1888. ] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 607 



NOTE ON THE GENUS SPHEROIDES. 



BY THEODORE GILL. 



In a valuable " Review of the American species of Tetraodoutidse » 

 published in 1886 (Proc. U. S. Nat, Mus., v. 9, p. 232), President D. S. 

 Jordan and Mr. Charles L. Edwards have applied the name Sphceroides 

 , to the genus called Cirrhisomus or Cheiliehthys by some preceding ich- 

 thyologists, and still more recently President Jordan has taken up a 

 later name (Orbidus) for the same genus. As the last name has already 

 enjoyed some currency (appearing in the "Manual of the Vertebrate 

 Animals of the Northern United States," 1888, p. 170), some words are 

 timely before its use is so established that inconvenience will result 

 from its disuse. 



The name SphSroides was introduced into scientific literature by La- 

 cepede in 1798, and was based on the front view of a fish which he had 

 already described as " le Tetrodon Plumier" The proposition to ge- 

 nerically distinguish the figure was the result of sheer ignorance, over- 

 sight, and stupidity. Lacepede diagnosed the genus as follows in his 

 "Histoire Naturelle des Poissons" (v. 2, pp. 1-22): 

 Les Sphero'ides. 



Point de nageoires dn dos, de la queue, ni de l'auus. quatre dents au moins a la 

 macboire supe"rieure. 



The only species was " le Spheroide tubercide." 



Not a single character thus assigned to the genus was pertinent to 

 it. Almost immediately Schneider, in the " Systema Ichthyologia? " of 

 Bloch (Index, p. lvii), corrected the mistake of the Frenchman ("erro- 

 rem Galli ") and showed that the Splwroide tubercule was based simply 

 on the front view of the Tetrodon Plumieri. Far from Schneider's 

 knowledge of that fish resting only on the work of Lacepede (" after 

 Lacepede "), as Messrs. Jordan and Edwards assert, it was based on a 

 ciitical examination of four figures of the fish derived by Bloch from 

 Plunder, and therefrom he was enabled to correct the strange error of 

 Lacepede. (See pp. 509, 510, and Index, p. lvii.) 



It is questionable whether genera, based on such premises as were 

 Sphero'ides and some others, of the old authors, should be adopted. 

 Surely it is inconsistent in any one to adopt such groups and refuse to 

 adopt such as are based on well-known species.* Nevertheless, it is 



"President Jordan is fond of referring to such generic names as are based on given 

 species without accompanying diagnoses as "nomina uuda." But they are not 

 "nomina nuda," inasmuch as the exact information needed as to the types is given. 

 ''Nomina nuda" are those generic or specific names that are suggested without any 

 information as to characters or any guide as to what they are meant for. If the old 

 authors generally had specified the types of their genera and omitted "descriptions" 

 of them, science would be a gainer. 



