ON NORTH AMERICAN ZOOLOGY. SbOo 



actions of the Philosophical Society " of the same city, and in 

 the " 3fuseiwi d'Histoire Natttrelle" oi Paris. Dr. Mitchill 

 published a paper on the New York fish in the first volume of 

 the " Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New York," 

 but his descriptions are almost always imperfect, and often in- 

 accurate, and he has arranged the species wdthout judgement 

 in Linnean genera, so that but for the accompanying figures it 

 would be difficult to recognise the fish he mentions. Ra- 

 finesque-Smaltz gave to the world a crude synopsis of the fish 

 of the Ohio, proposing many new genera, but characterising 

 them with so little skill, that there is little chance of their being 

 adopted by future naturalists. His species are printed in the 

 subjoined lists in italic characters, as being doubtful. The 

 third volume of the Fcmna boreali-mnericana is devoted to the 

 northern fish, and contains a considerable proportion of the 

 species which inhabit the fresh waters of the fur countries : it 

 is, however, very deficient in marine fish, and even in the fresh 

 water ones of New Caledonia and Canada, owing to the author's 

 attempts to procure specimens from these countries having 

 failed. The admirable Histoire des Foissons by Cuvier and 

 Valenciennes embraces all the determinable species noticed by 

 preceding naturalists, but it has not yet advanced beybnd the 

 acanthopterygii,\hQ\miivi\Q\y death of its great projector having 

 retarded its progress. The arrangement of this work is fol- 

 lowed in the subsequent lists of species. In it and in the Regne 

 animal 16 families of acanthopterygian fishes are indicated. 

 All these families are represented by a greater or smaller num- 

 ber of species both in Europe and America, with the exception 

 of the anahasidece, none of which exist in the waters of either 

 country ; of the acanthurideee which do not occur in Europe ; 

 and of the tcenioidece, which, as restricted in the Histoire des 

 Foissons, have not been detected in America. All the families 

 of jnalacopterygii and chondropterygii enter ihefauncs of both 

 countries, with the exception of the saiiroidece of Agassiz, which 

 do not exist in Europe. The only fresh water fish which is 

 unequivocally common to the two continents is the common 

 pike, {esox lucius,) and it is curious that this fish is unknown 

 to the westward of the Rocky Mountains, on the very coast that 

 approaches nearest to the old continent. Several other Euro- 

 pean fresh water fish occur in the lists given by American ichthy- 

 ologists, but more rigid comparisons are required to sanction 

 their application of the names. Some of the anadromous sal- 

 monoidece and clupeoidea; are more likely to be common to both 

 sides of the Atlantic, but even these require further investiga- 

 tion. The curiosity of natu^'alists has been considerably ex- 



