No. 2. — The Chimaeroids (Chismepnea Raf., 1815; Holocephala 
Miill., 1854), especially RKhinochimaera and its Allies. By 
SAMUEL GARMAN. 
THERE are few of the marine animals that on account of structure and 
relationships to other forms living and extinct have as great interest for 
zodlogists and palaeontologists as the Chimaeroids. Their line of descent 
extends to Devonian times and away beyond and back to a meeting with 
that of the Plagiostomia near the point at which the latter separated from 
the bony fishes. That the line has been well traced for a long distance 
through the fossils only makes it the more interesting. Item after item 
of information relating to the group has been carefully gathered, dis- 
cussed, and placed on record, but the advances among the recent have 
been very slow, and those among the fossils, though in some ways much 
more extensive, have left much to be desired. The type species of Chi- 
maera and Callorhynchus have been known since the establishment of 
these genera by Linné and Gronow, in 1754. More recently other species 
have been added to each of them. A most important addition to the 
knowledge of the group dates from the capture of the types of the genus 
Harriotta, by the United States Fish Commission, and their description 
by Messrs. Goode and Bean, in 1894, and a little later another was made 
by the discovery of a Japanese species, by Professor Mitsukuri, in 1895, 
which was placed in the same genus, named but not described. The 
importance of the species from Japan was not recognized for some years, 
until Dr. Alexander Agassiz, returning from one of his explorations of 
the Coral Islands, saw and purchased a second specimen from a dealer in 
Tokyo. Dissection of this specimen supplies the reason for existence of 
this paper; it brings to light a number of interesting details concerning 
Chimaeroids, and some which pertain to other forms than that directly 
under consideration. The following are among the results and conclu- 
sions, brought prominently forward at this moment, that appear to be 
most worthy of attention. 
The species, Rhinochimaera pacifica, is described and figured with 
details of skeletal and other anatomy. 
VOL. XLI. — No. 2 
