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BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OP FISHERIES 



possibility of standardizing these new terms when systematists are not even agreed 

 as to the definition of a "species" or even of a "genus." An understanding of 

 relationships between the various morphological forms depends on experimental 

 breeding, which is often impracticable; and even where it is not, the results of such 

 breeding may not leave the experimenter much the wiser. After all, a scientific 

 name is regarded best only as a name. When its originator attempts to describe 

 either the characteristics of the group of animals it stands for or to reflect in it his 

 opinion of the origin or relationships of that group he meets with difficulties in 

 expressing himself within the codes of nomenclatural standards. 



I use here a subspecific name to designate individuals or a group of individuals 

 that are distinct, morphologically, from a similar group of other individuals of the 

 same species, regardless of what the relative distribution in space of those individuals 

 or groups may be. Thus, two subspecies may be represented in the same school or a 

 subspecies may be scattered throughout the range of its species group. 



I believe that the whitefishes offer no unique problem in the field o'f zoological 

 nomenclature. Certainly many other species of widely distributed fishes will be 

 found to exhibit the same phenomenon of irregularly distributed morphological forms 

 when they are studied in the same way, and workers in other fields of classification 

 already are finding, with every addition to knowledge of the variations of animals, 

 the insufficiency of a subspecific concept that is restricted to one geographical unit. 



SYSTEMATIC HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN COREGONIDS 



The genus Coregonus was established by Linnaeus. For a century afterwards 

 its species were a stumblingblock to the taxonomists of Europe. Apparently on 

 account of faulty analyses, as well as of inadequate descriptions, these early systema- 

 tists failed to distinguish clearly between the various forms. So confused and vague 

 is much of this work that often it is not even mentioned in later revisions. Through 

 accumulated knowledge of the morphology and natural history of the various core- 

 gonids and through a better comprehension of the relationships of other groups of 

 fishes taxonomists of more recent times have been able to make progress in the 

 classification of these fishes. To understand to what extent the representatives of 

 the group have been confused it is only necessary to examine the synonomy of the 

 species given by Regan (1908) for the forms of the British Isles, by Smitt (1895) for 

 the Scandinavian forms, by Fatio (1890) for those of Switzerland, and by Berg (1916) 

 for those of the old Russian Empire. 



The present situation in North America is much the same as in Europe. The 

 work done has been pioneer in, character and the specific descriptions, for the most 

 part, have been based on but few specimens, often from a single locality. No really 

 extensive studies have been made hitherto of the variations that the various forms 

 exhibit, and the systematic work has not been checked adequately by biological data ; 

 consequently species have been multiplied and confounded. All the works on North 

 American coregonids in which new species have been described or in which existing 

 descriptions have been revised are abstracted briefly in the succeeding paragraphs. 



Under the synonomy of each species treated in the main body of this report are 

 given only the first description of the species or redescriptions under another name 



