Jordan and Evcrmann. — Fishes of North America. 2001 



narrow, the gill membranes forming a broad fold across it, males with 

 rough stellate tubercles and with the crest on top of head rough and 

 fonncd like the comb of a cock, thest* little developed iu the female. 

 Implies of head somewhat cavernous, but less so than iu Tru/lojjsis, from 

 which genus Oncocottus is scarcely distinct. Species circumpolar, probably 

 reducible to one. {oyKos, hook; Korroj, Coitus.) 

 a. Atlantic species; maxillary short; pectoj-al moderate ; caudal rounded. 



QTADRICOENIS, 2372. 



aa. Arctic American .species ; maxillary longer: pectoral longer; caudal truncate. 



HEXACORNIS, 2373. 



2372. OXrOCOTTUS (JlTADRICOEJflS (Linnreus). 



l^ead SJ ; depth i ; eye 4 in head. D. VIII or IX-14 ; A. 13 or 14 ; c.-eca 7 ; 

 vertebra^ 40; lateral line 45. Body rather slender, the caudal peduncle 

 very slender. Head long, tapering forward ; movith large, the maxillary 

 reaching to below posterior margin of eye ; lower jaw included ; bones of 

 head below eye cavernous, as in TrigJopsis thompsoni, but less so; preoi^ercle 

 with 2 long, diverging spines, the upper and longer not quite reaching 

 opercular margin ; opercular and scapular spines quite short ; adult male 

 with a rugose spine, broader and exjianded at tip like a cock's comb above 

 each eye posteriorly, and a similar one on each side of occiput; these 

 spines smaller in the female and the young. Males with irregular series 

 of round, rough, wart-like scales above the lateral line, these wanting in 

 the female; lateral line chain-like, with small embedded plates; head 

 naked. First dorsal convex, of slender spines, well separated from 

 second, which is rather high, the longest ray 1 J in head ; pectorals reaching 

 anal; ventrals moderate; caudal rounded. A moderate slit behind last 

 gill. Color little variegated; olivaceous above; the fins faintly .spotted. 

 Arctic regions, south to the Baltic Sea, westward to eastern C4reenland. 

 If it is identical with O. hexacornis, its range extends westward to Siberia, 

 and its distribution is circumpolar. It is abundant in the eastern Baltic 

 and in Lakes Ladoga and Onega where it is dwarfish in size, without the 

 horns on front and nape;* north to the White Sea and Nova Zembla. It 

 is said to l)e rare in England and eastern Greenland; unknown in western 

 Greenland. Dr Liitken has compared specimens from eastern Greenland 

 with others from the Baltic and finds no difference except that the inter- 

 orbital space in European examples is more concave. 0. hexacornis is found 

 in the waters of Arctic America and may not lie different, (quatuor, four; 

 cornn, horn). 



Gottus quadricornis, LINN.EDS, Syst. Nat., Ed. x, 264, 1758, Baltic Sea; Gl'NTHER, Cat., il, 

 166, I860; LCtken, Vid. Med. Kjiib., 87, 1876; Day, Fish. Great Brit., 53, 1880; Jordan 

 & Gilbert, Synopsis, 705, 1883. 



Oncocottus quadricornis. Gill, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1862, 13. 



^Acanthocottuslabradoricus,G\^AB.-D, Bost. Journ. Nat. Hist., vi, 1850, 247 pi. 7. fig. 3., coast 

 of Labrador; female. 



* These dwarf specimens may not be separable from Ti-iijloiuls. which genus is evidently 

 derived from the lacustrine degradation of Oncocottus. 



