792 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGY IV. 



FAMILY CXVIIL OPHIDIID^E. 



(The Opliidioicis.) 



Body elongate, compressed, more or less eel-shaped, naked or covered 

 with very small scales, which are iiot imbricated, but placed in oblique 

 scries at right angles with each other; head large; lower jaw included; 

 both jaws, and usually voiner and palatines also, with villiform or car- 

 dilbrm teeth; premaxillaries protractile; gill-openings very wide, the . 

 gill-membranes separate, anteriorly narrowly joined to the isthmus be- 

 hind the ventrals; pseudobrancMae small or obsolete. Gills 4, a slit 

 behind the fourth; vent more or less posterior. Vertical fins low, 

 without spines, confluent around the tail; tail isocercal; ventral fins at 

 the throat, each developed as a long, forked barbel. Air-bladder and 

 pyloric cosca present. Genera 3, species about 12. Carnivorous fishes, 

 found in most warm seas. 



> o/il<idiid(c, group Ophidiina Giinther,.iv, 376-380.) 



a. Body scaly. 



b. Palatines with a band of villiform teeth only OPHIDIUM, 433. 



433. OPHIDIUBI Linnaeus. 



(Ophidion Artedi; Linnions Syst. Nat.: type Ophidion barbatiim L.) 



Body moderately elongate, compressed; scales small, not imbricated, 

 Itut arranged in short oblique series, placed at right angles with each 

 other, much as in An(jniUa. Head naked, or somewhat scaly; teeth 

 villifonn, those of the outer series more or less enlarged; teeth on 

 vomer and palatines bluntish, some of them enlarged. Vent well be- 

 hind pectorals. (()})lii<lium, an ancient name, from o<fi<nav, a small 

 snake.) 



<i. Outer teeth of jaws fixed. (OpJiidimn.) 



I'21M>. O. iiiai-^iiialiiui ]>],. 



Color nearly plain brownish; dorsal and anal fins margined with 

 black. Maxillary reaching posterior margin of orbit ; air-bladder short 

 and broad, with a foramen on the under side; outer ray of ventrals 

 about equalling length of head; inner ray half length of outer. Gill- 

 rakers I. Head <!.[,; depth !\. Atlantic coast of North America from 

 New York southward. 



(Dckay, N. Y. Fauna. Fisli. l-l,', :',i: ; Putnam. I!..st. S<,<-. Nat. Hist. 1*74, 34-J.) 



