NOTES ON THK TKTRAODONTOIDEA 



i:v 



Theodork (111. I. M. A., M. I).. I'll. 1). 



(Willi ri:itf XXXIV.) 



I. 



After the <!()iiij»letioii of my " Note on tlie ;;omis Clumerhinufi <»r 

 Xenopterus,^^ it ai)[>eai'e(l to me to be desirable to review sovenil other 

 (luestions concerning other genera of Tetraodontoitlea and the tixonomi*' 

 values of the included forms. 



All the Ti'traodontoiiUa were included by Linnieus in a single penuH 

 an<l are still so included by (liiiither. (lill proposed to ditferentiat<' 

 them under three families. Tlu* gradations between those extremes 

 are many, 



II. 



No deliberate attempt was made to subdivide Tetrnodon ainong genera 

 til! nearly four decades of the i)resent century had elaiised. Swainson. 

 in IS.)".), gave geneiic names to live .sections under which Cuvier segre- 

 gated the si)ecies.* Johannes Miiller soon after propo.sed other generic 

 names, some of which were anticipated by Swain.son. r>h'eker, I'.ibroii, 

 and Peters added other genera. Hibron especially had skeletons of 

 many species prepared for a contemplatt'd mon(>graph of the group 

 which he lirst recogniz-ed as a family, " Trtrodouicns.^ These skeletons 

 were utilized by llollard in lSo7 in I^tudes snr les (lymnoilontes, in 

 which he recogniz(Ml six genera on osteological characters, scienfilically 

 appreciated the relative vahu's of their char.nters, and combined them 

 in a trihu or subfamily. lileeker disregarde<l the osteological char- 

 acters, and based the. genera admitted by him on diaracters derivisl 

 from the carination or planeness of the back, extent of the snout, form 

 of nostrils,! and dermal app«'ndages. The next step was violently ret- 

 rograde. Giinther ignoied all the excellent work done by Holl.ird, and 

 reduced all the Tetraodontoidea to two genera combined with the Diodon- 



■ The j;enera pro|M>8»')l liy Lac^^piMli" for two species, Sphrroidr9 and Oroi<ir$, were 

 <luo tt> iiiiiiiitit;:ilr(l i;iiioraiici> ami htraii;;f hlurnlcrinn rosjierliii^j their chara«terrt. 



t " Nares iitrixiiu! latere f«)ramiiiil"<>rines in papilla conrava jiIiih iiiiniiHV.- elt-vatA 

 perforata* " in Tdraodou: "Nares ntroijue latere tentaenluin simplex vel dnplex *' [etc.] 

 \n Crainacioti ; " Nares ntroque latere infundilmli formes inip«>rforal:e " in I^odon, 

 Chonerhiniift, and l-'i>hipiiion. 



rroopcdincn Xutional MiiReiitii, Vol. XIV — No. h^. 



Proc. N. M. 91 4.-, 706 



