91 8 The American Naturalist. [October, 
The genera of West Coast gobies may be distinguished as follows : 
a. Eyes normal, functional throughout life, body scaly. 
b. Shoulders without dermal flaps. 
c. Skull depressed. 
d. Skull without distinct median keel, ab- 
ruptly widened behind eye ; scales per- 
manently ctenoid : Gobius. 
dd. Skull with a strong median keel, not 
abruptly widened behind the eye, trian- 
gular behind ; scales cycloid. (Skull 
and scales in young as in Gobies) ; GilHchthys. 
cc. Skull strongly convex in transverse profile, 
perfectly smooth, without ridges or crests ; 
scales minute, cycloid, imbedded ; Clevelandia. 
bb. Shoulders with one or two small dermal flaps ; 
skull resembling that of the adult GilHchthys ; ^ Lepidogobius. 
aa. Eyes mere vestiges, functional only in the young 
skull ; greatly modified, brain case quadrate ; body 
naked ; Zyphlogobius. 
The intention of reducing to synonymy all species described by 
other authors is undoubtedly laudable as long as it does not lead an 
author to shut his eyes to facts, or even wilfully to ignore them. — C. 
H. ElGENMANN. 
Ribs of Salamandra.— Iversen has been studying the skeletons 
of Salamandra atra and S. maculosa, and finds {Anat. Anz. IV.) on 
the second vertebrae a strong rib-like outgrowth, which distally ex- 
pands into a large kidney-shaped plate of hyaline cartilage, which is 
connected with the shoulder-girdle by fibrous tissue. He recognizes 
the same element in the "scapula" of the extinct Stegoce'phali ; and if 
this view be true, the so-called clavicula is the true scapula. 
Reptiles and Batrachians from the Caymans and Bahamas. 
—Mr. S. W. (barman contrilnites to the Bulletin of the Essex Insti- 
tute, Vol. XX., an account of these forms, collected for the Museum 
of Comparative Zoology by Mr. C. J. Maynard. Seventeen species 
are enumerated, of which the following are new: Splmrodactylus 
argivus, from Cayman Brae ; S. corticolus and 6*. decoratus, from Rum 
Key ; Anolis luieosignifer, from Cayman Brae and Little Cayman ; A- 
2GjV//cA/Ayjjc<iKa'a probably is a genus distinct from Lepidogobius, but as we have 
