CHECK LIST OF THE FISHES AND FISHLIKE VERTEBRATES OF 

 NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA NORTH OF THE NORTHERN 

 BOUNDARY OF VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA ' 



By 



David Starr Jordan, Barton Warren Evermann, and 

 Howard Walton Clark 



INTRODUCTION 



The present memoir comprises a list of all the fishes and fishlike 

 vertebrates known to occur in the watei-s of north and middle America; 

 more specifically all of continental America north of the Isthmus of 

 Panama, and the outlying islands including the West Indies, the 

 Greater and the Lesser Antilles, Greenland, Iceland, and the islands 

 off the Pacific coast of Central xVmerica, Alexico, the United States, 

 and Alaska. The salt-water species on the northern coasts of Co- 

 lombia and Venezuela have been included. Those of the (ialapagos, 

 the Sea of Okhotsk, and the west coast of Kamchatka are not included. 

 Oceanic species in general within the 1,000-fathom curve have been 

 admitted, although it is not always easy to draw the line. 



The majority of the species included will be found described in 

 Fishes of North and Middle America, a 4-volume work by Jordan 

 and Evermann published in 1896 to 1900 as Bulletin 47 of the United 

 States National Museum. No other general work restricted to this 

 continent and containing descriptions of all known species has been 

 written. On that work was based the Check List of 1896 by Jordan 

 and Evermann, of which the present Check List may be regarded as 

 a revision. 



In the present list are given, in as natural sequence as our present 

 knowledge permits, (1) the names of all species and subspecies that 

 the authoi-s admit as valid, (2) as many of the vernacular or common 

 names for each species as have been readily obtainable, (3) the 

 known geographic distribution of each species, (4) the reference to 

 the original description of the species, and (5) the reference to every 

 real synonym. If a species has been described as new but once, 

 there will, of course, be but one reference (as, for example, Photo- 

 corynus fijriniceps on p. 509); if it has been described as new six times 

 there will be six references (as, for example, Eupomotis gibbosus on 

 p. 302). Thus, this work is really a check list of all the scientific 

 names that have ever been applied to any American fish. 



As 4,139 species and subspecies are admitted as valid, and as there 

 are more than 3,000 real synonyms, it appears that each American 

 fish has been described as new about two times on an average. 



The first attempt at a Synopsis of the Fishes of North America was 

 published by David Humphreys Storer in the Memoirs of the Ameri- 



« Appendii X to the Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1928. B. F. Doc. 1055. 



I 



