmien," though his whole description is drawn from Lin- 

 naeus, and with the same remarkable typographical error, as to the number of rays 

 in the pectoral fin. 



Bloch, in his great work on Ichthyology, describes this fish as the Scomber 

 niger, and, as he avers,* from the manuscript and drawing of Prince Maurice of 

 Nassau, who was Governor of Brazil from 1637 to 1664. He remarks, however, 

 that the manuscript does not state the number of branchial rays, but that it gives 

 P. 12, V. 6, A. 21, C. 17, and D. 23 rays, preceded by '■'■ huit aiyuillons 

 degages." Bloch's plate is, however, defective, for the head is represented as too 

 full, rounded, and too much elevated, like a Coryphsena, and the scales are too 

 large ; though in his description he properly observes they are '■'■ petites, minces, 

 et lisses." 



Cuvier and Valenciennes, after an examination of the manuscript of Prince 



* Bloch, Ichthyologie, pars x. p. 48. 



