190 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



making it bifid as in the former. In Astrolytes, however, when the 

 spine is bifid, it is the lower process which has failed to divide, and 

 the upper process is widely forked from the lower, and strongly hooked 

 upward and inward. Other differences are the much finer scales in 

 Axyrias; the flat multifid cirrus over the posterior part of the eye, which 

 in Astrolytes is smaller and simple; the presence of a cirrus over the 

 anterior part of the eye; and particularly in the ctenoid scales of the 

 lateral line, which are represented by small imbedded plates in Astro- 

 lytes. 



29. Artedius lateralis (Girard). 

 This species is not found nearly so abundantly as Astrolytes or 

 Axyrias among the San Juan Islands, being probably more southern 

 in its distribution, as it is common in Monterey Bay. These specimens 

 are not so conspicuously marked with a broad light band across the 

 top of the head and body, which forms so striking a marking on the 

 majority of specimens on the California coast. They do not exhibit 

 much variation in the number of rays or scales. The dorsal has 

 sixteen or seventeen rays, the anal twelve or thirteen; there are from 

 twenty-six to twenty-nine series of scales in the dorsal band, and the 

 pores of the lateral line number thirty-four or thirty-five. 



30. Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus (Tilesius). 



Several specimens were taken in shallow water. They all show the 

 spotted under parts which help to distinguish this species from Hemi- 

 lepidotus jordani. Of the eight specimens counted six have the usual 

 number of fin-rays; dorsal III, VIII, 19; anal 15. The other two have 

 twenty dorsal rays, one of them has seven spines in the second divi- 

 sion of the dorsal, and sixteen rays in the anal. 



Attention may here be called to an evident misprint in the descrip- 

 tion of Hemilepidotus jordani published by Jordan and Evermann 

 (Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., p. 1934), in which the eye is stated to be 

 three in the head. Specimens of a foot in length have the eye 4.5 

 in the head, and the original description states it to be four. 



31. Myoxocephalus polyacanthocephalus Pallas. 

 Very common in shallow water. There is considerable variation 

 in the width and concavity of the interorbital space apparent among 

 specimens from Puget Sound. 



