NO 1394. ON SYNAXCEIXK AM) PKLOUINE FISHES— GILL. 223 



anchia Swainson " was little more than '"a mere misprint or vagary 

 of spelling- for Synaneeia.-'' It was, however, something- more, for it 

 was the form which the old Romans would have adopted if they had 

 been called to latinize such a derivative from the Greek word avvayxtj. 

 In fact, they did so in the form .s^naiieheov ci/ikuicJic^ the source of the 

 English word quinsy. Therefore Sy)i<i)ivh!a was rather a proper cor- 

 rection of Synancela than ' ' a vagary of spelling." Nevertheless, as the 

 original form Sytumceia may be retained, and inasnuich as Swainson 

 merely used SynancJila in place of Syndiicdd^ Bleeker's usage was 

 quite illegitimate. Such being the facts, the synonyms of the several 

 genera apparently should be apportioned in the following manner: 



Synanceinae Kaup, Archiv f. Naturg., 1873, I, p. 79. 



Synance'mae Gill, Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci., VI, 1896, p. 135. 



Synanceiinae Jordan and Starks, Proc. U. S. Nat. ]Mus. , XXVII, 1904, p. 93. 



SYNANCEIA. 



Sytiancela Bhocnu Syst. Ich., Schneider ed., p. 194. 



Synanceia Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss., IV, 1829, p. 440. 



*S'?/nanc/«a Swainson, Nat. Hist. Fish, etc., II, 1839, p. 180. 



Bufichthys SwAissoN, Nat. Hist. Fish, etc., II, 1839, p. 268. 



Synanddium MItller, Abhandl. k. Akad. Berlin, 1844, p. 163. 



Synanceichthys Bleeker, Onz. Not. Icli. Ternate m Ned. T. Dierk, I, p. 234. 



Synanceia Bleeker, Eev. Synanceoides, 1874, p. 10. 



The genera Synanceia and Synancidlurn have been separated solely 

 on the ground that the former was supposed to have no vomerine 

 teeth while the latter had some. Bleeker has expressly declared that 

 the S. Twrrida sometimes has and sometimes has not vomerine teeth, 

 and that such variation may occur in old as well as young; consequently 

 the character has not even specific value and therefore the genera based 

 on such a character are worthless. There are differences in the struc- 

 ture of the head which might justify generic separation but, according 

 to Bleeker, the S. platyrhynchus is intermediate and nullifies the sig- 

 nificance of such characters. 



EROSA. 



Erom Swainson, Nat. Hist. Classif. Fishes, etc., II, 1839, p. 61. 



Bufichthys Swainson, Nat. Hist. Classif. Fishes, etc., II, 1839, p. 180. 



Synajic/im Swainson, Nat. Hist. Classif. Fishes, etc., II, 1839, p. 268. 



Synanchia Bleeker, Rev. Synanceoides, p. 4, i/; Nat. Verh. Holl. Maatsch Wetensch., 



(3) II, No. 3, 1874. 

 Erosa Jordan and Starks, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XXVII, 1904, p. 156. 



