4G0 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGY IV. 
Family LXXXIII («).— APHREDODERID^. 
(The Pirate Perches.) 
Body oblong, elevated at the base of the dorsal, compressed behind, 
the head thick and depressed, the profile concave. Caudal peduncle 
thick. Month moderate, somewhat oblique, the lower jaw projecting; 
maxillary reaching to anterior border of the eye. Teeth in villiform 
bands on jaws, vomer, palatines, and pterygoids. Premaxillaries not 
protractile; maxillaries small, without evudent supplemental bone. 
Preoi)ercle and preorbital with their free edges sharply serrate; opercle 
with a spine. Bones of skull somewhat cavernous. Sides of the head 
scaly. Lower pharyngeals narrow, separate, with villiform teeth. 
Gill-membranes slightly joined to the isthmus anteriorly. Gill-rakers 
tubercle-like, dentate. PsendobranchiaB obsolete. Gills 4, a small slit 
behind the fourth. Braiichiostegals C. Scales moderate, strongly 
ctenoid, adherent. Lateral line imi>erfect or wanting. Vent always an- 
terior, its position varying with age,* from just behind the ventral fins 
in the yonng, to below the preopercle in the adult. Dorsal fin single, 
median, high, v^^ith but 3 or 4 spines, which are rajiidly graduated, the 
first being very short. Anal small, with 2 slender spines; ventral fins 
thoracic, without distinct spine, the number of rays usually 7; caudal 
fin rounded behind. Air-bladder simple, large, adherent to The walls 
of the abdomen. Vertebrie 14 + 15. Pyloric cceca about 12. A single 
genus, with probably but one species. Confined to the United States. 
{Aphredoderidcc i, 271.) 
240.— APilREDODERUS Le Sueur. 
Pirate Perches. 
(Le Sueur; Cuv. &. Val. Hist. N.at. Poiss. ix, 445, 1833: type Aphredoderus gibbosus Le 
Sueur =;<Sco?opsjs saycmus Gilliaius.) 
Characters of the genus included above. {d^oo»c, excrement; Siprj, 
the throat, from the position of the vmnt; hence more correctly Apho- 
doderus.) 
'3'21. A. sayasips (Gilliams) DeKay . — Pirate Perch. 
Color dark olive, profusely speckled with dark points which often 
make blackish streaks along rows of scales; two blackish bars at base 
of caudal, between which is a light bar. Head 3; depth 3. D. Ill, 11 
*Tliis siugular fact was first noticed by Professor S. A. Forbes. 
