94 



The Secretary read a letter from Dr. William O. Ayres, 

 of San Francisco, to Dr. Storer, offering to the Society a 

 description of Californian Fishes, the commencement of a 

 series which he hopes to continue. 



He remarked, that " a very large proportion of the fishes 

 of California are, without doubt, as yet undescribed ; many 

 of them present a singular grouping of characters, and a 

 thorough examination will probably result in numerous mo- 

 difications of what have been deemed established generic 

 divisions, extending some and limiting others. My own 

 researches are already sufficient to indicate this." 



NEW SPECIES OF CALIFORNIAN FISHES, BY WILLIAM O. AYEES, M. D. 



In our markets, we find fishes constantly offered for sale, in 

 great numbers, under the names of Rock Fish and Rock Cod. 

 They bear always a high price, and constitute one very import- 

 ant item in the sum total of our fisheries, and of course in the 

 resources of the State. They are taken in rocky localities 

 along the coast and in the Bay of San Francisco, and the title — 

 Rock Fish — applies to them very well. One more inappro- 

 priate, on the contrary, than that of Rock Cod, could scarcely 

 have been selected, inasmuch as they are very widely removed 

 from the family in which the Codfishes are classed. Four dis- 

 tinct species of them we have already detected here, all belong- 

 ing to the genus Sehastes ; three of these are believed to be 

 new. We were not previously aware of the existence of more 

 than one species of this genus {S. Norvegicus^Cuw.) in the United 

 Slates — it is the Hemdurgan of the Massachusetts Bay fishermen. 

 Two of our species are very closely allied to each other; a de- 

 scription is accordingly given of the one which appears most 

 nearly typical (S. nehulosus) ; and of the other (S. ruber), the 

 points of specific distinction from nehulosus alone are needed. 



Sebastes paucispinis, Ayres. 

 Length five and a half inches ; depth one inch and one tenth ; 



