BDELLOSTOMA DOMBEYI, LAC. 155 



Banks' South Sea collection. Johannes Miiller published his 

 well-known monograph on these forms in 1834, and applied 

 the name Bdellostoma to the forms from the South Sea, 

 Cape of Good Hope, and Chilian coast, making species on 

 the basis of the number of gills. He called the Chilian form 

 B. dombeyi, and made five species in all. In 1854, C. Girard 

 described a fish from the Chilian coast with fourteen gills, and 

 called it Bdellostoma polytrema. 



In 1878, Lockington described the form found in San 

 Francisco Bay as B. stouti, and Gill changed the name in 

 1880 to Polistotrema stouti, which has again been changed to 

 Polistotrema dombeyi. Retaining the name polytrema for the 

 Chilian form, he changed it over to his genus Polistotrema, 

 which he says is characterized by 1 1 to 14 gills. These 

 accounts all refer to the varieties of what I shall call Bdello- 

 stoma dombeyi, adopting Miiller's genus, on account of the 

 inapplicability of Lacepede's Gastrobranchus, and of the inap- 

 propriateness of Cuvier's Heptatremes, which could only be 

 used for the seven-gilled form or variety. Bdellostoma, the 

 generic name proposed by Miiller, is satisfactory in every way, 

 and we may well use it. 



The specific name dombeyi, applied by Lacepede in 1798, is 

 satisfactory in that it avoids all difficulties of a morphological 

 kind, and perpetuates the name of the discoverer of this 

 remarkable animal. Bdellostoma dombeyi is the name under 

 which are gathered all the variations we know of in the 

 branchial and dental systems and the correlated organs. For 

 the purpose of distinguishing these varieties, we may use 

 either Latin variety names or a simpler numerical termination. 

 If we choose the Latin names, we meet with difficulty in sup- 

 plying all of the hetcrotrcmcs with sufficiently exact names, for 

 some are 6-7, others 11 12, and still others i2-i3-gilled, and 

 no one knows when or where more of these heterotremes may 

 be found. 



Gastrobranchus dombeyi (Lacepede), 1798. 

 Heptatremes dombeyi (Cuvier), 1829. 

 Bdellostoma " (Muller), 1834. 



(Gray), 1851. 



