ICHTHYOLOGICAL GAZETTEER 
The recently completed sheets of the American Geographical Society’s Mil- 
lionth Map are in the more settled areas a very good source of information as to 
the terrain and places. The “Mapa General del Peru’’, published by Carlos 
Fabbri, Lima, is especially good on the current usages In naming streams in Peru. 
South American geographical nomenclature has suffered from the not uncom- 
mon evils of ambiguity, fashion, indefiniteness, and translation. The Peruvian 
often says to the traveler, ‘Oh yes, you are from the United States.—From New 
York?” Conversely collectors not infrequently record their specimens as from 
South America, or Brazil, or the Ucayali. 
Some of the practical difficulties which I have experienced in interpreting 
locality records will be of no less interest to others, and the following is a more 
or less complete statement of them. 
(1) The name of the nearest large town or village is used. E. g. Iquitos for 
all Loreto; or Quito for the entire hinterland of Ecuador. 
(2) The names of private estates, sometimes duplicated in various regions, 
with no explanation from the collector, and subject to the caprices of future owners 
in changing names. 
(3) Similar duplications in the names of streams, such as four tributaries 
of the Huallaga named Cachiyacu; or Rio Grande, Rio Colorado, ete., so often 
repeated. 
(4) Names used interchangeably, sometimes Indian and Spanish, such as 
Poopé and Aullagas, or Junin and Chinchaycocha. 
(5) Name changing with political power. Puerto Pardo on the Morona was 
Puerto Leguia when I visited it, and is again Puerto Pardo today. Punta Arenas 
became Magallanes, then reverted as before. 
(6) Confusion of spelling: the use of Gu or Hu, J or X, B or V, Y or Ll, mayo 
or mayu, yaco or yacu; various renderings into other languages of local names; 
lack of standardization of spelling, the distinguished geographer Raimondi no less 
than others spelling the same words in a variety of ways. 
(7) Confusion in the extent of a stream under the same name. Often when 
two streams converge, not one, but both names are exchanged for a third. E. g. 
the Chanchomayo and Paucartambo unite as the Perené. 
(8) The removal of a town to a new location, on account of a railroad (as 
Challapata), the encroachments of a river (Contamana). 
(9) Compounded names, such as San Juan de la Frontera de los Chachapoyos. 
The following list of place names concerned with ichthyological collections 
and locality records is an attempt at identifying and stabilizing them. 
The symbols used are as follows: 
*Collections made by Allen; 
**Collections made by Eigenmann; 
***Collections made by others and studied by us. 
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