FISHES OF NEW YORK 181 



Family 



Ladyfishes 

 Genus ALBI LA (Gronow) Bloch & Schneider 



Body rather elongate, little compressed, covered with rather 

 small, brilliantly silvery scales; head naked; snout conical, sub- 

 quadrangular, shaped like the snout of a pig, and overlapping 

 the small, inferior, horizontal mouth; maxillary rather strong, 

 short, with a distinct supplemental bone, slipping under the 

 membranous edge of the very broad preorbital; premaxillaries 

 short, not protractile; lateral margin of upper jaw formed by 

 the maxillaries; both jaws, vomer, and palatines with bands of 

 villiform teeth; broad patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on 

 the tongue behind and on the sphenoid and pterygoid bones; 

 eye large, median in head, with a bony ridge above it, and 

 almost covered with an annular adipose eyelid; opercle mod- 

 erate, firm, preopercle with a broad, flat, membranaceous edge, 

 which extends backward over the base of the opercle; pseudo- 

 branchiae present; gill rakers short, tuberclelike; gill mem- 

 branes entirely separate, free from the isthmus; branchiostegals 

 about 14; a fold of skin across gill membranes anteriorly, its 

 posterior free edge crenate; no gular plate; lateral line present; 

 belly not carinate, flattish, covered with ordinary scales; dorsal 

 fin moderate, in front of ventrals, its membranes scaly; no 

 adipose fin; anal very small; caudal widely forked; pyloric caeca 

 numerous; parietal bones meeting along top of head. Verte- 

 brae numerous, 42+28=70. A single species known, found in 

 all warm seas. In this, and probably in related families, the 

 young pass through a metamorphosis, analogous to that seen 

 in the conger eels. They are for a time elongate, band-shaped, 

 with very small head and loose transparent tissues. From this 

 condition they become gradually shorter and more compact, 

 shrinking from 3 or 3^ inches in length to 2 inches. According 

 to Dr Gilbert, this process, like that seen in various eels, is a 

 normal one, through which all individuals pass. In the Gulf 

 of California, where these fishes abound, these band-shaped 

 young are often thrown by the waves on the beach in great 

 masses. (After Jordan and Evermann) 



