330 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XX. No. 50G. 



ignorance and rashness is displayed in the 

 treatment of a couple of other species. 

 Under the 'Gen. Cobitis' (p. 183) he 

 notices the 'sucker, Cyprinus Teres {Ca- 

 tastomus].' In the third paragraph under 

 the specific caption he refers to 'a strange 

 fish' given by the keeper of the Boston 

 Lighthouse, unknown ' ' to any of the fisher- 

 men in his service, which has a mouth pre- 

 cisely like the fish above described ; but the 

 body, instead of being round, is quite 

 thin [ !] and wide, back of the gills. The 

 color is silvery, mottled with dark waving 

 lines. It is in length about ten inches, 

 and appropriately denominated the sea- 

 sucker." What could this 'sea-sucker' 

 have been? One familiar with the fishes 

 of the coast and with Smith's idiosyncrasy 

 might reconcile the notice with the king- 

 fish {Menticirrus nehulosus) , but the suck- 

 er is a malaeopterygian and the king- 

 fish an acanthopterygian, and, besides, the 

 latter has a mouth not at all like that of a 

 sucker in reality! All this is quite true, 

 but on an examination of the very speci- 

 men mentioned by Smith, it was found by 

 Storer to be a king-fish. 



How Smith was led to put the sucker in 

 the genus Cobitis and to separate it from 

 its near relation, the chub sucker, Erimy- 

 zon sucetta, which was placed in the genus 

 Cyprinus as the 'chub, Cyprinus oilongus,' 

 is not at all comprehensible. 



The habit of assuming that the popular 

 names were correctly applied led to other 

 curious results. Some of the most abun- 

 dant of the fishes of the state are the 

 eyprinodonts known as minnows and the 

 sun-fish, called also bream and roach. The 

 eyprinodonts and sun-fish do not appear at 

 all in their proper persons in the 'Natural 

 History'; the only mention of any minnow 

 is under the head of 'minnow, Cyprinus 

 atronasus' ; the names of 'bream, Abramis 

 chrysoptera,' 'roach, Leuciscus rutilus,' 

 and 'dace, or dare, Leucisus vulgaris," are 



found, but only in connection with the 

 European fishes, which, it scarcely need be 

 added, are not American fishes. 



Still another kind of error is found in 

 statements respecting distribution. As we 

 all know, the shad was introduced into the 

 waters of the Pacific slope by the United 

 States Fish Commission because it was sup- 

 posed none were there. According to 

 Smith, however, 'on the northwest coast 

 of America, they are inconceivably nu- 

 merous'! 



The examples thus given are quite enough 

 to illustrate some of the kinds of errors 

 Smith fell into. 



The only item of new or special interest 

 found in the entire volume is not from 

 the pen of Smith, but of a correspondent, 

 Jas. P. Couthuoy, captain of a merchant 

 vessel, who later became known as an able 

 conchologist and accompanied Captain 

 Wilkes in his celebrated voyage around the 

 world. In a postscript to a general letter, 

 published in the article on the mackerel, 

 Couthuoy added, 'though you are already, 

 perhaps, aware of it, * * * the male dol- 

 phin may be easily distinguished from the 

 female in the water, by the shape of the 

 head ; that of the former being abrupt, and 

 almost perpendicular, * * * while the fe- 

 male's is more rounded.' This statement, 

 written in January, 1832, and published in 

 1833, anticipated by five years the discovery 

 of M. Dussumier, announced in the ' aver- 

 tissement' (p. vii) to the twelfth volume of 

 Cuvier and Valenciennes' 'Histoire Nat- 

 urelle des Poissons' (1837). In view of 

 our knowledge of Smith's character, the 

 suggestion that he was aware of such a fact 

 sounds quite ironical. No ichthyologist has 

 recognized the claim of Couthuoy to the 

 discovery in question. 



Smith's wretched book misled many of 

 the anglers of the middle of the past cen- 

 tury; frequent evidences are to be found 

 of his influence in the principal works 



