THE NOMENCLATUKE OF THE FAISHLY P(EClLiri).E OK 



gypiu:nodontid.e. 



By TuKoDoU'K (llLL, M. 1)., I'll. \). 



Tn my "Families and Subfamilies of Fishes"' (1893, JSTo. 133) 1 have 

 adopted Poeciliidw instead of (hjprinodonti(hiJ for the family at present 

 generally known by the latter name. 



It is quite true that Prof. Agassiz was the tirst to recognize the fam- 

 ily so called, but he sim])ly gave the plural form of Cyprmodon, and 

 not a name with the patronymic suffix now almost universally used to 

 denote families, and he did not define it, but simi)ly gave it to the 

 residuum left after defining the Cyprini. Little later Bonaparte gave 

 a regular family name {Fivcilidn') derived from the earliest established 

 name of a genus of the family and that name was several times employed 

 by him and others while the nan*ie Cyprinodontes remained in abeyance; 

 he also regularly defined it. The first regular use of the latter name 

 with a patronymic suffix [Cyprinodonthhv) was by Sir John Kichaidson 

 in 1856. 



Another objection to the name Cyprinodontidw which may reconcile 

 us to its abandonment is that it expresses a taxonomic falsehood and 

 is even now constantly misleading persons. In the part of the great 

 "i^^ew English Dictionary," lately published (v. U, p. 1300), a " Cyprino- 

 donf^ is defined as "a malacopterygious fish of the family Cyprinodont- 

 i(7rt', of which the typical genus is Cyprinodon; they differ from the 

 Cyprinids in having the jaws more projecting and toothed." In the 

 recent manual of Moreau (1892, p. 479), the " Cyprinodontides" and 

 " Cyprinides " are approximated in an analytical table and simply con- 

 trasted on account of the presence of jaw teeth ("machoiresdentees") 

 in the former and the absence (machoires " non dentees") in the latter. 

 It certainly is time for trained ichthyologists to have learned that there 

 is no affinity between the two types, and that they differ so radically in 

 all essential features of organization that they should be referred to 

 different orders. Yet Valenciennes, in the penultimate volume of his 

 great work (Hist. ^N'at. Poiss., xxi, i). 455), attempted to justify the 



Proceedings National Museum, Vol. XVII — No. 991, 



115 



