FEB 8 19ie 



MEMOIRS 



OF THE 



OAENEGIE MUSEUM. 



VOL. VII. NO. 1. 



THE CHEIRODONTIN^, A SUBFAMILY OF MINUTE CHARACID 

 FISHES OF SOUTH AMERICA.^ 



By Carl H. Eigenmann. 



Introductory. 



The greater part of the work of preparing this monograph was done between 

 January and May, 19L5, while enjoying the hospitaUty of Mr. and Mrs. Carl G. 

 Fisher on their estate at Miami, Florida. President W. L. Bryan and the Trustees 

 of Indiana University appointed me Research Professor for the collegiate year 

 1914-1915, and the Director of the Carnegie Museum relieved me of resident 

 curatorial duties at the Museum. I thus gained the opportunity under ideal 

 conditions to give my undivided attention to this exceedingly difficult group of 

 fishes. I am indebted, as in former articles, to Dr. W. J. Holland, Director of the 

 Carnegie Museum, for assistance in arranging the figures in the text and on the 

 plates and for his editorial revision of the manuscript. The drawings given on the 

 plates were executed by Mr. Clarence Kennedy of Leland Stanford Jr. University. 

 The drawings given in the text are from camera lucida sketches made by the author. 



This paper would naturally form a chapter in my Monograph of the Characidse, 

 to be pubfished by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass., 

 but, as the publication of the first volume of the monograph has long been delayed, 

 it is deemed best to publish this article at once. 



The material on which this paper is based- consists of (a) the collections of 



' Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory of Indiana University, No. 150. 



' In enumerating the specimens at my disposal I have cited (a) the current numbers in the various 

 museums; (6) the letters a-x, indicating the number of specimens in a given series in the Carnegie Museum; 

 (c) the number of specimens in the particular lot under examination; (d) the size of the largest and sometimes 



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