554 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



A little later Dr Jordan suggested that tlie name L u t j a n u s 

 V i V a n u s of Cuv. & Val. should be accepted for the red 

 snapper; but my examination of the types of this species in the 

 Museum at Paris showed it to be a small L u t j a n u s , and 

 very distinct in every way from L. b 1 a c k f o r d i . In recent 

 lists Dr Jordan has adopted the specific name a y a of Bloch, 

 published in 1787 in the Ausldndische Fisohe. This name was 

 used for a species of Lutjanus more than twenty years ago 

 by Dr Theodore Gill. 



I will now state what may be learned from the literature con- 

 cerning the a y a. The Bodianus ay a of Bloch is dis- 

 tinctly based upon the Acara aya of Maurice, prince of 

 Nassau, as set forth in his mss, tome 2, page 351. The plate 

 published by Bloch is copied from a drawing by Prince Maurice, 

 and his description is drawn from the same source. The fish 

 which formed the subject of the description and illustration by 

 the prince of Nassau was the aya or Garanha of Brazil, 

 a red species, said to attain to a length of 3 feet. The a y a is 

 distinctly described as having 9 spines and 18 articulated rays 

 in the dorsal. It is represented as having 40 scales in the 

 lateral line, and the scales are said to be ornamented with sil- 

 very, submarginal stripes. Bloch was informed that the fish 

 was known to the French, Germans and English as the aya 

 and to the Brazilians as the gar an h a. Elsewhere in the 

 description the general color is said to be red, the back dark 

 red, and the belly silvery. This is all the information to be 

 derived from Bloch's account of the species, and if the data men- 

 tioned are to be relied upon, the fish is certainly not our red 

 snapper. We have no other knowledge concerning the aya 

 of Brazil. It has not been shown that our species ranges so far 

 south and several red forms resembling L. blackfordi are 

 associated with it. Various interpretations of the aya have 

 appeared in ichthyological works. Dr Giinther, in his Catalogue 

 of Fishes in the British Museum, vol. I, page 198, adopts the name 

 for a small-scaled Lutjanus, which has 65 scales in the 

 lateral line and 32 in a transverse series. Of this he has a fine 



