722 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGY TV. 
base of the pectorals, the membranes below comi)letely united to the 
shoulder girdle and isthmus; apparently no slit behind last gill; a 
stout, straight, preopercular spine; nasal spines present; no other 
spines on head. Skin everywhere on head and body lirm, immovable, 
densely covered with stitf bifid or trifid spinous prickles; spinous dor- 
sal very small; pectoral with procurrent base. {pafj4>oq^ snout; xutto^, 
Cottiis.) 
110§. K. riciiardsoiii Gthr. 
Brownish, with 6 or 8 oblique black bands running downward and 
forward; a white bar below eye; a dusky bar at bases of pectorals and 
ventrals, the fius otherwise plain. Head hard and bony, nearly as 
long as rest of body; snout rather longer than eye, which is of mod- 
erate size, and with j^artly vertical range; maxillary extending to front 
of eye; suborbital stay strong; pectorals long, reaching tips of ventrals 
and past front of anal; ventrals long, their rays prickly. Head 2; 
depth 2. D. YII-14; A. 7 or 8; V. ca. I, 4. L. 2^ inches. INorthern 
seas. Three specimens known: the one here described from Bering's 
Straits; the original, said to be from “Fort Bupert”; a third recently 
obtained by Mr. Lockiiigton, from the stomach of a Sebastodes, at Mon- 
terey. 
(Giiuther, Auq. Mag. Nat. Hist, xiv, 370, 1874; Bean, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1881, 
252.) 
Family CVIII (a) — AGONID^.* 
(The Alligator -fishes.) 
Body elongate, or more or less elevated, angular, covered with about 
eight longitudinal series of large bony plates, which form a coat of mail; 
*The following genera and species of this type have been described from Kam- 
tschatka and the Kurile Islands, and will doubtless be found on our Alaskan coast: 
HYPSAGONUS Gill. 
(Gill, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1861, 259: type Aspidophorus quadricornis Cuv. & Val.) 
Body compressed and elevated, its depth greater than length of head, more than 
one-third the body; head small, separated from the base of the dorsal by a very deep 
nuchal depression; top of head very uneven; mouth terminal, the jaws about equal; 
no vomerine teeth; gill-membranes undescribed, i>robably free from isthmus; no bar- 
bels; scales large, not very rough, most of them striate and armed with a central 
spine or tubercle; dorsal spines strong, the first serrated; pectorals short, procurrent; 
ventrals small, high; Agonus.) 
H. quadricornis (Cuv. & Val.) Gill. 
Two horns above eye and 2 above occiput; iuterorbital space nearly as broad as 
