ON THE EAST COAST OF FLORIDA. 65 



If the scientific people continue to prepare new classifications 

 every seventeen years, continuing their exceedingly fine lines of dis- 

 tinction, and do not do something to check the hybridizing of the 

 fishes, the Greek, Latin, and all the modern European languages will 

 not contain names enough to furnish many succeeding classifications. 



W. C. Harris, in his finely illustrated (in colors) "Fishes of 

 North America," says: "Nearly 6,000 varietal forms of fishes are 

 either native or transient visitors to American waters." 



The above shows the formidable condition of affairs the future 

 ichthyologists have to face. 



On the above subject I will quote from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 

 article Ichthyology, Vol. XII., page 664, Scribner edition, 1881 : 



" Hybridism is another source of changes and variations within 

 the limits of a species, and is by no means so rare as has been hith- 

 erto believed ; it is apparently of exceptional occurrence, merely be- 

 cause the life of fishes is more withdrawn from our direct observation 

 than that of terrestrial animals. It has been observed among species 

 of serraranus, pleuronestae, cyprinidae, clupedas, and especially sal- 

 monidae. As with other animals, the more certain kinds of fishes are 

 brought under domestication, the more readily do they interbreed 

 with other allied species. It is characteristic of hybrids that their 

 characters are very variable, the degree of affinity to the one or the 

 other parent being inconstant ; and as these hybrids are known 

 readily to breed with either of the parent race, the variations of form, 

 structure, and color are infinite." The contributor of above article 

 is Albert C. L. G. Gunther, M. D., Ph. D., F. R. S., keeper of the 

 Zoological Department British Museum. 



