60 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



"Temperate parts of the North Atlautic." 



The several forms described by Mitcliill, Harwood, and Johnson were 

 combined under the same specific name, Saccopharynx JlageJlmn, which 

 name was ascribed erroneously to Mitchill. 



In 1872, Dr. Gill, in his "Arrangement of the Families of Fishes," 

 gave the family name Saccopharyngida?. to the type in question, and 

 placed it in the order of Apodes, but as a doubtful constituent of that 

 order (under the caption "Apodes'? incertse sedis"). 



In 1880, Dr. Giinther jmblished his " Introduction to the Study of 

 Fishes," and therein reiterated the description and opinion given in 

 1870. 



In 1882, Messrs. Jordan and Gilbert, in their " Synopsis of the Fishes 

 of North America," adopted the family Saccopharyngida", contrasting 

 it in their phyletical table with all the other families of Apodes, and es- 

 sentially accepting as the diagnosis of the family the characters given 

 by Dr. Giinther, simply correcting some verbal and grammatical infe- 

 licities of Dr. Giinther. 



In 1883, the authors of the present sketch, in an article "on the anat- 

 omy and relations of the Euryi)haryngidoe," in their search for the 

 other members of the order Lyomeri, referred to the Saccophar^mgidai 

 in the following terms: 



" Whether any of the other known types of fishes belong to this order 

 is very doubttu), and, in fact, we have sufticient data respecting them 

 to be tolerably certain that none do, unless it may be the tiaccopharynx 

 flarjcllum. Saccopharynx is a very i)eculiar type, the representative of 

 quite an isolated family, but its structure is almost unknown. Tlie last 

 systematic writer who has referred to its characters (Dr. Giinther) has 

 described the genus as consisting of ' deep-sea congers, with the mus- 

 cular system very feebly developed, with the bones very thin, soft, and 

 wanting inorganic matter; head and guy^e enormous^; ^ inaxillary and 

 mandibulary l)ones very thin, slender, arched, armed with one or two 

 series of long, slender, widely set teeth, Lheir points being directed in- 

 wards,' &c. Dr. Giinther's 'maxillary' bones are doubtless ])alatines,* 

 and his description is very deficient in precision, but supplemented as 

 it is by the descriptions of Mitchill and Harwood, it is evident that the 

 genus Saccopharynx, or family Saccopharyngidiie, is quite remote from 

 the Eurypharyngidiie. More than this can only be surmised at most till 

 its structural characteristics are determined." 



This i)ara graph was written at Wood's Holl, and reliance was placed 

 on the memory of the tseuior author, who had not read the descrii)tions 



* Dr. Giinther, we Jire uow incliued to believe aud gladly confess, was probably 

 correct iu followiuf^ those authors avIio had called the homologous bones maxillary, 

 rather than those («'. //., Owen, Eichardsou, Kaup, Bleeker, et al) who have regarded 

 them as palatine. (See next page.) 



