708 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 

 Family AMMODYTIDiE. 



Sand Launces. 



Scales small, cycloid ; head long ; mouth large ; no teeth ; gill 

 openings very wide ; pseudobranchs large ; premaxillaries very pro- 

 tractile ; spinous part of dorsal nearly absent ; soft part extends 

 along nearly whole of back ; no ventrals ; no air-bladder ; size small ; 

 swim in schools and often bury in sand. 



AMMODYTES, L. 



A. americanus, De K. Sand Launce (or Lance). Sand Eel. Lant. 



Body lanceolate, with twenty-five transverse, oblique folds of 

 skin having cross series of small cycloid scales between them ; a 

 fold of skin along each side of belly ; color olivaceous above, 

 silvery below ; sides with a steel-blue stripe. Dorsal rays, 60 ; 

 anal rays, 28. 



** This curious fish is not unfrequently met with in our waters, 

 but does not appear to be abundant at any time." 



Family £CH£N£IDID^. 



Remoras. 



Body fusiform, with minute cycloid scales; mouth wide, with villi- 

 form teeth on jaws, vomer, &e. ; premaxillaries not protractile ; lower 

 jaw projects beyond upper ; spinous dorsal modified into a sucking 

 disk on top of neck, by which the fishes attach themselves to floating 

 objects ; ventrals thoracic ; no air-bladder, 



BCHBNBIS, L. 



E. naucrates, L. (albicauda, lineata, holbrooki, &c. Refer to varieties witli 

 long disk and twenty-one lamina^ &c.) Pej^ador. 



Body slender ; thirty vertebrae ; brownish ; belly like back ; 

 sides with a black stripe edged with white ; tail fin black, whitish 

 at outer angles ; other fins black, with white edges ; lower jaw 



