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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVIII. 



points of difference. As in almost every case, the shore fishes of 

 Japan are specifically different from their analogues in Borneo, it is 

 antecedently probable that the lancelets differ also. It appears that 

 this is not the case, as a correct account of B. belcheri agrees sub- 

 stantially with B. nakagawa (earlier called japonicum) . Yet Mr. 

 Tattersall finds a certain average difference. The commonest for- 

 mula of myotomes in B. bekheri is ^-j-i-j-f), while in B. japonicum it 

 is 36-1 7-1 1. As these little creatures have so few tangible charac- 



relative importance. 



In the Bulktin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Vol. 39, 

 No. 8) Mr. Samuel Garman gives an account of the fishes taken by 

 Mr. Alexander Agassiz and his party on the Albatross," about the 

 coral reefs of Fiji and the great Barrier Reef of Australia. Fourteen 

 new species are described and well figured, nearly all of them from 

 Fiji. 



In the Bulletin of the Fish Commission (1903), Dr. Oliver P. 

 Jenkins gives a final account of the splendid collection of fishes 

 made by him in Hawaii in i88g. Two hundred fifty-four species are 

 included in this connection, and in this and two preceding papers 

 ninety-three species are described as new. The fauna of Hawaii is 

 essentially that of the tropical Pacific. The same genera occur as in 

 the other islands, but not all the genera. Many of the types charac- 

 teristic of the south seas, as Periophthalmus, Synancidium, Variola, 

 Terapon, CjEsia, never reach Hawaii. A large percentage of the 

 species of Hawaii are peculiar to that archipelago. Thus although 

 Hawaii, like other groups of Islands, has Scari, Holocentri, Gobies, 

 etc., it has its own species in these groups, for the most part unlike 

 those found in Samoa or Tahiti. The faunal isolation of Hawaii may 

 be due in part to the direction of the currents, which set to the west- 

 ward, while at Samoa their general direction is eastward. The new 

 genera in Jenkins' paper are Scaridea, Cirrhitoidea, Eviota, Chlamy- 

 des, the last two being gobies. The excellent plates in this paper 

 are by Mr. William S. Atkinson. 



In the Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum (XXVI, 1903), 

 Dr. Gill takes up Dr. Boulenger's studies of the bones of the Opah, 

 Lampris luna. Dr. Gill makes a very different interpretation of the 

 osteology of the shoulder girdle from that of Dr. Boulenger. He 

 finds the so-called infraclavicle to be the hypocoracoid, and believes 

 that the bones of the Opah differ little from those of the related 



