Septemeek 9, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



333 



thor 's nomenclatur.e, he was ' ' guided as far 

 as possible by the principle which would 

 give the credit of a species to the author 

 who first placed it under its appropriate 

 genus. This plan," he truly added, he 

 "was led to understand is being adopted 

 by our most eminent naturalists." For a 

 time such was the case. 



The work was and is of such importance 

 that some analysis may be welcome. 



As long as the writer had a guide to 

 follow, his faults of taxonomy were mainly 

 those of his guides, but he had the fortune, 

 good or bad, to obtain specimens of types 

 unknown to the authors whose views he 

 followed, and then he had to determine 

 their affinities as best he might. The re- 

 sult by no means did credit to his per- 

 spicacity. Among these types were the 

 genera Boleosoma and Cryptacanthodes. 



Boleosoma had been quite correctly re- 

 ferred by Dekay to the family of Percidse, 

 and is in fact a perch in miniature. Yet 

 Storer referred it to the 'Triglidffi,' be- 

 tween AcantJiocottus and Aspidophor aides, 

 in spite of the fact that he declared (after 

 Cuvier) that 'their general character con- 

 sists in having the suborbital bone more or 

 less extended over the cheek and articu- 

 lated behind with the preoperculum. ' "Why 

 he should have referred to such a family a 

 genus with the suborbitals reduced to such 

 an extent that they had been said to be 

 absent is a mystery which he made no 

 attempt to explain. 



Cryptacanthodes was first named by 

 Storer in 1839. It is an elongated naked 

 fish without any enlarged suborbital bones 

 and entirely unlike any recognized triglid. 

 On the other hand, it has many characters 

 in common with genera of the family of 

 'Gobidse' (as he called it), and in accord- 

 ance with his own definition he should have 

 referred it to that family. In fact, the 

 genus is the type of a peculiar family 

 nearly related to that of the gunnells. 



The same ineptitude for the appreciation 

 of characters or form is manifest in the 

 treatment of species which he actually re- 

 ferred to the family 'Gobidee.' To the 

 genus Blennius was relegated a species 

 named Blennius serpentimts, and to the 

 very closely related genus Pholis was as- 

 signed another species named Pholis sub- 

 bifurcatus. Now, the true species of Blen- 

 nius and Pholis have a very characteristic 

 physiognomy, and only differ from each 

 other in the fact that the former has skinny 

 tufts over the eyes which are wanting in 

 the latter. Yet the Blennius serpentinus 

 has a very elongated form and no super- 

 ciliary tufts and the Pholis subhifurcatus 

 has also an elongated form and, therefore, 

 no resemblance to a true Pholis. In fact, 

 the two species belong to a different family 

 from Blennius and Pholis and are related 

 to each other. They are the stichseids now 

 named Leptoblennius serpentinus and Eii- 

 mesogrammus subbifurcatiis. 



The want of appreciation of the value 

 of words as well as of natural relations was 

 also manifested in the treatment of the 

 flat-fishes. Cuvier had divided the typical 

 pleuronectids into three genera or, as he 

 called them, subgenera: Platessa, distin- 

 guished by a row of obtuse trenchant teeth 

 on the jaws; Hippoglossus, having strong 

 pointed teeth, and Rhombus, including the 

 turbots. While professedly adopting these 

 genera, he referred to Platessa several 

 species {dentata, oblor^ga, quadrocellata) 

 which are really more nearly allied to the 

 halibut and European species associated 

 with that fish. Cuvier had not referred to 

 the American species and Storer had con- 

 sequently to do for himself. 



The last genus that requires attention is 

 Carcharias. The part of the 'History' re- 

 ferring to it was published in 1867. As 

 early as 1841 Miiller and Henle had pub- 

 lished their great work on plagiostomes 

 and the sharks of the American coasts had 



