REPOET OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 177 



The habit of assuming that the popular names were correctly applied 

 led to other curious results. Some of the most abundant of the fishes 

 of the state are the cyprinodonts, known as minnows, and the sun-tish 

 called also bream and roach. The cyprinodonts and sun-fish do not 

 appear at all in their proper persons in the "Natural History;" the 

 only mention of any minnow is under the head of "minnow, Cypvlnus 

 atroniisus; " the names of " bream, Ahramls clvnjsoptei\i^'' " roach, Leu- 

 CISCU8 rutilui^^'''' and "dace, or A^vq^ Leuciscus vulgaris^'''' are found, but 

 onl}^ in connection with the European fishes, which, it scarcely need 

 be added, are not American fishes. 



Still another kind of error is found in statements respecting distri- 

 bution.- As we all know, the shad was introduced into the waters of 

 the Pacific slope by the United States Fish Commission because it was 

 supposed none were there. According to Smith, however, "on the 

 northwest coast of America, they are inconceivably numerous!'' 



The examples thus given are quite enough to illustrate some of the: 

 kinds of errors Smith fell into. 



The only item of new or special interest found in the entire volume 

 is not from the pen of Smith, but of a correspondent, Jas. P.. 

 Couthuo}^, captain of a merchant vessel, who later became known as 

 an able conchologist and accompanied Captain Wilkes in his celebrated 

 voyage around the world. In a postscript to a general letter published 

 in the article on the mackerel, Couthuoy added, "though you are 

 alread}", perhaps, aware of it, * ""' * the male dolphin may be easily 

 distinguished from the female in the water by the shape of the head; 

 that of the former being abrupt and almost perpendicular, * * * 

 while the female's is more rounded." This statement, written in Jan- 

 uary, 1832, and published in 1838, anticipated by five years the dis- 

 covery of M. Dussumier, announced in the "avertissement" (p. vii) 

 to the twelfth volume of Cuvier and Valenciennes' " Histoire Naturelle 

 des Poissons" (1837). In view of our knowledge of Smith's character, 

 the suggestion that he was aware of such a fact sounds quite ironical. 

 No ichthyologist has recognized the claim of Couthuo}'^ to the dis- 

 covery in question. 



Smith's wretched book misled many of the anglers of the middle of 

 the past century; frequent evidences are to be found of his influence 

 in the principal works (Brown's American Angler's Guide and Her- 

 bert's Frank Forrester's Fish and Fishing of the United States) which 

 served as guides to the fishermen of that time; even so able an 

 ichthyologist as Sir John Richardson quoted it and was evidently 

 much puzzled by it. 



VI. 



The next author whose work demands examination was a man of 

 quite a different character from Smith, and who, for nearly three 

 decades, published the results of studies of the fishes of Massachusetts. 



F. C. 1904 12 



