24 



THE AMERICAN CHARACIDAE. 



1758, over the signature of Artedi, but according to Gill ' by another author, the 

 name Tetragonoptrus, coined by Klein and originally intended for entirely dif- 

 ferent fishes, was applied to the species now known as Tetragonopterus argenteus. 

 In 1754 and 1756 Gronovius in his Museum ichthyologicum defined the 

 following genera : — 



Charax, 1754, p. 19. 

 Gasteropelecus, 1756, p. 7, pi. 7, fig. 5. 

 Anostomus, 1756, p. 13, pi. 7, fig. 2. 

 Erythrinius, 1756, p. 6, pi. 7, fig. 6. 



The two species referred by Gronovius to Charax were subsequently in- 

 corporated in the genera Charax (gibbosus) and Astyanax (fimaculatus) . The 

 Gasteropelecus is the Gasteropelecus sternicla of present authors. His Anos- 

 tomus is Anostomus anostomus and Erythrinus is Erythrinus salmoneus. In 

 1777 Scopoli (Introductio ad historiam naturalem * * *) adopted these genera 

 into the binomial system with Gronovius species as the types. 



Linne abandoned all of these genera and distributed the species known to 

 him in the genera Clupea, Cyprinus, and Salmo. The species described or 

 recognized by Linne in his tenth and twelfth editions and in Gmelin's the thir- 

 teenth edition of the Systema Naturae are given in the following table modified 

 from that of Gill (Proc. U. S. N. M., 18, p. 213) : 



1 Proc. TJ. S. N. M., 1895, 18, p. 225-227. 



2 The generic names are those used in the tenth edition. 



3 Clupa sima is credited to Asia by Linn6. It is placed in the synonymy of slei -nick by ISloch, p. 418. 

 I know nothing further about it. 



