APODAL FISHES OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. 
669 
Anguilla cub ana Kaup, Apodes, 44, 1856 (Cuba). 
Murcena cubana Poey, Syn., 421, 1868 (Havana). 
Anguilla novoeterrce Kaup, Apodes, 45, fig. 35, 1856 (Newfoundland). 
Anguilla texana Kaup, Apodes, 45, fig. 36, 1856 (Texas). 
Anguilla wabashensis Kaup, Apodes, 46, 1856 (Wabash River). 
Anguilla tyrannus Girard, U. S. and Mex. Bound. Surv., 75, 1859 (Rio Grande). 
Habitat: Atlantic coast from Maine to Mexico, and throughout the 
West Indies; also, ascending all rivers east of the Rocky Mountains 
and South of Canada. 
Etymology : Xpuaoq, gold ; vn o, below. 
Among the multitudes of American eels examined by us we have 
been unable to detect specific differences. As all these specimens differ 
m a slight degree from any we have seen from Europe, we may provis- 
ionally recognize the American form under its oldest name, Anguilla 
chrysypa , as a distinct species. As these differences are slight, it is not 
unlikely that intermediate forms may occur, in which case the Ameri- 
can form may stand as var. chrysypa. Dr. Beau records in tli« “ Nine- 
teenth Report of the Commission of Fisheries of New York, page 280,” 
five individuals from Great South Bay, Long Island, which he thinks 
may represent Anguilla argentea Le Sueur. These specimens are de- 
scribed as having “ large eyes, short spout, and long pectoral fins as 
compared with the common form, silvery gray above with a clear satiny 
white abdomen separated from the color above by the lateral line.” 
These specimens are very interesting because they were found “to be 
males with the generative glands so well developed as to leave no doubt 
concerning the sex.” 
Family X.~ SIMENCHELYID^E. 
This family contains a single species, a deep-sea parasitic eel, having 
the general characters of Anguilla , but with the form of the head strik- 
ingly different. The following diagnosis is given by Dr. Gill : 
Apodal fishes with a bluut snout, transverse, anterior mouth, massive jaws with 
an acrodont dentition, and inferior longitudinal branchial slits moderately far apart 
from each other. 
The skin has the peculiar rudimentary scales of Anguilla ; the teeth 
are blunt, uniserial, on the edge of the jaws only, and there are no lips. 
Genus 45.— SIMENCHELYS. 
Simenchelys Gill in Goode & Bean, Bull. Essex Inst., 27, 1879 ( parasiticus ). 
Conchognathus Collett, Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 122, 1889 ( grimaldii ). 
Type : Simenchelys parasiticus Gill. 
Etymology: snub-nosed ; ey/eXu^, eel. 
This genus contains a single species from the Atlantic, 
