PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 349 



Out of forty-five species and varieties thirty-nine are commou to the 

 Aleutian chain and three of the remainder may probably turn up there 

 in the future. Twenty-nine are common to Kamchatka, and six more 

 are likely to reach that peninsula. Twenty-seven are Arctic species, all 

 of which are commou to the Aleutians, and, with one or two possible 

 exceptions, to Kamchatka also. Seventeen species are common to North 

 Japan, and fourteen to California, while only two are, for the time, taken 

 as peculiar. 



These figures show that the fauna of the Commander Islands, as far 

 as known, is intimately related to the general Arctic fauna, and espec- 

 ially to the Aleutian fauna, somewhat less so to the Kamchatka fauna, 

 but presents in itself nothing distinctive. While the faunal aspect of 

 the mollusca is boreal, there is a number greater than might be expected 

 of species common to Japan and California, of which the two Pholads 

 are the most noteworthy, as they have not yet been indicated from the 

 Aleutian Islands, though it seems hardly jiossible if found living at 

 the one locality that they can be absent from the other. 



The collection, though small, is valuable as closing a gap in our 

 knowledge of the geographical distribution of the mollusca of the North 

 Pacific, and the slight but still interesting confirmatory zoological evi- 

 dence which it adds to the hydrographic determinations which have 

 shown that the main current of the sea between Kamcharka and the 

 Aleutian chain is a cold set of Arctic water southward, and that no 

 perceptible warm northward tropical stream or branch of the Kuro Siwo 

 can be traced zoologically or hydrographically in this direction. 



July 25, 1884. 



NOTE ON THE STERNOPTYCHIDiE. 

 By THEODORE OIIiT.. 



(See plate II, fig. 7.) 



The genus Sternoptyx was established in 1781 by Hermann for a 

 remarkable type of fishes which was taken for one of his families by 

 A. Dumeril, the first to recognize families in Iclithyology. The family 

 was accepted or named over by several later naturalists. Dr. Giinther, 

 nevertheless, did not recognize any of his predecessors when he like- 

 wise proposed the name SternoptycMdce^ and simply referred to the syn- 

 onymy of the family "Scopeliui, part, Miill., Berl. Abhandl., 1844, p. 

 184." An important article on the family by Handy side has also been 

 universally overlooked, even by Bleeker in his communications on the 

 Fishes of Celebes,* and by Dr. Giinther the family is attributed to 

 "pelagic or deep-sea fishes from the Mediterranean and Atlantic." 

 An examination of specimens of the two typical genera Sternoptyx 

 and Argyropelcus renders it evident that the type is of unusual interest, 

 and hence I am led to make the present preliminary communication. 



The new species S. Celebes was described. 



