48 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGY species. The largest species attain over 2 m breadth. The family is circumglobally distributed, except that it is apparently absent from the Pacific Plate other than marginally, a distribution pattern duplicated by most elasmobranch groups. Fowler (1928, 1941) placed Ram pastinaca variety altavela Forster (not Linnaeus), from Tana (New Hebrides), marginally off the Pacific Plate, into the synonymy of Gymnura poecilura (Shaw), an Indo-west Pacific species. Fowler did not give his reasons for the synonymy, which I believe was in error, and also mistakenly placed Tana in the Society Islands, which are well out on the Pacific Plate. Forster's (1844) description was based on an observed specimen that, apparently, was not retained. Forster included in his description a statement that there was a single row of small spines on the middle of the dorsum of his specimen. Gymnurids lack such a feature. Forster's specimen was probably a dasyatid. In the Indo-West Pacific, gymnurids range from the Red Sea and east coast of Africa eastward to Japan, and south to the Philippines and eastern Australia. There are no records of gymnurids from New Guinea or any other islands along the southwestern margin of the Pacific Plate. Based on present information, I do not believe that gymnurids occur in the New Hebrides or on the Pacific Plate. Bigelow and Schroeder (1953398) probably followed Fowler (1928, 1941, 1944) in including Polynesia in the range of gymnurids. Haemulidae There are 1 7 genera (Johnson, 1980) and about 100 species of grunts. The species are of small to moderate size (to about 610 mm TL), free swimming, suprabenthic, and usually associated with coral reefs or rocks. Although the family is circumglobally distributed, no genus is that widely distributed. Pomadasys, the most widely distributed genus of grunts, is found in the eastern Pacific, western Atlantic, Mediterranean, eastern Atlantic, and throughout the tropical Indo-west Pacific up to the western margin of the Pacific Plate (absent from the Pacific Plate nonmarginally). Eleven of the haemulid genera are restricted to the western hemisphere; two occur only in the eastern Atlantic, one (Diagramma) only in the Indo-west Pacific (absent from the Pacific Plate), one (Parapns diploma) only in the eastern Atlantic and Indo-west Pacific (absent from the Pacific Plate), and one (Plectorhynchus) in the Mediterranean, eastern Atlantic, and throughout much of the Indo-pacific (but absent from the Hawaiian Islands), where it is represented nonmarginally on the Pacific Plate by five species at most. The family has, hence, only token representation on i the Pacific Plate. Harpadontidae The Bombay ducks comprise a single genus, Harpadon, and four species of small-to moderate-sized fishes (to about 710 mm TL) of commercial importance. These fishes are found in close-shore waters, estuaries, and relatively deep continental shelf waters (R.K. Johnson, pers. comm) of the Indo-west Pacific, but are absent nonmarginally from the Pacific Plate. Sulak (1977) placed Sandal (which in my study is included in the Synodontidae) and Harpadon in a subfamily, Harpadontinae, of the Synodontidae. The constitution of these family-group taxa in my study reflects only common usage. Harpadon has a spotty distribution. It appears to be present along the northeast and northwest coasts of India, but absent from around southern India and Ceylon, and ranges eastward through the Bay of Bengal to Sumatra, Java, Borneo, New Guinea, northern Australia, Philippines (Rau and Rau, 1980), and northward to the Yellow Sea as far as Korea. A number of authors list Zanzibar in the range of Harpadon, the earliest of which that I can locate is Bleeker (1866-1872). These reports appear to be second hand and, I believe, erroneous. Playfair and Giinther (1866) did not report Harpadon from Zanzibar, nor did they in their subsequent papers on additions to the Zanzibar fish fauna. Harpadon is frequently dried for commercial purposes. In view of the