1870.] 237 [Putnam. 



While fully" agreeing -frith £>r. Giinther' that the teeth are too rudi- 

 mentary in this sub-family to warrant the establishment of genera 

 based on them alone, yet the characters afforded by the head, body 

 and fins, appear to be sufficient to establish these groups as genera. At 

 all events there seems to me no reason to question the generic rank 

 of the group now under consideration; for their elongated, slender 

 and narrowed bodies, long pectorals, short ventrals and elongated 

 heads, give them an appearance nearly as marked from the typical 

 Hemirliamphus Brasiliensis as is Exoccetus. 



Prof. Valenciennes has described two species of Hemirliamplius 

 with very long under jaws, long bodies and long pectorals. One of 

 these was figured by Russell, and afterwards, from a specimen re- 

 ceived from the Bay of Bengal, by Valenciennes, in the " Illustrated 

 Edition of the Regne Animal," under the name of H. longirostris, as 

 at that time it was the only species known having an exceedingly 

 long jaw. In the " Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," a second species, 

 obtained at De Peyster's Islands (South Pacific), with a still longer 

 under jaw, is figured and described under the name of H. macro- 

 rhynchus. 



In 1859 Prof. Gill founded the genus EuleptorhampJius for a species 

 of Hernirliamphince , with tricuspidate teeth in the lower jaw. Ho 

 compares the specimen (the locality unknown) which he names E* 

 Brevoortii, with H. macrorhynchus and H. longirostris, to which he 

 acknowledges it to be very closely allied; but as the character of the 

 teeth in his specimen differed from that given as existing in the two 

 allied species, he felt warranted in considering his fish not only as a 

 distinct species, but also as the type of a new genus. 



In September, 1869, Francis Gardner, Esq., of Boston, presented 

 to the Peabody Academy of Science a fish caught a few days pre- 

 viously by Mr. Augustus Welcome, a fisherman at Nantucket, while 

 fishing with a number of others off the Island. None of the fish- 

 ermen on the Island had ever seen ,such a fish before, and it was 

 given to Mr. Gardner on condition that a name and some account of 

 it should be sent to Mr. Welcome. At the first examination I felt 

 sure that this specimen was either H. longirostris Val., or a closely 

 allied species. And on looking over the collection in the Academy, 

 I was still further surprised to find two specimens of a closely allied 

 species; one from Cayenne, Guiana, presented several years since to 

 the Essex Institute by Capt. J. Cheever, and the other without a 



