316 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [vor. 48 
As Jordan (1883) has remarked, “the various species of Gila 
abound in the basin of the Rio Colorado and Rio Gila, and are 
used as food in New Mexico and Arizona. 
‘They reach a length of about eighteen 
inches.” 
Another of the Leuciscine genera char- 
acteristics of Pacific America is that called 
Ptychocheilus, whose species have an ap- 
pearance somewhat intermediate between 
chubs and gilas; the head is long, the snout 
prolonged, and the mouth deeply cleft and 
almost horizontal, thus somewhat resemb- 
re 68.—Pharyngeal ling a pike whose name has been usurped 
bones and tooth of Pty- for it by ‘some of the inhabitants of its 
chocheilus major. After country. In accordance with its large 
a mouth are the pharyngeal bones and teeth, 
the former elongate, the latter sharp-pointed and sharp-edged. 
Three species are generally recognized. 
The largest of the American Cyprinids belong to the genus 
Ptychocheilus, one inhabiting the Colorado river (P. lucius), being 
locally known as the “salmon,” and another (P. oregonensis) of 
Oregon and the Sacramento river being dubbed the “pike” or 
“squaw fish”; the former sometimes attains a length of five feet 
and a weight of eighty pounds and the latter is not very much 
smaller. They are rapacious animals with larger mouths than are 
-possessed by any other American Cyprinids. Both are common 
fishes in their respective regions and held in some esteem as market- 
able fishes. In Oregon, the species of its great river is very highly 
esteemed by the Indians, and is a rival in their favor of the salmons, 
and hence has been designated as the squaw-fish, a name which 
