212 SIXTH REPORT — 183G. 



there being only forty-two known on the whole eastern coast of 

 both North and South America. The North American and 

 European genera are mostly the same ; yet among the former 

 we have chasmodes and phih/primis which range from within 

 the tropics to the United States, but do not visit Europe ; 

 while tripferi/gion and calUonymiis of the Mediterranean and 

 British Channel are unknown in the American seas. The only 

 species perhaps common to both countries are those which fre- 

 quent the Greenland seas. Dr. Smith, indeed, enumerates 

 anarrhichus lupus among the fish of Alassachusetts, but his 

 determination of the species must be considered as doubtful 

 until we have some evidence of a proper comparison having 

 been instituted between American and European examples. 

 The gunnellus vulgaris is also described as a Labrador fish in 

 the Fauna BoreaU-Amei-icaiia, on the authority of a single 

 injured specimen which differed slightly from the English fish. 

 Zoarces poluris, according to Capt. James Ross, is the most 

 northern known fish, having been taken on the ice to the north 

 of Spitzbergen, or within nine degrees of the pole ; it ranges 

 westward to Regent's Inlet. 



Batrachoidece. — The only species of this family which exists 

 in Europe is the well known lophius piscatorius, while the 

 North American seas contain four out of five of the generic 

 forms and seven or more species, there being about fifty in the 

 family. Sixteen belong to the Caribbean Sea and South Ame- 

 rican Atlantic, and the comparatively small proportion of fifteen 

 have been detected in the Indian and Polynesian seas. 



Lahroidece. — As the publication of the Histoire des Poissons, 

 the only trustworthy guide for general ichthyology, has ad- 

 vanced no further than the hatruchoidea^ our observations on 

 the succeeding families must necessarily be imperfect, and we 

 shall therefore make them as brief as possible ; indeed, our 

 American lists cannot be otherwise than very defective, being 

 founded on Cuvier's notes in the R^gne Animal, relating almost 

 solely to figured species. We have ventured to enumerate only 

 thirteen lahroidea as inhabitants of the North American seas, 

 and the nomenclature of fully one half of these is doubtful. 

 The European seas nourish about fifty species belonging to the 

 genera labrus, julis, crenilahrus, coricus, Airichthys, chromis, 

 and scarus. 



Fistiilaroidecc. — The members of this small family are mostly 

 deni/ens of the warmer seas. One npecies only is well known 

 as European, viz., the centriscus scolopax, which is common 

 enough in the Mediterranean, but rare in the Atlantic, though 

 it has been found as far north as Mount's Bay. This family 



