NATURE AND EVOLUTION — HAWAIIAN INSHORE FISH FAUNA 351 



Schindleria. All three of the above-mentioned groups will be omitted 

 from further consideration in this paper. The remaining, inshore fishes 

 will again be divided into two categories for purposes of treatment here. 

 One group contains those species ordinarily living in depths of ap- 

 proximately 200 to 600 feet, and the other those fishes usually inhabit- 

 ing depths of less than about 200 feet. 



Of those fishes living between 200 and 600 feet, relatively little is 

 known. In Hawaii there is a considerable hand-line fishery for such 

 species, but only the larger forms are taken, and of these only the edible 

 forms are brought in. About all that can be said of this group is that 

 it seems to show less endemism and a greater affinity to the Japanese 

 fish fauna than is present among shallower-water forms. 



The rest of this paper will be devoted to those fishes usually living 

 in less than 200 feet of water. This inshore group is not only the best 

 known, but contains well over half of all the fishes recorded from the 

 Hawaiian Islands. Four main features must be noted about these forms. 

 First, a large proportion of the Hawaiian species appear to be endemic. 

 Second, at most a very few of the Hawaiian genera are endemic. Third, 

 the Hawaiian inshore fish fauna, in distinct contrast to the Hawaiian 

 terrestrial biota, is a harmonic (balanced) one. Finally, the Hawaiian 

 fish fauna does not appear to be a particularly impoverished one by 

 Central Pacific standards. 



It is necessary to discuss each of the above points in some detail. 

 Since the lack of endemic genera and higher categories is most easily 

 dismissed, it will be dealt with first. There are, to my knowledge, only 

 two genera of Hawaiian shallow-water fishes (Gregoryina and Micro- 

 hrotula) that can be considered endemic. However, both of these are 

 made up of small, rarely collected forms that may have been overlooked 

 elsewhere. 



The statement that a large proportion of Hawaiian inshore species 

 of fishes are endemic needs some qualification, for the question may be 

 raised whether the Hawaiian endemics are not merely subspecies. In- 

 deed it cannot be proved that these endemics will not and do not in- 

 terbreed with their central Pacific counterparts (see below). Never- 

 theless, there are two basic reasons for considering the Hawaiian en- 

 demics as full species. One is that the Hawaiian representatives of an 

 Indo-Pacific Artenkreis are usually better differentiated than any other 

 populations of the Artenkreis, e.g., Acanthurus sandvicensis in the A. 

 triostegus complex (Schultz and Woods, 1948). The other and more 

 important reason is that no intergradation can be demonstrated at the 

 borders of the ranges between the Hawaiian and the central Pacific 

 forms. Johnston and AYake (Fig. 1) are both islands which geograph- 



