THE DISCOBOLI. 7 



have as much claim to the designation. The Discobole has a suborbital 

 bone that reaches back across the cheek to the preopercle ; it has slender 

 opercular bones and numerous pyloric cceca; and its disk, not always 

 present, includes the transformed ventral rays. Neither Gobioid nor Gobi- 

 esocoid has either the suborbital bone or similarly transformed ventral rays. 

 The adhering organ of the Discobole is formed by modifying the ventral 

 fins; that of tlie Goby is secured by the addition of a dermal fold, a sac, 

 in front of the ventral rays and below the bases of the fins ; and that 

 of the Gobiesocoid is obtained by the growth of a dermal disk between 

 the ventrals and behind the coracoids. 



It is because of greater variety in their uses that the ventrals are more 

 subject to differentiation than the other fins of these and other fishes. 

 Elsewhere I have pointed out special modifications of the pelvis and ventrals 

 of Selachians, notably on the Potamotrygons of South American rivers, or, 

 more recently, in the union of the two fins to form a single one on 

 Balistes vetula, and may in this place note the peculiar tube-like mittens 

 for the reception of the ventrals of Chaunax pictus when the abdomen 

 is distended. As is well known, on some fishes these fins have become 

 foot-like ; on others, they are reduced to mere filaments ; rarely they are 

 scale-like ; a few have but one of the pair, and others have, like Para- 

 liparis, lost both. 



The food of the species with which w^e are at present more interested is 

 in part that of most carnivorous fishes, — small fishes, Crustacea, mollusks, 

 worms, and the like. The long intestine of the Lumps suggested that at 

 some portion of the year they might be accustomed to more or less of a 

 vegetable diet ; the contents of the stomachs confirm the idea, and show 

 that vegetation forms a portion of their subsistence. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



All of the species are found in the colder waters. Their approaches 

 to the shoals are made early in the spring, for the purpose of depositing 

 their spawn, and they would seem to have returned to the deptlis again 

 before the wintry temperature has been greatly changed by approaching 

 summer. While it is pretty well established that the Lump occurs in the 

 Mediterranean, it certainly is more at home northward from France, along 

 the shores of England, Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland. On our own 

 coasts it has been found as far to the south as New York. A second species, 



