Nos. 451-452.] NOTES AND LITERATURE. 



599 



proposed the name Teleocephali for the order containing the whole 

 ancestral trunk of the bony fishes, from the primitive semi-ganoid 

 types to the highly specialized cottoids and labroids, leaving only 

 the divergent branches to be recognized as separate orders. 



The Anacanthini, relieved of the flounders which have no relation- 

 ship to the cod-fishes, Dr. Boulenger places near the Persesoces. 



The Ammodytidae are wrongly placed by Dr. Boulenger with the 

 Percesoces ; as in Embolichthys, the genus possessing ventral fins, 

 has these fins at the throat. 



The great body of the remaining fishes are placed in the suborder 

 Acanthopterygii, defined essentially as by Gill, Jordan and Evermann 

 and Hay. The Beryces are placed among the Perciformes. The 

 recent discovery by Mr. Starks that all Beryces possess the orbito- 

 sphenoid bone, absent in other Acanthopterygii and characteristic of 

 the lower forms, indicates that the Beryciformes (Pempheris and 

 Aphredoderus excluded) should form a division by themselves. 



The group Zeorhombi, containing Zeida; and the flounders, repre- 

 sents an ingenious guess. Even if the flounders, as is probable, be 

 descended from ancestors of Zeus, the present differences justify 

 their separation into a distinct division. Zeorhombi is insusceptible 

 of definition. The remaining orders, Opisthomi, Pediculati, Plec- 

 tognathi, are arranged as generally accepted, but the Plectagnathi 

 are only specialized and degraded offshoots from the Cha^todontida-- 

 Acanthuridte series with which they form a nearly continuous line of 



As Dr. Boulenger extends the range of his work, he will find it 

 convenient to recognize a greater number of families, while Ameri- 

 can ichthyologists will mark their progress by the gradual reduction 

 of the number defined by them. This arises from a different 

 method of work, a different view as to convenience in regard to 

 divergent or imperfectly known forms. Thus every year brings 



farther and farther from^the Cuviernian idea of the perch as a per- 

 fect fish to be placed first with the others following after. 



D. S. J. 



Notes on Recent Fish Literature.— In the Bulletin U. S. Fish 

 Commission (1902) Jordan and Evermann describe two new fishes 

 from Hawaii, Tropidichthys psegma and Iracundus signifer, the latter 

 representing a new genus of Scorpajnida-, allied to Pontinus. 



In the Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission for 1902 (1903), 



