A REVIEW OF THE CLING-FISHES (OOBTESOCID^?^) OF 

 THE WATERS OF JAPAM. 



By David Stark Jordan and Henry W. Fowler, 



Of the Leland Stanford Junior University. 



In thi.s paper is o-iv^cn an account of the ^rrMesoeidrV,, two in nunil)er, 

 ivnown to inhabit the waters of Japan. 



Family GOBIES. )CID^1^. 

 CLING-FISHE8. 



Bod}^ rather elongate, tadpole-shaped, bro id and depressed in front, 

 covered by smooth, naked skin; mouth moderate; upper jaw proti-ac- 

 tile; teeth various, sometimes villiform, sometimes incisor-like, and 

 posterior canines sometimes present; suborbital ring wanting; no bony 

 stay from suborbital across cheek; opercle reduced to a spine- 1 ike pro- 

 jection concealed in the skin; behind the angle of the large prcopercle 

 this spine sometimes obsolete; palatine arch considerably modified; 

 pseudobranchiffi small or wanting; gills 3 or 2^; gill-mem})ranes broadly 

 united, free, or united to the isthmus; dorsal fin on the posterior part 

 of the body, opposite to the anal and similar to it, both fins Avithout 

 spines; ventral fins wide apart, each with 1 concealed spine and 4 or 5 

 soft rays. Between and behind the vcntrals is a large sucking disk, 

 the ventrals usually forming ])art of it. No air-bladd(>r; intestines 

 short, pyloric ca^ca few or none^; skeleton firm; vertel)riv i;> or 14+13 

 to 22 = 26 to 36. 



Carnivorous fishes of small size, chiefly of warm seas, usually living 

 among loose stones between the tide marks and clinging to them lirmly 

 by meatis of the adhesive disk. Their relations are obscure, ))ut they 

 are pi-obably descended from allies or ancestors of the Trachinida' or 

 Batrachoidida?. 



(I. LepadogoHterinsc. Gill-meinbrane attached to tlie isthinns; jtosti'i-ior part of the 



sucking disk with a free anterior margin. 

 b. (Jills 3^; each jaw with one row of conical teeth; dorsal and anal with very 



short, well-developed rays Aspasma. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXV— No. 1291. 



413 



