176 llEPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



mistake, and our private opinion is that no other species than the red 

 mnllet is a native fish"! Following up this fancj^ under the caption 

 "Gen. Sarmullus" (a new name!) he specifies (p. 271) the red mullet, 

 3£ullus ha?'hat(ff<, and, after a break of many pages, immediately after 

 the mackerel (p. 304), he names the surmullet, MiiUus mnnuletus. 

 As to the former, he avers (p. 271) that "red mullet have appeared 

 within the last few j^ears in the neighborhood of Boston, but not being 

 at all prized a few onl}^ have been exhibited in the market," The sur- 

 mullet was declared (p. 304:) to be "a variety of the mackerel," andthiy 

 remark was followed by comments on its place in Roman estimation, 

 on what was evidently the chub mackerel, and on fishing for mackerel! 



There is a peculiar genus of gadoidean fishes named lianicejjs, rep- 

 resented by a single species of northern Europe, and the tj^pe of a dis- 

 tinct family, Ranicipitidte. To this " Gen. Raniceps " Smith referred 

 two species; one named (p. 209) "Blenny, Blemims Viviparus [Banl- 

 ceps Trifurcatas^ Ouv.]^-^ the other (p. '•211)^'' Iianlcej)s Blennoides.''' The 

 former was evidently the Zoarcesanguillaris and consequently belongs 

 to a widely different species from the " vkHparus,'- Si different family 

 from Blennius, and a different family also from Ranice-ps trtfur- 

 cattis. The latter name, we learn from Storer, represented a speci- 

 men " purchased of " Smith, by the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 of a Cry2)taca ntJiodes raaculatus "with the cuticle abraded; " conse- 

 quently the species belongs to a very distinct family from the genus 

 Manieeps^ as well as from the first species. 



Another striking manifestation of ignorance and rashness is dis- 

 played in Smith's treatment of two other species. Under the " Gen. 

 CoBiTis" (p. 183) he notices the "sucker, Cyprinus Teres \^Cata8tomvs\,'\ 

 In the third paragraph under the specific caption he refers to "a strange 

 fish " given by the keeper of the Boston light-house, unknown " to any 

 of the fishermen in his service, which has a mouth precisely 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 10 inches, and appropriately 

 denominated iho, sea-sucl^^er.^'' 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 {2Ienticlrrus 

 nebulosKs), but the sucker is a malacopterygian and the king-fish an 

 acanthopterygian, and besides, the latter has a mouth not at all like that 

 of a sucker in realit}^! All this is quite true, but on an examination of 

 the very specimen mentioned by Smith, it was found by Storer to be a 

 king-fish. 



How Smith was led to put the sucker in the genus C'oh it is and to 

 separate it from its near relation, the chub sucker, iLrlmyzon sucetta, 

 which was placed in the genus Cyprinus as the "chub, Cyprinus ohlon- 

 gus,^'' is not at all comprehensible. 



