FISHES OF HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
127 
between front margin of eye and tip of beak; eye moderate, a trifle longer than deep; mouth a little 
less than eye; teeth in small villiform bands in jaws; no teeth on roof of mouth; tongue more or less 
rounded, rather thick and little free around edges; nasal cavity level with the upper part of eye 
in front and with a small fleshy flap over nostril; interorbital space flattened, and posteriorly the 
top of the head slightly convex; gill-opening with a long, thin, narrow' and sharp-edged isthmus; 
gillrakers numerous, thin, sharp-pointed; no pseudobran chue; scales rather large, very deciduous, 
and the sides of the head more or less scaly; no scaly fin flaps; lateral line running low along the 
side to base of caudal; origin of dorsal nearer that of ventral than base of caudal by a space dqual to 
postocular part of head, and about opposite that of anal; anterior dorsal rays the longest; anal more 
or less similar to dorsal; caudal well forked, the lower lobe the longer, and the length of the fin a 
little less than head measured to tip of snout; ventrals small, inserted a little posterior to middle of 
space between base of pectoral and that of caudal by a space about equal to width of head; caudal 
peduncle compressed, its least width 2 in its least depth. 
Color in alcohol, dull brown above, and as the scales have all more or less fallen, the edges of the 
pockets are narrowly blackish; side with a slaty and a silvery lateral band, both together running to 
caudal; lower surface of body silvery; all the fins more or less tinged with gray; beak blackish. 
This description from an example (No. 03562) 10 inches long, taken at Kailua, from which place 
the collection contains 69 examples, ranging in length from 3 to 10 inches. The usual length seems to 
be 8 to 10 inches. The species was not seen at Honolulu. Two specimens in the Museum of the 
Philadelphia Academy (Nos. 7507 and 23338), both young, collected “near the Sandwich Islands” by 
Dr. Wm. H. Jones, doubtless belong to this species. 
Hyporhamphus sp., Fowler, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sei. Phila. 1900, 498, near the Hawaiian Islands (young). 
Hemirhamphus pacificus Steindachner, Denks. Ak. Wiss. Wien, LXX, 1900,511, Laysan Island. 
Hyporhamphus pacijicus, Snyder, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., XXII, 1902 (Jan. 19, 1904), 522 (Laysan Island). 
Genus 73. HEMIRAMPHUS Cuvier. 
Body more robust than in Hyporhamphus and different in form, the sides being compressed and 
nearly vertical and parallel; head and jaws as in Hyporhamphus. Dorsal longer than anal fin and 
inserted farther forward, its last ray more or less produced in American species; ventral fins small and 
inserted well backward, much nearer base of caudal than gill-opening; air-bladder cellular, with many 
partitions (in H. hrowni). Species probably numerous, but most of them have not been examined as 
to the characters which separate the genus from Hyporhamphus. 
Only one species known from the Hawaiian Islands. 
Hemi-Ramphus Cuvier, ROgne Animal, Ed. I, II, 186, 1817 (brasiliensis=browni). 
86. Hemiramphus depauperatus Lay & Bennett. “Me’eme’e;” “Iheihe.” Fig. 42. 
Head (from tip of snout) 4.3 in trunk; depth about 6.1 in trunk; D. 14; A. 13; P. 11; V. 6; scales 
about 60 iD a lateral series to base of caudal; width of head about 1.5 in its depth; snout 3 in head; 
eye 4 in head, 1.4 in snout, 1.6 in postocular portion of head, about one in interorbital space; pectoral 
less than head by about 0.5 eye diameter; ventral 2 in head. 
Body moderately elongate, rather thick, the sides compressed and flattened; head compressed, 
more or less flattened and rounded above, the lower surface not constricted narrowly; snout about 4.6 
in space between front margin of eye and tip of beak; eye moderately large, longer than deep; mouth 
about 1.75 in eye; teeth in small villiform bands in the jaws; no teeth on roof of mouth; tongue more 
or less rounded, thick, and a little free around the edges; nasal cavity moderately large above and in 
