ir. The Fishes of Easter Island. 



By 



HIALMAR RENDAHL. 



The material for this paper was brought together by Mr. K. Backstrom 

 during the Swedish Pacific Expedition 1916— 17, under the direction of Dr. C. 

 Skottsberg. As the visit to Easter Island was rather short (15. — 30. June, 

 1917), only a small collection of fishes was obtained. 



The waters in the vicinity of Easter Island have already twice before 

 been visited by collectors for ichthyological purposes, viz. by the United States' 

 Expedition to the eastern tropical Pacific, 1904—05, and by the Chilean botan- 

 ist F. FUENTES, April, 191 1. The ichthyological results of the former expe- 

 dition have been published by Kendall and Radcliffe in Mem. Mus. Comp. 

 Zool. Harv. College, vol. XXXV, no. 3 (1912) p. TJ — 172. Twenty-three 

 species were recorded from Easter Island, of which two were described as 

 new. In 191 3 Regan published a report on the collection of FUENTES (Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. London p. 368 — 374); this report also contains some remarks on 

 the paper by Kendall and Radcliffe. Fuentes collected eleven species, 

 nine of which had been mentioned by the two American authors. Five ap- 

 peared to be new to science, three of which had been listed by the former 

 authors but identified by them with previously described species. Further, 

 Regan found that one of the species recorded by the Americans but not 

 obtained by FuENTES was different from the species to which it had been 

 referred by Kendall and Radcliffe and thus gave it a new specific name. 



A third account of the fishes appeared in »Contribucion al Estudio de la 

 Fauna de la Isla de Pascua», by F. FUENTES (Bol. Mus. Nac. de Chile, 

 Santiago 1914). The review of the fishes, p. 13 — 30, is mainly a translation 

 of Regan's paper; some new figures were, however, added. 



Mr. Backstrom's collection contains fifteen species. Six of these have 

 not been recorded from the island before, although three belong to species 

 already known from other parts of the tropical Pacific; three are new to 

 science. 



The total number of sea-fishes known at present from Easter Island 

 amounts to thirty one, nine of which or more than one-fourth have not been 

 found elsewhere. The isolated position of the island, situated about 2,000 

 miles from the coast of South America and some 1,000 miles from the nearest 



