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Show 674 PROF. R. COLLETT ON A NEW AGONOID FISH. [Nov. 20, LOCALITY.-Kamtschatka. In 1879 the museum of Christiania received from Consul Henry Lund in San Francisco a small collection of fishes and marine invertebrates, collected by a Norwegian sailor at Kamtschatka. Amongst the first were 12 specimens of this species, some of which were rather defective and in a bad state of preservation. All except one were full-grown specimens. The exact locality was not given. B E M A R K S . - A . gilberti is allied to A. (Podothecus) acipenserinus, Tiles. 1810, but differs from that species in several characters, viz.:- The more elongated body. In A. gilberti the end of the 2nd dorsal is midway between the caudal and the middle of 1st dorsal; in A. acipenserinus between the caudal and the beginning of the 1st dorsal. The more compressed body. From head to caudal everywhere higher than broad ; in A. acipenserinus much broader than high. The longer snout. The interorbital space is contained 3 times in the length of the snout; in A. acipenserinus a little more than twice. Dorsals more separated; interdorsal space with 3 or 4 plates, in A. acipenserinus only 1 plate (sometimes 2), or the fins almost contiguous. Ventral groove present in A. gilberti, absent in A. acipenserinus. Colour with distinct stripes on head and spots on body; in A. acipenserinus cross-bars on the body, the head being almost unspotted. The other species of the same subgenus, A. (Podothecus) valsus, Jord. and Gilb. 1880, has the body everywhere broader than high. The spines of the head are more numerous (more than 70 spines and tubercles on the head); there is a deep quadrangular pit on the occiput; no barbels on lower side of snout; the 1st dorsal commences behind the seventh dorsal plate, and the fin-formula is different. The genus Podothecus was established by Gill in 1861J for a species called P. peristethus, which is commonly believed to have been based on a badly-preserved specimen of A. acipenserinus. But it must be borne in mind that one of the characters of the said genus (the very one from which the name is derived), " ventral fins received in a long lanceolate groove," is not shown by A. acipenserinus. As other essential characters of the genus are mentioned " the longer spinous dorsal and the greater number of plates on the breast." 2 None of these characters, hoAvever, are of sufficient importance to justify the establishment of a new genus. As another character for Podothecus, Jordan and Gilbert state 3 1 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 1861, p. 258. a Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. vol. iii. 1880, p. 332. 3 " Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" (Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus. no. 16, p. 714, WaBh. 1882). |
