FOSSIL FISHES. AD 
IscuypTERus Parvus W. C. R. (MS). 
Pl. XIII, Fig. 4. 
In the manuscript report of J. H. Redfield, now in my hands, I find 
a description of a small species of Ischypterus to which he gives the above 
name, crediting it to W. C Redfield. He also refers to the figures given 
by Prof. Edward Hitchcock" as illustrating the species. His description is 
as follows: 
Fish small and fusiform; head small—less than one-quarter length of tish ; scales 
minute concentrically striate, pectorals rather small, rays delicate; ventrals very 
small; dorsal small and triangular, with anterior raylets stout and few in number; anal 
very small; tail forked, lobes rather obtuse; length three inches, breadth three- 
quarters of an inch. 
Occurs at Sunderland, Mass., Boonton, N. J., and perhaps at Westfield, Coun. 
This species is rare. Very few perfect individuals have been found. Its small size 
and the delicate character of its scales and fins will at once distinguish it. 
The above description is so brief and general that in the absence of 
type specimens it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify the species. The 
figures in the Geology of Massachusetts, to which Mr. Redfield refers, are 
evidently drawn from very imperfectly preserved fishes, of which little more 
can be said than that they belong to the genus Ischypterus. They are, how- 
ever, quite distinct from the little fishes found at Durham to which I have 
given the name J. minutus, being narrower and more fusiform and with 
much smaller dorsal fins. A little fish found at Sunderland, much more like 
those figured by Hitchcock, is represented on Plate XVIII, Fig. 4. It is 
fairly well preserved, and we can see by its fusiform body and small dorsal 
scales that it is not the young of I. tenuiceps. There can be little doubt, 
therefore, that it represents the species figured by Hitchcock and cited by 
Redfield as representing his J. parvus. The figure now given may therefore 
be taken as the first truthful illustration of that species. Whether it is dis- 
tinct from any other described remains to be shown by further investigation. 
At Durham and Sunderland fusiform fishes of the genus /schypterus con- 
siderably larger than this or that figured by Hitchcock occur, though 
rarely, and not often in good preservation. These have the general 
‘Geol. Mass., quarto ed., vol. 2, pl. XXIX, fig. 3, and in atlas accompanying octavo ed., pl. XIV, 
fig. 44. 
