792 COXTRIBUTIOXS TO XORITI AMERICAX ICHTHYOLOGY IV. 
Family CXVIIL— OPHIDlIl)^. 
[The OpJiidioids.) 
Body elongate, compressed, more or less eel-shaped, naked or covered 
with very small scales, which are not imbricated, but placed in oblique 
series at right angles Avith each other; head large; lower jaw included; 
both jaws, and usually vomer and palatines also, Avith villiform or car- 
dilbrm teeth; xu’emaxillaries protractile; gill-openings very wide, the 
gill-membranes separate, anteriorly narrowly joined to the isthmus be- 
hind the ventrals; pseudobrauchim small or obsolete. Gills 4, a slit 
behind the fourth; A^ent more or less posterior. Vertical fins low, 
without spines, confiuent around the tail; tail isocercal; ventral fins at 
the throat, each dcA^eloped as a long, forked barbel. Air-bladder and 
pyloric coeca present. Genera 3, species about 12. Carui\mrous fishes, 
found in most warm seas. 
{OphidiidcB, group Opliidiina Gunther, iv, 37G-380.) 
a. Body scaly. 
6. Palatines with a hand of villiform teeth only Ophidium, 433. 
433.— OPHIIMU]?! Linnaeus. 
(Ophidion Artedi; Linmeus Syst. Nat.: type Ophidion barbatum L.) 
Body moderately elongate, compressed; scales small, not imbricated, 
but arranged in short oblique series, placed af right angles with each 
other, much as in Anguilla. Head naked, or somewhat scaly; teeth 
A'illiform, those of the outer series more or less enlarged; teeth on 
vomer and palatines bluntish, some of them enlarged. Vent well be- 
liind pectorals. [Ophidium^ an ancient name, from dyidcuv, a small 
snake.) 
K. Outer teeth of jaws fixed. {Ophidium.) 
1219. O. iiiarg'iiiatuiii Dek. 
Color nearly plain brownish ; dorsal and anal fins margined with 
black. Maxillary reaching posterior margin of orbit; air-bladder short 
and broad, with a foramen on the under side; outer ray of Aentrals 
about equalling length of head; inner ray half length of outer. Gill- 
rakers 4. Head CJ; depth 74. Atlantic coast of North America from 
Ne\y York southward. 
(Dekay, N. Y. Fauna, Fish. 1842, 315; Putuam, Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 1874, 342.) 
