ON NORTH AMERICAN ZOOLOGY. 211 



Europe are, lepidapus, astrodermus, luvarus, seserinus, and 

 perhaps lampris ; while its seas nourish also thynnus, auxis, 

 xiphias, tetrapturus, lichia, mastacemblns, scyris, gallichthys, 

 lampiigus, centrolophus, stromateus, and zeus, common to other 

 seas, and some of these to tropical America. Two or three 

 of these are enumerated by Dr. Smith in his list of Massa- 

 chusetts fish ; but as he has not given any details by which 

 we can judge of the correctness of his nomenclature, they are 

 put in italics in the foregoing table. Scomber grex and tem- 

 nodon saltator have a most extensive range from the Cape of 

 Good Hope across the Atlantic to the coasts of the United 

 States. The latter is also known eastward to Madagascar and 

 along the whole western coast of Africa to the Mediterranean 

 and Egypt, while the former is scarcely distinguishable from 

 the Meditei-raneau scomber pneumatophorus. There are several 

 of the scomberoidea; which, inhabiting oidy the middle longi- 

 tudes of the Atlantic, belong as much to the New as to the Old 

 World : they pursue the flying-fish over the Atlantic wastes 

 as the herds of wolves do the bison on the prairies of America. 



AcanthuroideoE. — Of this family about ninety species are 

 kno^vn, inhabiting the warmer districts of the ocean and feed- 

 ing on fuci, being furnished with cutting-teeth instead of pre- 

 hensile ones, like those of most other fish. Except three species 

 which frequent the Caribbean Sea, the family belongs to the 

 Polynesian and Indian oceans and the Red Sea ; one species 

 follows the gulf-stream to New York, another reaches the Ba- 

 hamas : none visit Europe. 



Atherina. — This isolated genus contains about thirty species, 

 of which six or seven are European, and five, exclusive of two 

 or three doubtful ones, have been described as North American, 

 but none are common to both sides of the Atlantic. 



Mugiloidece. — Of four generic forms which belong to this 

 family, three are peculiar to the intertropical seas, while the 

 typical one, mugil, is knovm in all the temperate as well as in 

 the warmer districts of the ocean. None of the species cross 

 the Atlantic, but some of them have a considerable range coast- 

 ways ; ^hus, two of the American mullets extend from the Bra- 

 zils to New York, while the mugil capifo ranges from Norway 

 to the Mediterranean. The genus contains fifty- three described 

 species, the whole family about sixty ; several are confined to 

 fresh waters. 



Gobioides. — This family contains nearly 300 species, of 

 which about one half are inhabitants of the Indian and Poly- 

 nesian seas ; sixty exist in the European waters, and eighteen 

 or nineteen j3n the American side of the northern Atlantic, 



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