35S ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



Lebistes, and Mollienisia) that are shared with the mainland of South 

 or Central America. 



The Lesser Antilles may be said to possess no fresh -water fishes at all. 

 I hasten to say that I do not include Trinidad. That island is merely a 

 recently separated part of the mainland. Alost of its many frcsli- 

 water fishes are specifically identical with Orinoco and Guiana species, 

 and those that now appear to be peculiar may confidently be expected 

 to turn up when the Orinoco delta is carefully fished. All the Lesser 

 Antilles that have sizable streams seem to have the semimarine moun- 

 tain mullets and gobies but the only fishes that we could really call 

 fresh-water ones in the whole chain are two pocciliids, tlic "guppy" or 

 "millions" (Lebistes) and Poecilia vivipara. The latter is recorded 

 from Martinique and the "guppy" from St. Lucia and Barbados. It 

 is probable that both occur in other islands of the Leeward group, but 

 I am not wholly convinced that these two tiny and very prolific fishes 

 were not introduced by man. In late years the "guppy" has been 

 spread far and wide in antimalarial work. Both are admirably 

 fitted for waif distribution through ^vindstorms or even actual naviga- 

 tion of small stretches of ocean. They are tiny lowland fishes of the 

 fresh-water tidal belt, and on the continent never occur far from the 

 coast. I have observed their hardiness in strong salt water in aquaria 

 on several occasions, although they cannot exist for any very extended 

 period in sea water. The deposition of one pregnant female in an 

 island stream would soon fully populate that island. It is therefore 

 evident that there is no fish evidence to support a claim of continental 

 union of the Lesser Antilles, or to give us a hint of the histories of 

 individual islands. 



The Virgin Islands, so far as fresh-water fishes go, belong zoologically 

 with the Lesser Antilles; there are no fresh-water fishes. A Fundulus 

 has been described from them by Fowler from the old van Rijgersma 

 collection, but the specimens are only doubtfully distinct from a com- 

 mon North American brackish water killyfish {Fundulus hereroclitus) . 

 If a Fundulus of this type were really present, it should have spread 

 throughout a good part of the Antilles. 



Cuba has the most distinctive fauna.^* There are the garpike and 

 Synbranchus, neither of which is known from any of the other islands. 

 A distinctive cichlid, related rather closely to several species in 

 southern Mexico, is very common. Among the oviparous cyprino- 

 donts there is one RivuJus, related to Central American forms, and 

 one or two subspecies of a Cyprinodon which is common in brackish 

 water in Florida. The most interesting member of the group is the 

 little endemic Cubanichthys cubensis which finds its only near rela- 



" See especially Eigenmann (1903). Eigeninann's several forms of Cuban cichlids have been synony- 

 rnized by Hubbs (see Myers, 1928). Uubbs (1924) has revised Eigenmann's classification of the viviparous 

 poeciliids ,and more recently (1934) described the peculiar Qtiintana, now known from both Western Cuba 

 and the Isle of Pines. Further revisional work by Dr. Hubbs and Dr. Ilowell Rivcro is in preparation. 



