53 



The Blennies : Blenniida? 



"The whole disk is exceedingly large, subcircular, longer 

 than broad, its length being (often) one-third of the whole 

 length of the fish. The central portion is formed merely by 

 skin, which is separated from the pelvic or pubic bones by 

 several layers of muscles. The peripheric portion is divided 

 into an anterior and posterior part by a deep notch behind the 

 ventrals. The anterior peripheric portion is formed by the 

 ventral rays, the membrane between them and a broad fringe 

 which extends anteriorly from one ventral to the other. This 

 fringe is a fold of the skin, containing on one side the rudimen- 

 tary ventral spine, but no cartilage. The posterior peripheric 

 portion is suspended on each side on the coracoid, the upper 

 bone of which is exceedingly broad, becoming a free, movable 

 plate behind the pectoral. The lower bone of the coracoid is 

 of a triangular form, and supports a very broad fold of the skin, 

 extending from one side to the other, and containing a carti- 

 lage which runs through the whole of that fold. Fine processes 

 of the cartilage are continued into the soft striated margin, 

 in which the disk terminates posteriorly. The face of the disk 

 is coated with a thick epidermis, like the sole of the foot in 

 higher animals. The epidermis is divided into many polygonal 

 plates. There are no such plates between the roots of the 

 ventral fins." 



The body is formed much as in the toadfishes. The skin 

 is naked and there is no spinous dorsal fin. The skeleton shows 



FIG. 482. Aspasma dconice Jordan & Snyder. Wakanoura, Japan. 



several peculiarities; there is no suborbital ring, the palatine 

 arcade is reduced, as are the gill-arches, the opercle is reduced 

 to a spine-like projection, and the vertebrae are numerous. The 

 species are found in tide-pools in the warm seas, where they 

 cling tightly to the rocks with their large ventral disks. 



