728 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGY IV. 
3S4. — AOONUS Bloch Schneider. 
{As 2 )idophoru 8 Lacdpede; PhaJangisles Pallas.) 
(Bloch & Schneider, Syst. Ichth. 104, 1801: type CotUts cataphractus L.) 
Body low; head broad, depressed, about as broad as long; mouth 
small, subiiiferior, the lower jaw included; no vomerine teeth; gill- 
membranes joined to the isthmus, forming a narrow fold across it; 
jdates on body without spines; fins short. One species known, (a, 
without; joint: i. e., rigid.) 
1116. A. cata|>l»ractus (L.) Bloch & Schneider. — Sea Poacher. 
Brownish, sides with some dark bauds; pectorals and uiiper fins 
barred. Body anteriorly very broad, flattened below, tapering ab- 
ruptly forward to the triangular snout, and slowly backward to the 
long and slender tail; the greatest width is half more than the greatest 
height and 5 times the least height; snout with four sharp, hooked 
spines projecting much beyond the horizontal fl -shaped mouth; lower 
jaw profusely covered with thickish barbels, the largest longer than 
eye; suborbital narrow, with three blunt bony projections; preopercle 
and subopercle each with a stout spine, that on subopercle the larger 
and hooked backward; bones of head striate; orbital crests elevated, 
roughish; iuterorbital space broader than eye; top of head little un- 
even, without s])ines; two blunt occijutal processes; no nuchal depres- 
sion; the space between dorsal ridges concave; plates on body rugose; 
lateral plates much smaller than others, the upper lateral series obsolete 
from middle of spinous dorsal forward, in which region the lower lateral 
series is much enlarged; breast with four quadrate plates forming a 
square. Dorsal small; pectoral about as long as head, reaching to 
within four i)lates of anal; ventrals short, reaching little beyond vent, 
C| in length. Head about as broad as long, 4^; depth 6. D. V-7 ; A. 
5; Lat. 1. 35; coeca 5; vertebrm 11 -f 25. Kortheru Europe; recorded, 
perhaps erroneously, from Greenland. 
(Coitus cataphractus L. Sysr. Nat. i, 451: AspUlophorxis armatus Lac^p. iii, 222; Giin- 
ther, ii, 211; Day, Fishes Great Britain, 1881, 67.) 
385.— BOTHRACiOWlJS Gill. 
(Gill, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mxis. xi, ined. : type Hypsagonns swani Steindachner.) 
Body rather short and deep, broad and depressed anteriorly, com- 
pressed behind; a deep nuchal pit; mouth subinferior, the lower jaw 
included; head and neck to the dorsal fin rhombic in outline, as seen 
from above; jaws and vomer with teeth; dorsals small, well separated; 
