204 coxTRinunoNS to north American ichthyology — in. 



tiun, to which the tubes of the lateral line extend also. For this new j;enns I propose 

 the name ol" BnbaHchthyn, inteniliu;; to recall the name of Biifi'alo lish, commonly 

 applied to this species. To this yemis belong the species I have described as Carpiodc8 

 uni8 from the Teonossea River, C. (auras fiom Mobile River, and C. vUuIuh from the 

 Wabash, and also the Catoatomua niger of RaQnesqae and Catoatomua bubalus of Dr. Kirt- 

 land from the Ohio, but not C. babalun Ralinesque, which is the typo of the genus Ich- 

 iUijobna described in the following paragraph. I have another ubw species from the 

 Osage River, sent me by Mr. George Stolley. This shows this type to be widely dis- 

 tributed in our western waters, but thus far it has not been found in the Atlantic 

 states. I have some doubts respecting the nomenclature of these species which are 

 rather difficult to solve. It will be seen upon reference to RaQuesque's Ichthyologia 

 Ohiensis, p. 55 and 56, that he mentions two species of his subgenus Ichthijobus, one of 

 which he calls C. btibalus, and the other C. niger; the second he has not seen himself, 

 but describes it on the authority of Mr. Audubon as 'entirely similar to the common 

 Buffalo fish,' his C. bubalus, but ' larger, weighing upwards of fifty pounds.' Dr. Kirt- 

 land, on the other hand, describes the C. bubalus as the largest species found in the 

 western waters, and adds that the young is nearly elliptical in its outline and is often 

 sold in the market as a distinct species under the name of Buffalo Perch. If the. e was 

 only one species of Buffalo in those waters the case would be very simple, and the Ca- 

 ioatomus hiibuhis and niger of Rafinesque, and C. biibalua of Dr. Kirtland, should simply 

 be considered as synonymous, but Dr. Ranch of Burlington has sent me fine specimens 

 of this Buffalo Perch, to which the remark of Dr. Kirtland, ' elliptical in its outline,' 

 perfectly ap[)lies, and I find that it not only differs specifically but even gencrically 

 from the broader, high backed, common Buffalo, and being the smaller species, I tako 

 it to be Rafinesque's C. iubalua, the ty[ie of his genus Ichihgobua, which is more fully 

 charact'rised below, whilst the larger species, Rafinesque's C. niger, can be no other 

 than Dr. Kirtland's C. bubalus, ' the largest species of the western waters.' It seems 

 therefore hardly avoidable to retain the name of ('. niger or rather Bubalichlhys nigtr 

 for the common Buffalo, though Rafinesque, who first named the fish, never saw it, or 

 if he saw it mistook it for his own bubalus, and fhongli Dr. Kirtland, who correctly 

 describes and figures it, Tianies it C. bubalus, ior such is the natural result to which the 

 history of the successive steps in our investigation of these fishes lead, lint our diffi- 

 culties here are not yet at an end. Among the sjjlendid coHections I received from Dr. 

 Rauch, I found two perfectly distinct species of Bubalichthys, one with n largo mouth, 

 and the other with a small mouth, and one of Icliihyobus, living together in the Missis- 

 sippi River, in the neighborhood of Biiplington, Iowa; and the next question, proba- 

 bly never to be solved, will be, if tiicy all three occur also in the Ohio, whether Rafi- 

 nesque's C. nigvr was the big moutiied or the small moutlied Bubalichthys. Judging 

 from the figure given by Dr. Kirtlaud in the Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. v, 

 pi. fig. 2, 1 believe his C. bubalus to-be the small mouthed species. I myself have, how- 

 ever, seen only one specimen of the big mouthed species from the Ohio, and that in 

 rather an indiflerent state of preservation; for which I am indebted to Prof. Baird, and 

 none of the small mouthed species. Sliould, however, all three, as is possible, occin- in 

 the Ohio as well as the Mississippi, to avoid introducing now names, I will call tlio 

 big mouthed species B. nfger, preserving for it Rafinesque's specific name, — the small 



