107 (). COTTID2E ICELUS. 689 



365. ICELUS Kroyer. 

 (Kroyer, Naturhist. Tidsskr. i, 253, 1844: type Icelus hamatm Kroyer.) 



Body fusiform, naked, or variously covered with rough scales or 

 plates, which are permanent and alike in both sexes; skin otherwise 

 smooth. Mouth rather large; teeth on vomer and palatines. Head 

 naked or scaly, usually with cirri ; preopercular spine hooked, branched, 

 or forked. Gill-membranes broadly united, free from the isthmus; no 

 slit behind fourth gill; ventral rays I, 3. North Atlantic and Pacific; 

 the species differing greatly in appearance and armature, (ec'xe^os, re- 

 sembling.) 



* Skin more or less scaly. 



a. Spinous dorsal uot emarginate. 



&. Top of head and interorbital area convex and nearly smooth; head naked. 

 (Artedius* Girard.) 



1O46. I. lateraBis (Grd.) J. & G. 



Dark clear olive-green ; head reddish-shaded, the back with sharply 

 defined cross-blotches, alternately dark olive and pale; lower half of 

 sides usually w r ith numerous small pale spots; belly bluish; fins barred 

 with different shades of olive, reddish brown, and black; northern spe- 

 cimens with a black spot on the front of the spinous dorsal; below it 

 a scarlet crescent, bordered with yellow. Body rather slender, little 

 compressed. Head long and low, less deep than in the other species ; 

 occipital region almost flat; interocular space much narrower than the 

 eye. Eye shorter than snout, nearly 5 in head; skin of head every- 

 where perfectly smooth, its upper surface with numerous small con- 

 spicuous pores, and many slender small cirri; no distinct supraorbital 

 cirrus, and no occipital ridges; nasal spines small. Mouth very large, 

 the jaws nearly equal, the maxillary extending to below the posterior 

 edge of the eye, its length about half that of the head; preopercular 

 spine very small, covered with the skin, forked at tip. Dorsal band of 

 scales narrow, of about 8 rows anteriorly, 2 or 3 posteriorly. Lateral 

 line anteriorly, with small cirri. Dorsal spines very slender, the first 

 two shorter than the others ; pectorals reaching front of anal. Head 

 2f; depth 5. D. IX-16; A. 13; Y. I, 3; scales about 28 in a longitu- 



* Girard, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1856, 134: type Scorpccniclitliys laterally Girard. 

 Dedicated to Petrus Artedi, the "father of Ichthyology," the ablest student of fishes 

 before Cuvier. 



Bull. Nat. Mus. No. 16 44 



