GOBIESOCIDA. — LXXX. 155 
soon disappears. Some species have poison glands at base of dorsal 
and opercular spines. 
a. Body naked; lateral line indistinct, without shining bodies; dorsal spines 
3; a foramen in the axil; no poison glands; teeth strong, blunt. 
BATRACHUS, 199. 
199. BATRACHUS Bloch & Schneider. (Barpaxos, frog.) 
430. B. tau (L.). Toap-FisH. OysTER-FISH. Sapo. Pores 
on jaws with cirri; subopercie with a strong spine. Blackish green, 
with dark markings; fins with dark bars. Head 22; depth 4}. D. 
II[-27. A. 24. L.18. Cape Cod to W. I., very abundant. (T., 
from the form of the bones of the top of the head.) 
XENOPTERYGU. We pass next to the suborder XENOPTERYGII, 
a little group, distinguished by the peculiar sucking disk at the 
breast, formed from the skin of the body and not from the ventral 
fins. ‘There is no spinous dorsal or suborbital ring, and the pala- 
tine arcade is said to be materially modified. The relations of these 
fishes are obscure, but they are probably descended from Batrachoid 
or Cottoid forms. 
Famity LXXX. GOBIESOCIDA. (THe CLING-FISHEs.) 
Body elongate, the head very broad and depressed, the skin 
smooth, naked; mouth moderate, upper jaw protractile; teeth coni- 
cal or incisor-like; opercle reduced to a spine; pseudobranchie 
small or 0; gills 24 or 3; gill membranes broadly united; D. small, 
posterior, similar to anal, both of soft rays only; V. I, 4 or I, 5; 
the fins wide apart, and between them a very large sucking disk 
composed chiefly of folds of skin. No air-bladder. Vertebre 26 to 
36. Small carnivorous fishes of the warm seas, living in tide pools 
and clinging firmly to stones. - Genera 10; species 30. 
a. Gill membranes free from isthmus; gills 3; lower jaw with incisors; pos- 
terior part of sucking disk without free anterior margin. 
GoBIEsox, 200. 
200, GOBIESOX Lacépede. (Gobius + Esox.) 
431. G. strumosus Cope. Lower incisors not serrate. Head 
very wide, its width 23 in total (with C.); eye small; teeth 24; no 
canine. Plumbeous, fins blackish. D.11. A. 10. Va.to S. C 
scarce. (Lat., swollen.) 
ScYPHOBRANCHI. The Blennioid, Gobioid, and Uranoscopoid 
fishes show more or less definite affinities with each other, and in 
some degree with the HapLopocr and CatrapuHracti. Like the 
latter they have the third upper pharyngeal enlarged and_basin- 
shaped, but they have no suborbital stay, unless the bony cheek in 
Uranoscopip be regarded as representing the latter. They 
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