56 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



" Catalogue of the Fishes of the East Coast of ISTorth 

 America," by T. H. Gill, p. 14, note, Washington, 1873). 



Scores of specimens were measured, and the maximum 

 length found to be one and one-half inches — a little 

 above half the length they are said to attain farther 

 south. Moreover, two well-defined arrangements of the 

 dorsal spines were noticed, a regular and an irregular 

 alternation ; the former having the three free spines 

 respectively alternate in direction, the first pointing to 

 the left ; the latter with the first pointing to the right, 

 the remaining tioo to the left. Hence the direction of 

 the first spine seems to determine the kind of alternation 

 of the spines themselves. About eighty per cent, of a 

 very large number showed these arrangements in nearly 

 equal proportion ; the remaining twenty per cent, fell 

 equally under similar arrangements reversed. This fact 

 appears to have escaped the notice of the writers re- 

 ferred to above, the irregular one being the arrangement 

 of their descriptions. 



Fundulus nigrofasciatus Le Sueur, Killifish. 



This little cyprinodont is, like the last, an inhabitant 

 of brackish ponds, and among the smallest of the 

 thirteen members of its genus frequenting the coastal and 

 fluviatile waters of eastern l^orth America, being barely 

 two and a half inches in length. It is very tenacious of 

 life, and while natural to salt water can endure a long 

 residence in the fresh element. The writer kept two 

 taken in the mouth of Little River, St. John Co., for 

 seven months in a globe jar in fresh water ; and except 

 a slight falling off in condition, due to the want of 

 proper food, they retained their usual energy. It would 

 not then be surprising did further investigation disclose 

 that the genus is also represented by fresh-water, or, at 



