IDEXTITY OF A SUPPOSED WHITEFISH, COREGONUS 



AKGU STIC EPS CUVIER & VALENCIENNES, WITH 



A NORTHERN CYPRINID, PLATYGOBIO 



GRACILIS (RICHARDSON) 



By WILLIAM CONVERSE KENDALL 

 Scientific Assistant, Bureau of Fisheries 



To Cuvier and Valenciennes^ is credited a name interrogatively 

 applied by Valenciennes to a fish represented in a drawing made by 

 himself. He supposed that it was a salmonoid, but was uncertain 

 regarding the genus, and at the end of his description hesitatingly 

 asks if it might not be called Corcgomis angusticcps. 



If the drawing was puzzling to A^alenciennes, his description has 

 been no less so to subsequent ichthyologists, who, while accepting it 

 as applying to a Corcgonus have been uncertain what species should 

 bear the name or to what the synonymy should be assigned. 



In the general ichthyological works since Cuvier and \ alenciennes, 

 it has been but briefly or doubtfully referred to or omitted entirely. 

 Giinther- mentions it in a footnote as known from a figure only and 

 as one of the species so imperfectly described as to be worthy of only 

 passing notice. 



Jordan and Gilbert^ do not notice it, while Jordan and Evermann* 

 have placed it in the synonymy of Corcgonus lahradoricus, although 

 with doubt. This disposition of it has been followed by Evermann 

 and Smith^ and by Evermann and Goldsborough.'' 



Regarded as a whitefish, notwithstanding the fact that the de- 

 scription, which was stated to be "brief and erroneous," did not fit 

 the species, this perhaps was a natural conclusion for two reasons : 

 Because the original description of Coregonus angusticcps appears 



^ Histoire Naturelle des poissons, xxi, 1848, 534. 



■ Catalogue of the Fishes in the British Museum, vi, 1866, 172. 



^Synopsis of The Fishes of North America. <Bull. 16, LI. S. Nat. Mus. 

 1882 (1883). 



^Fishes of North and Middle America. <BuIl. 47. U. S. Nat. Mus., part i, 

 1896, 466. 



•'The Whitefishes of North America. <Rept. IT. S. Fish. Cnmm. 1894 

 (1896), 302. 



"A Check List of the Freshwater Fishes of Canada. <Proc. Biol. Soc. 

 Washington, xx, 1907, 100. 



95 



