REVIEW OF THE PARROTFISHES 15 



named species, and made no serious attempt to exchange specimens 

 of parrotfishes with other institutions, even though invited to do so. 

 He has, instead, followed an individual course of action, stating: "It 

 is still a convention in taxonomy that a worker unable to examine an 

 inaccessible type which has never been adequately described or figured, 

 is expected to spare no efforts to obtain any information he may 

 require from the keepers of that type, in order to justify the erection 

 of a new species related to the type in question. This is pandering 

 to inadequacy and inefficiency. . . . 



"... We have ourselves, found no less than forty-one species, 

 eleven of which in all are described as new, in some cases not from 

 any conviction that they have never been found before, but because 

 no adequate description and figure exists." 



Perhaps, had he expended more effort searching the literature and 

 in discussing his views in correspondence with other ichthyologists, 

 and especially had he exchanged specimens with the big museums of 

 the world. Smith would have been able to recognize as already named 

 practically all the species he has in consequence re-named. Further- 

 more, ignoring many of the rules of zoological nomenclature, he has 

 found it necessary to establish several new genera, all of which I 

 conclude are synonyms of already valid genera. The erection of these 

 new genera is the result of an inadequate study of the generic relation- 

 ships of parrotfishes. Smith had available only Western Indian 

 Ocean parrotfishes, and this is too limited a basis on which to establish 

 new genera or new species in a family of world-wide distribution 

 in warm seas. 



Family Scaridae 



This family may be recognized by the following combination of 

 characters: Teeth coalesced, forming two dental plates in each jaw, 

 each pair separated at the middle by a suture; externally canines or 

 incisorlike teeth present or absent; giU membranes broadly joined 

 to the isthmus, with or without a free fold across isthmus; scales on 

 cheek in 1 to 4 rows; median predorsal scales 3 to 8; lateral line foUows 

 contour of back to below rear edge of base of dorsal fin then drops 

 1 or 2 scale rows, continuing along midaxis of caudal peduncle, the 

 number of pores being rather constantly 17 to 20 in dorsal lateral 

 line and 5 to 7 in peduncular lateral line (the usual number of pores is 

 18 + 5 or 6); dorsal rays IX, 10; anal 111,9, the anal spines slender, 

 the first one weakly developed; pectoral rays ii,ll to ii,15; branched 

 caudal rays 6 + 5; fins naked, except that basal part of median fins 

 may have a row of scales; upper pharyngeal bones paired, each 



