326 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



fislies have been thawed iuto life after having been frozen for any great 

 length of time. 



* Dr. Eichardson's remarks in a recent commnnication to Wature, upon 

 '' Suspended Animation," are pertinent to this inquiry. " It is hard to 

 say whether an animal, like a fish, frozen equally through all its structure, 

 is actually deatl in the strict sense of the word, seeing that if it be 

 equally and uniformly thawed it may recover from a perfect glacial 

 state. In like manner it may be doubted whether a healthy, warm- 

 blooded animal suddenly and equally frozen through all its • parts is 

 dead, although it is not recoverable, because in the very act of trying 

 to restore it some inequality in the direction is almost certain to de- 

 termine a fatal issue, owing to the transition of some vital centre into 

 the pectous state of colloidal matter. I do not, consequently, see that 

 cold can be of itself and alone utilized for maintaining suspended ani- 

 mation in the larger warm-blooded animals of full growth. * * * It 

 is worthy of note that cold is antiseptic, as though whatever suspended 

 living action, suspended also by some necessity or correlative influence 

 the process of putrefactive decay." 



Kespectfullv submitted. 



J. H. KIDDER. 



Hon. Spencek F. Baikd, 



United States Commissioner of Fish 



and Fisheries, Washington, I). C. 



February 10. 1880. 



DEStiRIPTlOIVS OF NEW GENERA AND MFEC'IE!!! OF FISHES FROIH 

 THE COAST OF €AI>IFORNIA. 



By W. M. I.OCKI]\€iTO]>f. 



1. Leiirynuis paucidens, j;<'n. ft sp. uov. 



Generic characters. — Family Zoarcidw, allied to Lycodes. Ventral 

 fins present, short ; no teeth on vomer and palatines ; dorsal and anal 

 fins continued without interruption around the tail. Scales small, but evi- 

 dent. The name is from Xeoiu,^ — smooth; N>vr? — vomer, in allusion to 

 the character which chiefly distinguishes the genus from Lycodes. 



Specific characters. — Body elongate, eel-like ; extremity of snout 

 subtruncate; profile of remainder of snout and head conic, slightly 

 convex over the eyes ; highest part of the dorsal outline and deepest 

 part of the fish perpendicular to a, j^oint about midway between the pos- 

 terior end of the lower jaw and the base of the pectoral ; from this point 

 to the slightly rounded end of the caudal the body tapers regularly both 

 above and below. Head broad, the sides (viewed from above) almost 

 straight from the opercula to about half-way between the eye and the tip 

 of the snout, thence rapidly approaching and meeting in an obtuse point. 



Greatest depth of body from a little more than ten to a little less than 

 eleven times ; length of head ^—^ times in the total length ; snout 2|| 



* Quoted from Forest and Stream, September 4, 1879. 



