4 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The third period has resulted from investigations undertaken either directly 

 or with the assistance of the United States Fish Commission and the Smithsonian 

 Institution. Under their auspices Dr. Gilbert made in 1881 large collections of 

 the fishes of Panama, which served as the basis for numerous papers by Jordan and 

 Gilbert. A second and much larger collection, made by him in 1883, was unfortu- 

 nately destroyed by fire, together with all field-notes and the manuscript report then 

 ready for the printer. The only record of this material is embodied in a list published 

 by Jordan (1885). The new species indicated in that list remained, for the most 

 part, still undescribed and unrepresented in any museum at a period ten years later! 



The deeper waters off the Panama Bay, out as far as the Galapagos Islands, 

 were thoroughly explored by the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross 

 in 1888 and 1891. Reports upon the fishes thus obtained have been given by 

 Jordan and Bollman (1889), by Gilbert (1890 b), and recently in most admirable 

 and complete form by Garman (1899). 



The following account of the fishes of Panama Bay is based primarily 

 upon material obtained in 1896 by an expedition from the Leland Stanford Junior 

 University, generously equipped and sent out by Mr. Timothy Hopkins of Menlo 

 Park, California. The party consisted of Dr. C. H. Gilbert and Messrs. E. C. Starks, 

 C. J. Pierson and R. C. McGregor. During the six weeks (January lOth to Feb- 

 ruary 24th) spent in residence at Panama, an almost hourly ins|)ection of the excel- 

 lent fish-market was maintained; the tide-pools of the reef were explored, and the 

 rocks and islands near the city were investigated by the aid of dynamite. The 

 eflfectiveness of the party became so reduced by illness daring the last weeks of their 

 stay, that they were unable to carry out that part of their plans which contemplated 

 the exploration of the Pearl Islands on the one hand and the rivers of the Isthmus 

 on the other. These localities offer still a rich field for investigation. Of the two 

 hundred and eighty-three marine species obtained, forty-three were new, and included 

 among them all but four {T)jlosurus sp., Cynoscion sp., Scams sp., and Cithaiichthys 

 sp.) of tlie still undescribed forms of the list of 1885. Descriptions of many of 

 the new species have already aj)peared in the different volumes of Jordan and 

 Evermann's "Fishes of North and Middle America," and full accounts of all 

 appear in the present paper. 



We have admitted to our list all previous records of ti.shes from Panama Bay, 

 unless good reason exists for doubting their validity. Several general references to 

 "Panama," in Jordan and Evermann's work above cited, seem not to be based upon 

 special records, and are rejected by us, even where there is a general probability of 

 their occurrence at Panama in view of the known range of the species. Of the fishes 

 obtained by the Albatross, we have included such only as were dredged within the 

 fifty-fathom line. Even when thus restricted, the assemblage is found to contain 

 many forms which are rarely or never taken along shore, and seem to constitute a 

 sublittoral fauna of characteristic shallow-water species. The genera Prinnotns, 

 Symphurus and Bipkctram offer numerous examples of such species. 



