204 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGY III. 



tion, to which the tubes of the lateral line extend also. For this new genus I propose 

 the name of Bubal ichthys, intending to recall the name of Buffalo fish, commonly 

 applied to this species. To this genus belong the species I have described as Carpiodcs 

 urus from the Tennessee River, C. taurus from MobJe River, and C. vitulus from the 

 Wabash, and also the Catostomus niger of Rafinesque and Catostomus bubalus of Dr. Kirt- 

 land from the Ohio, but not C. bubalus Rafinesque, which is the typo of the genus Ich- 

 thyobus described in the following paragraph. I have another new species from the 

 Osage River, sent me by Mr. George Stolley. This shows this type to be widely dis- 

 tributed in our western waters, but thus far it has not been found in the Atlantic 

 states. I have some doubts respecting the nomenclature of these species which are 

 rather difficult to solve. It will be seen upon reference to Rafinesque's Ichthyologia 

 Ohiensis, p. 55 and 56, that he mentions two species of his subgenus Ichthyobus, one of 

 which he calls C. bubalus, and the other C. niger ; the second he has not seen himself, 

 but describes it on the authority of Mr. Andubon as 'entirely similar to the common 

 Buffalo fish,' his C. bubalus, but 'larger, weighing upwards of fifty pounds.' Dr. Kirt- 

 land, on the other hand, describes the C. bubalus as the largest species found in the 

 western waters, and adds that the young is nearly elliptical in its outline and is often 

 sold in the market as a distinct species under the name of Buffalo Perch. If the e was 

 only one species of Buffalo in those waters the case would be very simple, and the Ca- 

 tostomus bubalus and niger of Rafinesque, and C. bubalus of Dr. Kirtland, should simply 

 be considered as synonymous, but Dr. Rauch of Burlington has sent me fine specimens 

 of this Buffalo Perch, to which the remark of Dr. Kirtland, ' elliptical in its outline,' 

 perfectly applies, and I find that it not only differs specifically but even geuericaily 

 from the broader, high backed, common Buffalo, and being the smaller species, I take 

 it to be Rafinesque's C. bubalus, the type of his genus Ichthyobus, which is more fully 

 characterised below, whilst the larger species, Rafinesque's C. niger, can be no other 

 than Dr. Kirtland's C. bubalus, 'the largest species of the western waters.' It seems 

 therefore hardly avoidable to retain the name of C. niger or rather Bubalichthys nigtr 

 for the common Buffalo, though Rafinesque, who first named the fish, never saw it, or 

 if he saw it mistook it for his own bubalus, and though Dr. Kirtland, who correctly 

 describes and figures it, names it C. bubalus, for such is the natural result to which the 

 history of the successive steps in our investigation of these fishes lead. But our diffi- 

 culties here are not yet at an end. Among the splendid collections I received from Dr. 

 Rauch, I found two perfectly distinct species of Bubalichlhys, one with a large mouth, 

 and the other with a small mouth, and one of Ichthyobus, living together in the Missis- 

 sippi River, in the neighborhood of Burlington, Iowa; and the next question, proba- 

 bly never to be solved, will be, if they all three occur also in the Ohio, whether Rafi- 

 nesque's C. niger was the big mouthed or the small mouthed Bubalichthi/s. Judging 

 from the figure given by Dr. Kirtland in the Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. v, 

 pi. fig. 2, 1 believe his C. bubalus to be the small mouthed species. I myself have, how- 

 ever, seen only one specimen of the big mouthed species from the Ohio, and that iu 

 rather an indifferent state of preservation ; for which I am indebted to Prof. Baird, and 

 bone of the small mouthed species. Should, however, all three, as is possible, occur in 

 the Ohio as well as the Mississippi, to avoid introducing new names, I will call the 

 big mouthed species B. niger, preserving for it Rafiuesque's specific name, the small 



