A REVIEW OF THE SCORP.ENOID FISHES OF JAPAN. 



By David Starr Jordan and Edwin Chapin Starks, 



0/ the Leland Stanford Junior University. 



In this paper is given a review of the species of Scorpsenidx known 

 to inhabit the waters of Japan. The specimens examined are in the 

 nmseum of Leland Stanford Junior University and in the United 

 States National Museum, most of them having been collected by 

 Messrs. Jordan and Starks in 1900 and a few by the United States 

 Fish Commission steamer Albatross. 



Family SCORP.ENID^E. 



Body oblong, more or less compressed, the head large, and with one 

 or more pairs of ridges above, which usually terminate in spines; 

 sometimes very irregular in form. Opercle usuall}^ with 2 spinous 

 processes; preopercle with 4 or 5. Mouth terminal, usually large, 

 with villiform teeth on jaws and vomer, and usually on the palatines. 

 Premaxillaries protractile; maxillary broad, without supplemental 

 ))one, not slipping under preorbital. Gill openings wide, extending 

 forward below; the gill membranes separate and free from the isth- 

 mus; usually no slit behind the fourth gill. Scales ctenoid, or some- 

 times cycloid, usually well developed, sometimes obsolete. Lateral 

 line single, continuous, concurrent with the back; a narrow bony sta}'' 

 extending l^ackward from the suborbital toward the preopercle. Ven- 

 tral tins thoracic, usually of the normal percoid form, I, 2, to I, 5, the 

 rays branched; dorsal fin continuous, sometimes so deeply notched as 

 to divide it into two parts, or even three parts, with 8 to 16 rather 

 strong spines and about as many soft rays; anal rather short, usually 

 with 3 spines and 5 to 10 soft rays; soft rays in all the tins usually 

 bi-anched, except some or all of rays of the pectorals; pyloric cieca 

 in moderate or small number (less than 12). Pseudobranchije large. 

 Air bladder present or absent. Actinosts moderate, inserted on the 

 posterior edges of hypercoracoid and hypocoracoid; ril)s borne on 

 enlarged pleuraphyses. Post-temporal bifurcate, normally connected; 

 myodome more or less developed. Genera and species numerous, 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXVII— No. 1 351 . 



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