354 L. Agassiz on Fishes of the Tennessee River. 
sidering this type of Cyprinoids as a distinct group among the 
Catostomi, Rafinesque has however the priority over the able’ pro- 
fessor of the Jardin des Plantes; for we find in his Ichthyolo- 
gia Ohiensis that the third subgenus of Catostomus, which he 
calls Carpiodes, though not characterized with the precision with 
which Valenciennes has circumscribed his genus Sclerognathus, 
exactly corresponds to it. o not hesitate therefore to adopt 
Rafinesque’s name as the older; the more so, since this writer has 
at the same time wisely separated from the common Catostomi 
at that early day two other types of the same group, which are 
even now left among Catostomi by all ichthyologists. I allude 
to the subgenus Lctiobus, with Catostomus Bubalus as its type; 
and to the genus Cycleptus for the Missouri sucker ; for though 
Rafinesque did not himself examine this latter fish, and ascribes 
to it two dorsals, it must be evident to any one who has had 
an opportunity of investigating this rare species that the few 
words with which it is mentioned apply to it, and that the indi- 
cation of two dorsals is éasily explained by the very form of that 
fin, the anterior part of which rises like a separate fin in advance 
of the following low part which extends uniformly far behind. 
I should add that Catosiomus elongatus belongs also to this genus 
Cycleptus. As to Ictiobus, it resembles Carpiodes in external ap- 
pearance, but is at once distinguished by its thin lips and more 
terminal mouth.* Nothing is to be more regretted for the progress 
of Natural History in this country, than that Rafinesque did not 
put up somewhere a collection of all the genera and species he 
has established, with well authenticated labels, or that his cotem- 
poraries did not follow in his steps, or at least preserve the tradi- ~ 
those with whom he had intercourse by his innovations and that. 
they preferred to lean upon the authority of the great naturalists 
of the age then residing in Europe, who however knew little of 
somewhat hasty man who was living among them, and who 
collected a vast amount of information from all parts © 
States, upon a variety of objects then entirely new to science. 
From what I can learn of Rafinesque, and from a careful study 
* In connection with the genera mentioned above, I may remark here that Rafin- 
— has established another sub-genus under the name of Mozxostoma, which fully 
esery i isti j 
tostomus anisurus West, C. 8) i 
of the South. After acknowledging these alterations of the genus Catostomus, aa 
is now generally un ichthyologists, there would still remain a § 
ies to constitute the genus Catostomus proper of which C. hudsoni 
e rece ‘atostomus was ) ; considered kd ea 
freed of all unjustifiable additions engrafted upon it in course of time, the he 
tostomus would be restored to its primitive natural circumscription: 
ye 
inet a 
