REPORT ON THE PELAGIC FISHES. 23 



difficulties present themselves as regards the number of scales, which in young specimens 

 are extremely thin and deciduous, and were mostly lost in the examples examined by 

 Thompson, Eicliardsou, and myself. The discrepancies in the statement as to the course 

 of the lateral line, and the presence or absence of vomerine teeth, are likewise to be 

 accounted for by the indifierent condition of the examples examined; and, finally, the 

 l)lack colour of the fins is a character which is absent in young specimens, but becomes 

 more conspicuous with age. 



Fully adult examples were first obtained by Lieut.-Col. S. R. Tickell, who in 1865 

 described them iu Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, p. 32, accompanying the description with a 

 figure which, but for the scaling, would be a verj^ good representation of the fish. The 

 author was not sufficiently acquainted with the literature, and therefore described the 

 fish as new, naming it Asthcnurus atripinnis; however, the synon}Tny was rectified 

 immediately afterwards by myself in the Zool. Record, 1866, p. 197. Tickell dis- 

 covered the existence of vomerine teeth, and of an air-bladder ; and although he denies 

 the presence of a " lateral line," he expressly mentions and figures a " mesial groove with 

 a ridge along each side," which groove is, in fact, the lateral line. 



Singularly, the same specimens, which had been deposited by Tickell in the Calcutta. 

 Museum, were described again as new by Mr. F. Day (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1869,. 

 p. 522), as " BT^gmaceros atripinnis, n. sp." The presence of vomerine teeth and a 

 lateral line are denied iu the diagnosis given by the author. Two pyloric appendages 

 were found iu this fish by the same author.^ 



A second and very distinct form was discovered in New Zealand and described by 

 Mr. Hutton iu 1873," under the name of CaUoptilnm jJunctatum. He states (correctly 

 as I now think) that this fish should be placed into a distinct genus, but his description, 

 as well as figure, were by no means satisfactory. Having received a half-grown specimen 

 of this fish in 1876, I corrected Hutton's description in several points, expressing it as 

 my opinion that "it should not be generically se-pavatedirom Bregmaceros macclellandii," 

 an opinion which, with perfect and adult .specimens before me, I am obliged to abandon. 



Lastly, the relation of these fishes is treated of by ]\Ir. F. Day again in 1877.^ He 

 treats of Bregmaceros macclellandii and Bregmaceros atripinnis as two distinct species, 

 refers erroneously Calloptilum punctatum as a synonym of the latter, and misrejiresents 

 me as having identified the New Zealand fish with Bregmaceros macclellandii.* 



Quite recently a fish apparently allied to these Indo-Pacific forms has been described 

 by JMessrs. Brown Goode aucL Bean,' from the Mid Atlantic, under the name of 



» Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1873, p. 1 12. 



2 Trans, and Proc. Xew Zealand Inst., vol. v. p. 267, pi. xi., 1873. 

 ' Fishes of India. 



■• I must also demur to this author crediting me with the grammatically erroneous term of " Bregmaceros punctatum." 

 Bregmaceros, formed like Rhinoceros, is of the masculine gender. 

 '=> Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. xii. p. 165, 18t(6. 



