112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



Width of body at first dorsal 12 



Height of body at first dorsal 18 



Width of caudal at base „ 02 



Height of caudal at base 09 



Distance between ends of maxillary processes 58 



Colors. — When alive mottled with light and dark olive, paler below, sides of 

 head reddish. In alcohol black, pale below, and scales below middle of sides 

 finely punctate each with 8-10 dots, only visible under a microscope. 



Hah. — I found these remarkable fish only in San Diego Bay, and in but one 

 station, which was among seaweed growing on small stones at the wharf of 

 Newtown the military post, in November, 1861. They were left by the reced- 

 ing of the tide, and must have been out of the water from three to six hours 

 daily, though kept moist by the seaweed. The four obtained were all females 

 containing large masses of ova, and may have come to the spot in order to 

 deposit them. 



I could not obtain a glass vessel suitable for an aquarium, so as to keep them 

 alive and observe their habits. The use of the strange maxillary processes or 

 channels is obscure, nothing analogous being known in other fishes, the nearest 

 approach to them being apparently the lengthened maxillaries of some Salmoni- 

 dce and Clupeidce, fish of entirely different habits and affinities, this one being 

 evidently one of the Gobidce. The stomach contained small crabs, apparently 

 swallowed whole. 



Pteroplatea Muller and Henle, 1837. 



P. marmorata, Cooper, State Collection, Species 674. [Fig. 25.] 



Specific characters. — Outline of disk rhomboidal, the anterior borders form- 

 ing an obtuse angle in front, nearly straight in their course to the lateral 

 angles, which are sub-acute ; the posterior borders rounded. 



Yentrals small, oblong, obtuse-angled, projecting a little behind the disk. 

 Tail nearly twice the length of ventrals, slender and pointed, flattened laterally 

 behind the spine, and bordered by a very narrow membrane, commencing oppo- 

 site the end of the spine below, and ending a little farther back above. 



Spine arising at a point one-third the length of the tail from its base, one- 

 sixteenth of its length, and less than a fourth as wide as it is long. 



Both surfaces are nearly flat. 



Proportional measurements : 



Total length of specimen, 9j in 100. 



From median line to tip of pectoral 80 



From anterior angle to eyes 13 



From anterior angle to ventrals 70 



Anteroposterior length of ventrals 10 



Length of claspers 04 



Length of tail beyond ventrals 25 



Length of caudal spine 04 



Distance between eyes 15 



Colors. — Thickly marbled with blackish and grayish mottlings equal in 

 size ; ventrals and tail with a few scattered white spots ; below, white. It is 

 probable that the colors are variable, as in the allied Urolophus. 



