GERRES. 27 



NOTE IX. 



ON THE WEST-AFRICAN SPECIES OF THE 

 GENUS GERRES. 



BY 



Dr. R. HORST. 



December 1882. 



Some time ago the Leyden Museum received a small col- 

 lection of fishes and reptiles from the Congo-Coast, kindly 

 presented by Mr. Kamerman. Among them there were 

 several specimens of Gerres melanopterus which , as is known , 

 was firstly described by Bleeker ^) in his »Mémoire sur les 

 Poissons de la Cote de Guinee" after a single specimen , 

 collected by Mr. Pel , the late Dutch Governor of the Coast 

 of Guinea. In that paper Bleeker also gives a description 

 and figure of another species of that genus , G. octactis , 

 based upon a single specimen , from the same locality, A 

 third species from the West-Coast of Africa previously had 

 been described by Günther under the name G. nigri. 

 Steindachner however in his interesting paper »zur Fisch- 

 fauna des Senegal" ^) comes to the conclusion that Gerres 

 octactis is not a distinct species, but should be considered 

 as an adult specimen of G. melanopterus. 



1) Natuurk. Verhandl. HoU. Maatsch. van Wetenschappen. Haarlem. 2e Verz. 

 Dl. XVIII, 1863, p. 43. 



2) Sitzungsber. Akad. Wissensch. Wien. le Abth. Bd. LX. p. 961. 



Notes from the Leyden IVIuseuizi, "Vol. "V. 



