A REMARKABLE GENUS OF FISHES— THE UMBRAS 



By THEODORE GILL 



In 1726 Marsigli, in a volume on fishes in a series entitled Danubius 

 Pannonico-Mysicus (torn, iv), for the first time described in a 

 recognizable manner a small fish of lower Austria which was known 

 to watermen as the Hundsfisch (dogfish) and which he called 

 Gobiits caninus. He likened it to the Cyprinid named gudgeon 

 (with which indeed many watermen confounded it), and hence the 

 name he gave it, Gobius being his Latin name for the gudgeon. 

 That name was not applied in the spirit of the modern binomial sys- 

 tem of nomenclature and consequently has not been adopted by 

 modern naturalists. He indicated that the little fish lives in staafnant 



Fig. 34. — European Umbra (Umbra umbra). After Heckel and Kner. 



waters and in caves, and that it is rarely seen ; it is observed mostly 

 in spring when it is carried by freshets into more frequented waters. 

 In 1756 W. H. Kramer, in an Elcnchiis Vegetabilinin et Animalium 

 per Aiistriam inferiorem observatoruni, described the same fish as 

 found in affluents of the Danube and caves in lower Austria, and 

 he named it Umbra; the name was given as a generic term after a 

 consideration and comparison of the genera of Artedi. The name 

 was given because the species harbored mostly in grottoes where the 

 light does not penetrate and consequently lived in the shade (umbra). 



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