98 SMITHSOXIAX MISCEI.LAXKOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. =,2 



found in Richardson's work ( loc. cit.), where he says "our speci- 

 men having been submitted to the inspection of Baron Cuvier, was 

 returned, with the following note attached to it : 'Espece particuliere 

 de Cyprin voisin de notre Cyprinus microcephalus.' " 



This specimen was therefore sent to Cuvier and returned with his 

 or Valenciennes's diagnosis prior to the pubhcation of the first vol- 

 ume of the Fauna Boreali- Americana (1836). It seems not improb- 

 able, then, that the drawing was made from this specimen some 10 

 or 12 years before Valenciennes made the description of "Corcgonus 

 angusticeps," which was published in 1848, and that after so long a 

 time the subject of his drawing was forgotten and he did not recog- 

 nize the strange fish therein represented, which elicited the remarks 

 and hesitating description quoted in footnote^ page 96. But to 

 some it will doubtless seem improbable, and even impossible, that an 

 ichthyologist of Valenciennes's attainments should not detect that 

 such a fish, even represented in a drawing only, having so few longi- 

 tudinal scales and other unsalmonlike peculiarities, was not a Corc- 

 gonus. Moreover, in volume xvii_, 1844, p. 324 (Hist. Nat. Poiss.), 

 there is a description of "Leuciscus gracilis" copied from Richard- 

 son's work and a reference to Richardson's "very pretty" figure of 

 it, while, also, Valenciennes explicitly states in the description of 

 C. angusticeps that he does not find it mentioned in Richardson's 

 work. 



But the fact that he did not find it mentioned by Richardson in- 

 dicates that something was amiss ; for Richardson would hardly have 

 omitted such a "remarkable" species, especially one concerning which 

 he considered it necessary to seek the opinion of Cuvier and Valen- 

 ciennes. That Valenciennes did not find the fish mentioned in Fauna 

 Boreali-Americana may possibly be accounted for by assuming that, 

 his attention being concentrated mainly on the head parts, as the 

 original description suggests,^ he overlooked the above-mentioned 

 discrepancies, and, prepossessed by the idea that it was a salmonoid 

 from its superficial resemblance in form, he searched only among 

 the Salmonidae for its citation in Richardson's work. 



A tracing of the original drawing of Valenciennes, made by a 

 very experienced draughtsman connected with the Museum d'His- 

 toire Naturelle and very kindly furnished by Prof. Leon \'aillant. 

 conclusively proves that no other fish than the previously mentioned 

 cyprinid could have been the subject of the drawing, notwith- 

 standing the fact that the drawing shows an adipose fin, for the 



* J'en trouve 1111 aussi remarquable par la petitesse de sa tete que par la 

 singuliere disposition de sa bouche. 



