336 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 506. 



(falcatus). These as well as Cyprinodon 

 variegatus were recorded by Gill in the 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences for 1863 (p. 322) and later, with 

 other material, served as the basis for the 

 reduction of three genera of earlier Ameri- 

 can ichthyologists to one species and of the 

 generalization respecting the mode of de- 

 velopment and growth of the carangids 

 and scombroideans generally. 



The United States Fish Commission was 

 established in 1871 and the village that 

 the commissioner had proved as a private 

 was selected by the officer as a station of 

 the new commission. With government 

 means for exploration, many species pre- 

 viously unknown to the coast were added, 

 and up to 1873 not less than twenty-three 

 species new to the region were found, ex- 

 clusive of those already referred to. These 

 were enumerated in a 'List of the Fishes 

 collected at Wood's Hole, by S. F. Baird,' 

 published in the 'Report of the United 

 States Commission of Fish and Fisheries' 

 for 1871-2 (pp. 823-827). The list was 

 one of names (scientific and popular) only, 

 arranged in accordance with Gill's 'Cata- 

 logue of the Fishes of the eastern coast of 

 North America' printed just in advance of 

 it. 



Conspicuous publishers of an enumera- 

 tion of Massachusetts fishes were G. Brown 

 Goode and Tarleton H. Bean, connected 

 with the United States Fish Commission. 

 Under the form of 'A Catalogue of the 

 Fishes of Essex County, Massachusetts, in- 

 cluding the Fauna of Massachusetts Bay 

 and the Contiguous Waters,' they gave 

 the names of all the species known from 

 the state; 'it is believed to be complete to 

 the date of publication. ' The catalogue was 

 published in 1879 in the Bidletin of the 

 Essex Institute (XL, pp. 1-38). The sum 

 total listed amounted to '183 species, of 

 which 163 inhabit salt or brackish water, 

 20 fresh water.' The 'number of marine 



species from within the limits of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay * * * is 133; while 29 

 are from the deeper off-shore waters in the 

 vicinity of Georges, Le Have, Browns and 

 Sable Island Banks.' 



Only twenty of the species have exactly 

 the same names as were adopted by Storer. 



As just indicated, a number of the 

 species eniunerated by Goode and Bean 

 have never been found except in deep off- 

 shore waters, and consequently not within 

 the limits of the state, or even very near it. 

 There are twenty-four such and they should 

 be excluded from the fauna of the state. 

 The ejected species are deep-sea or pelagic 

 forms which are more foreign to the real 

 fauna of Massachusetts than are the fishes 

 of Florida or of Britain. 



The catalogue of Goode and Bean, on the 

 whole, is a well-considered and valuable 

 memoir, brought up to the date of its publi- 

 cation. 



VIII. 



The last census of the fishes of Massa- 

 chusetts relates to a part of the coast, but 

 that the most important from an ichthy- 

 ological point of view at least; it is a cata- 

 logue of ' The Fishes Found in the Vicinity 

 of Woods Hole by Dr. Hugh M. Smith, 

 Chief of the Division of Scientific Inquiry, 

 U. S. Fish Commission,' now deputy com- 

 missioner. It was published in advance 

 and appears in the 'Bulletin of the United 

 States Fish Commission' for 1897 (XVIL, 

 pp. 85-111, with folded map) ; it was sup- 

 plemented in two later volumes (XIX., 

 309-310; XXL, 32). These give a most 

 useful summary of the fishes of the region 

 indicated, enriched with notes respecting 

 occurrence, comparative rarity or abun- 

 dance, and time of appearance. The spe- 

 cies are arranged in the sequence adopted 

 by Jordan and Evermann, and their nomen- 

 clature is also accepted. The number of 

 species recorded in the main list was 209; 

 in 1899, 16 ; and in 1900, 4. The present 



