FISHES OF NEW YORK 



caudal peduncle thick; mouth moderate, somewhat oblique, the 

 lower jaw projecting, maxillary reaching to anterior border of 

 the eye; teeth in villiform bands on jaws, voiner, palatines, and 

 pterygoids; premaxillaries not protractile, maxillaries small, 

 without evident supplemental bone; preopercle and preorbital 

 with their free edges sharply serrate, opercle with a spine; 

 bones of skull somewhat cavernous, sides of the head scaly; 

 lower pharyngeals narrow, separate, with villiform teeth; gill 

 membranes slightly joined to the isthmus anteriorly; gill rakers 

 tuberclelike, dentate; pseudobranchiae obsolete; gills four, a 

 small slit behind the fourth; branchiostegals six; scales mod- 

 erate, strongly ctenoid, adherent, lateral line imperfect or want- 

 ing; vent always anterior, its position varying with age, from 

 just behind the ventral fins in the young to below the opercle 

 in the adult; dorsal fin single, median, high, with but three or 

 four spines, which are rapidly graduated, the first being very 

 short; anal small, with two slender spines; ventral fins 

 thoracic, with a very short spine, the number of soft rays 

 usually seven; caudal fin rounded behind; air bladder simple, 

 large, adherent to the walls of the abdomen; vertebrae 14+15; 

 pyloric caeca about 12. A single genus, with probably but one 

 species, confined to the United States. 



177 Aphredodems sayanus (Gilliams) 



Pirate Perch 



Aphredoderus sayanus DE KAY, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 35, pi. 21, fig. 62, 1842; 



near Philadelphia Pa. 

 Aphredoderus gibbosus LE SUEUR, in CUVIEB & VALENCIENNES, Hist. Nat. 



Poiss. IX, 448, pi. 278, 1833. 

 Aphredoderus sayanus DE KAY, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 35, pi. 21, fig. 62, 1842; 



STOKER, Syn. Fish. N. A. 47, 1846; JORDAN & GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. 



Nat. Mus. 460, 1883; BEAN, Bull. U. S. F. C. VII, 145, 1888; Fishes 



Penna. 101, 1893; JORDAN & EVERMANN, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. 786, 



1896, pi. CXXII, fig. 331, 1900; EUGENE SMITH, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. Y. 



No. 9, 33, 1898; BEAN, 52d Ann. Kept. N. Y. State Mus. 101, 1900, 



Patchogue, Long Island. 



The body is moderately stout, oblong, somewhat compressed 

 posteriorly. Scales ctenoid. The dorsal fin is continuous, with 

 three or four spines and 11 soft rays. The anterior spines much 

 the shortest. The anal has two spines and six rays. The mouth 



