HISTORY OF THE FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 415 



surrounded by one hundred and fifty young, about half an inch long, which, 

 with the exception of several narrow transverse black bands, were nearly colorless. 

 In several others, examined at the same time, their pouches were crowded with 

 ova, or in the act of protruding the young. 



The following remarks accompanying my original description of this species may 

 not be considered inappropiate here. 



Among the earliest cultivators of Ichthyology in our country no name is more 

 prominent than that of "William Dandridge Peck. So early as the year 1794, while 

 residing at the town of Kittery, in Maine, he wrote a clear and accurate ^^ descrip- 

 tion of four remarkable fishes, taken near the Piscataqua, in New Hampshire." This 

 paper was published in 1804, in the second part of the second volume of the 

 " Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," accompanied with very 

 good figures, when the early period of our country is considered. The manuscript 

 of his Ichthyological Lectures also, afterward delivered by him at Harvard University 

 as Professor of Natural History, and kindly loaned me to examine by my friend 

 Thaddeus William Harris, M. D., Librarian to the University, exhibit no incon- 

 siderable degree of research. As the species described and first published by him 

 as new have, th^ee of them at leasts been described by other naturalists under 

 other specific names, I feel that I am performing an appropriate duty in con- 

 necting the name of our deceased countryman, whose merits have been unjustifiably 

 overlooked, with one of a class of animals whose history he so successfully endeav- 

 ored to elucidate. 



Massachusetts, Stober. Connecticut, Linsley. New York, Mitchill, Dekay. 



GENUS IL HIPPOCAMPUS, Cuv. 



The jaws united and tubular, like those of the Syngnathi ; mouth placed at the 

 end; body compressed, short, and deep; the whole length of the body and tail 

 divided by longitudinal and transverse ridges, with tubercular points at the angles 

 of intersection ; pectoral and dorsal fins ; no ventral nor caudal fins ; the females 

 only have an anal. 



