NOTES ON THE SPECIES OF MYCTOPHINE FISHES 



REPRESENTED BY TYPE SPECIMENS IN THE 



UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



By Albert Eide Parr 

 Of the Bingham, Oceanographio Laboratory of Yale University 



INTRODUCTION 



In a report published in 1928 on the deep-sea material of the 

 order Iniomi obtained by the third oceanographic expedition of the 

 Pawnee, under the direction of Harry Payne Bingham/ the author 

 has endeavored to arrange all previously described species into com- 

 plete analytical keys to the various families of which representatives 

 were found in the investigated collections. For this purpose the 

 available published descriptions had to be entirely relied upon for the 

 taxonomic definition of the various forms included in the synoptic 

 reviews, except in the cases where the single species were also repre- 

 sented in the Bingham Oceanographic Collection; criticism being 

 otherwise only applied when obvious discrepancies were found to 

 exist in the literature. In the case of the subfamily Myctophinae 

 the earlier descriptions have, however, often proved to be rather 

 inadequate and sometimes also inaccurate or even directly mislead- 

 ing. This holds particularly good of the descriptions rendered 

 before the modern method of describing and classifying the fishes 

 in question, first introduced by Liitken (1892), had won general 

 recognition through the publication of Brauer's significant and ex- 

 tensive report on the deep-sea fishes obtained by the " Valdivia " 

 expedition (Brauer 1906). When recently visiting the United States 

 National Museum in connection with the preparation of further re- 

 ports on the Bingham Oceanographic Collection, the author there- 

 fore took advantage of the opportunity to investigate the numerous 

 type specimens of the said subfamily deposited in the former institu- 

 tion; the purpose of the investigation being to verify, supplement, 

 or correct the original and current descriptions of the various species 

 involved. The results of this investigation will be presented on 



1 Bulletin of tbe Bingham Oceanographic Collection, Yale University, vol. 3, art. 3. 

 No. 2807.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 76, Art. 10. 



G4440— 29 1 1 



