I. I'M I' SUCKKRS. 



293 



fathoms, between J.iii Mnyiii .•iiul Bear Islands. As we 

 have stated above, the three specimens between 'il and 

 89 nun. in Icnulh which were taken on the voyage of 

 the Kiiiiilit-F.niiiil in ISSO, at a depth n|' .")40— (JOS 

 fathoms, between the Faroe Ishinds and the Shetlands, 



tVoni its true home to the higher marine regions, where 

 it helplessly drifts ashore before the wind, as de.scribed 

 b\- I'ai.i.as in Kanichatkii. Tlie spawning-sea.son occurs, 

 accor(liiig to SrKi.LKu's observations, in May, and in 

 the larger females the esKS are then of the size of a 



and described l)v (iUNTiiKR under the name of Ijjxir'is \ pea. In the small females the eggs are also smaller: 



microj)i(S, probably belong to this species. The Dijmphna 

 Expedition brought home from Kara Sea a specimen 



CoLi.inT found them to be about as large as a po])pv- 

 secd. Oyclogaster qelafinosus is of still less economical 



taken at a depth of ()4 fathoms. IJkin'uahdt and Ki{0yi;r I \alue to man than the preceding species: even the Si- 

 possessed specimens fVoni (irecnhiii(L Nothing more is \ berian dogs, says Steller, however hungry they may 

 known of its manner of life than that, like other deep- ' be, refuse to eat it. 

 sea fishes, it may sometimes be driven in some \\ay | 



Genus CYCLOPTERUS. 



Bodi/ bulki/, short and thick (durhifj youth, hoiverer, mxcJi the same as in the preceding genus). Skin fairly hard, 



and rough with spines aud spinous tubercles {in youth, however, smooth). Two dorsal fins, hut the anterior distinct 



only during youth, in older specimens to a greater or less extent, sometimes completely, overgroivn and hidden by 



the skin. Branch iostegal rays well-developed. Skeleton weakly ossified; vertebrcc at most 30. 



Fig. 74. Two caily juvenile stages of Cyclopterii.-i Inmjuis: a: at a Iciiglli of 4 imn.; li: at a length of 5 mm. After A. Agassiz. 



Ti 



le 



slight granidation of tlie skin which some- 



times appears in adult s])ecimens of the preceding ge- 

 nus, and the curve in the upper margin of the dorsal 

 tin which we find in Oyclogaster Montagui or, still 

 deeper, in the Califoriiian ('yd. mucosas, are sufficient 

 indications of the close relationship betAveen the pre- 

 ceding genus and Cyclopterus. This relationship aj)pears 

 still more distinctly from a study of the juvenile forms 

 of the latter genus, which in their earliest stages of 

 development (fig. 74) are elongated like Oyclogaster, 



and may retain the nakedness of the skin even after 

 they have attained their own proper form in other 

 respects. Like the preceding genus, too, Cyclopterus is 

 furnished with an osseous connexion between the sub- 

 orbital ring and the prcoperculura, though from the 

 almost membranous texture of the bones this connexion 

 is easily overlooked". These resemblances speak strongly 

 in favour of the retention of these two genera in the 

 same family, even without their separation into distinct 

 subfamilies, in spite of the great external differences 



" It is distinctly and correctly shown, however, in Rosenthal's Ichthyotomische Tafeln. tab. XIX, fig. 1. 



