Fish Fauna of Johnston Is. — GOSLINE 
tips are tightly closed. The length of the 
snout is usually less than the distance from 
the eye to the rictus in G. huroensis , greater in 
G. eurostus. The fifth pore from the front on 
the chin is usually behind the most posterior 
pore on the upper lip and behind the eye in 
G. huroensis , under or in front of the last pore 
of the upper lip and under the eye in G. 
eurostus . There are fewer teeth in the jaws of 
G. huroensis than of G. eurostus , but since adult 
morays usually lose teeth this character again 
does not seem to merit quantitative analysis. 
Finally, G. huroensis is definitely the smaller of 
the two species: the largest of several hundred 
specimens of G. huroensis taken by Schultz 
in the Marshalls (Schultz, et al ., 1953: 118) 
was about 13 inches; the largest of 20 spec- 
imens of G. eurostus taken by me in Johnston 
is 20 inches long. In sum then, the two 
species are rather easy to separate for anyone 
familiar with them, even though there is no 
single character on the basis of which it would 
be possible to correctly identify all specimens. 
Due to the nature of the differences be- 
tween the two species it can only be stated 
without adequate demonstration that all spec- 
imens of this complex from Johnston are 
typical G. eurostus. Specimens from Christmas, 
in the Line Islands to the south of Johnston, 
seem to be typical G. huroensis. All of the 
hundreds of specimens from the Hawaiian 
Islands seen by me, with one exception, are 
G. eurostus. The exception consists of speci- 
mens taken by Mr. Tinker of the Honolulu 
Aquarium from among the heavy fouling on 
the bottom of a barge that was put in drydock 
at Pearl Harbor (see Chapman and Schultz, 
1952: 528, Edmondson, 1951: 212). The eel 
that dropped out of this fouling is a typical 
specimen of G. huroensis. Inasmuch as several 
other fishes, Crustacea, and mollusks taken 
from this fouling have never been recorded 
elsewhere in Hawaiian waters, and inasmuch 
as the barge had been towed in from Guam, 
it seems logical to presume, despite Chapman 
and Schultz, that these alien forms came in 
471 
with the barge from somewhere in the Central 
Pacific. 
Kuhlia sandvicensis-marginata 
Despite previous accounts (e.g., Fowler, 
1949: 83) there seems to be only one species 
of Kuhlia , namely K. sandvicensis , represented 
in the Hawaiian chain. This species is closely 
related to K. marginata from the Central 
Pacific, with which it will here be compared. 
Before doing so it seems well to mention 
that from published accounts (e.g., Ikeda, 
1939: 131-158) K. honinensis from the Bonin 
and Riu Kiu Islands also seems to be near 
K, sandvicensis . 
According to Schultz (in Schultz, et al ., 
1953: 325) K. marginata differs from K. sand- 
vicensis in having somewhat higher average 
pectoral and dorsal counts. However, the two 
species also differ in the number of gill rakers, 
and it is these that will be emphasized in this 
analysis. 
In the number of dorsal rays, my counts of 
K. sandvicensis agree more closely with Schultz’s 
counts of K. marginata than with his data for 
K. sandvicensis (Table 4). Under the circum- 
stances there seems no point in following the 
analysis of this character further. 
The total pectoral ray counts in certain 
samples of the K. sandvicensis-marginata com- 
plex are summarized in Table 5. Several as- 
pects of this table warrant discussion. In the 
TABLE 4 
Dorsal Soft Ray Counts in the Kuhlia 
sandvicensis-marginata Complex 
SPECIES AND LOCALITY 
NUMBER OF 
SPECIMENS 
AVERAGE 
COUNT 
K. sandvicensis 
Hawaiian Islands 
Midway 
25 
11.08 
French Frigate 
5 
11.00 
Kauai 
25 
11.08 
Oahu 
25 
11.04 
Oahu (Schultz) .... 
9 
11.55 
K. marginata 
Johnston (Schultz) . . . 
2 
11.00 
Marshalls (Schultz) . . 
10 
11.00 
