IN the year 1850 Guichenot described a small Gadoid, of which he possessed 3 speci- 

 mens from Algiers. He placed them in the neighbourhood of the genus Ga<ii«("morue" 

 and "merian"), but formed for them a special genus, Gadiculus, characterised by the 

 unusual size of the eyes and by the lack of vomerine teeth. On PI. 6, fig. 2 he gave a 

 figure, which is not specially good but yet permits us to recognise the species. Other- 

 wise Guichenot's description is far from complete, perhaps due to the faet that the 3 

 specimens, he had at his disposal, were badly preserved ("trois individus altérés", is re- 

 marked by Guichenot himself). 



Gadiculus has later been rediscovered by a number of naturalists, first by Gunther 

 (1874), who describes a specimen of 5V2 in- in length taken on 18/6 1869 in 183 fathoms 

 west of the British Isles (55°10' N., 10°59' W.) by the Porcupine Expedition. GIjnther 

 saw already, and all later authore after him, that the genus Gadiculus could not be main- 

 tained on the basis of the absence of vomerine teeth, since these may be absent or present 

 by individual variation. 



Our acquaintance with Gadiculus and its distribution has been grcatly extended 

 by various later publications, especially by the work of Bellotti (1879), Vaillant 

 (1888), Holt (1892), Holt and Calderwood (1895) and Collett (1901). As Collett 

 (1901) gives a very careful summary of the literaturc on Gadiculus, it is supeHluous to 

 entcr into all details here. For these, reference may be made to Collett and I shall 

 confme myself to some few remarks. 



Whilst all authors, as mentioned, are agreed, that the genus Gadiculus cannot be 

 maintainod on the basis given it by Guichenot, namely, lack of vomerine twth, thero 

 is »til! lack of agreement as to its systematic position. Various authors, for example, 

 rt'frr it directly to the Gadus genus (Collett 1901), others owing to the absence of a 

 barbel to Meriangus (after Vaillant 1888), others again maintain the name either as 

 genus or as subgenus (Holt). It seems to me (1905, p. 64), that there i« very good reason 

 for separating it from the true Gadus species merely from the oharacters, which havo 



