1895. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 17] 



It is possible, too, although improbable, that in ancient times there 

 may have been some confusion of the gartish witli ])ipeiishes, and that 

 the former may have been considered as over^iiown Helonides. It is 

 still more possible, and even probable, that in the lapse of time such 

 confusion had resulted and even culminated in the transfer of the name 

 Belone, under the moditied form iSskoviou, and to the garhsh. Certain it 

 is, at least, that Erhard and Apostolides^ have given the hist name as 

 one now carried, as well as the others, by the garfish in Greece. It is 

 proper to add, however, that their statement has not been confiiined by 

 Professor Hoffman, Avho oidy heard Zarf/ana applied to the garfish. 



Apostolides himself' elsewhere uses only the name Zargana, as when 

 be notices the fishes of passage'' and those that are caught at certain 

 seasons."* 



It must be remembered also that the same name is not infrequently 

 applied to animals differing greatly, because they have some super- 

 ficial resemblance or adaptation. Thus, in Greece at the presentday, the 

 same name (CheUdono2)-saro, .Xe^tdowc/japi,) is given to the fiyiiig fishes of 

 the genera Daetylopterv.s and Exocoetus, although they differ greatly in 

 almost every character and l)elong to different orders. Tlie resemblance 

 between a garfish and pipefish is at least as great as that between a 

 dactylopterid and an exoccetid. 



VI. 



The synentognathous fishes were by most naturalists retained in the 

 same family with the pikes from 1817 to 1815, when Midler segregated 

 them as a peculiar family under the name iScomberesoees. There were, 

 however, several dissentients from this view, and partial anticipations 

 of modern views. The most prominent idea — and an erroneous one — 

 was that the modification for emergence from the sea and sustentatiou 

 in the air was of superior systematic value. On this assumption the 

 flying fishes, or Exocoetines, were differentiated from all the other Syueu- 

 tognaths. 



'An analogous case of confusion and subsequent transfer of name by the modern 

 Greeks to a quite different tish from that called by the same designation among the 

 ancient Greeks, is furnished by Scarus. The Scarus (S/capof) of Aristotle was un- 

 questionably the fish which still bears that name (or Sparisoma scar«s; in ichthyo- 

 ological literature, but according to both Apostolides and Hoffman the title is now 

 applied by some fishermen at least to a Sargus {DipJodus vctida). Even the name, as 

 an independent species, of the fish so renowned and prized among the ancients 

 (Nunc Scarodatur/xrHofjMVMs [etc.], Pliny, IX, ch. 29), does not appear in the memoirs 

 of either Apostolides or Hofiman and Jordan. 



-La Peche en Grcce, p. 32 (1883). 



"Les pecheiirs distiuguent biiMi les poissons qui, pendant tonte I'annee, ne quittent 

 pas les cotes, et ceux qui y iipparaissent a des (^po(iues d^terminees. Ces deruiers 

 regoivent le nom de passage rs (-fpaorZ/ca), tels sont les difi'erentes especes de Sardines, 

 les Maquereaux, les Scombres maciuereaux {Ko'/moi), les Saurels (YavpuUa), les Thons 

 {^ayiariKo, poissou de mai), les Pelamydes et. dans certains endroits, les Belones 

 (Zapyavai). — Lii Peche en Grece, ]). 36. 



^Dansce meme raois [Septembre] se fait aussi la peche des Belones (Zapyrhcf), 

 [etc.]. — La Peche en Grece, p. 38. 



