NOTES ON THE SILVERSIDES OF THE GENUS MENIDIA OF THE 
EAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES, WITH DE- 
SCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW SUBSPECIES. 
By W. C. KENDALL, 
Assistant, United States Fish Commission. 
INTRODUCTION. 
This paper is primarily the outcome of difficulty encountered in 
attempting to identify some fresh-water forms of J/enidia of Florida, 
which will be referred to in detail on another page. In 1892 the 
present writer discovered, in a collection made by Mr. Vinal N. 
Edwards and himself at Woods Hole, a lot of specimens which were 
then thought to be I. beryllina; this discovery was recorded by 
Kendall & Smith in the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 
for 1899. The Florida examples just mentioned suggesting this form 
were compared with the Woods Hole specimens, and both with Poto- 
mac River fish. This led to the examination of all available speci- 
mens of the genus and all the literature on the subject, with the results 
set forth in these notes. With all the collecting previously done at 
Woods Hole, it is somewhat remarkable that a form noticeably differ- 
ent from the common silverside and exceedingly common at Woods 
Hole should so long escape detection, but not more remarkable than 
subsequent discoveries at the same place by Dr. Hugh M. Smith. 
The material upon which the conclusions embodied in this paper are 
based is comprised in the large collections of the United States National 
Museum, representing a wide range of localities on the coast; excel- 
lent collections from the east coast of Florida, made by Prof. Barton 
W. Evermann and Mr. Barton A. Bean; west coast of Florida, by 
Professor Evermann and the writer; Louisiana and Mississippi, by 
Professor Evermann; the coast of Texas, by Professor Evermann; 
North Carolina, Potomac River, and Woods Hole, by Dr. Hugh M. 
Smith; Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Chesapeake 
Bay, Potomac River, Delaware Bay, Woods Hole and vicinity, Glou- 
cester, Massachusetts, and the coast of Maine, by the writer; the 
Potomac River, by Mr. Millard C. Marsh. Hundreds of specimens 
have been examined and compared, but only a few from the most 
important localities, taken for the most part at random, are given 
in the comparative tables. 
F. C. 1901—16 241 
