406 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
times on vomer and palatines. Gill-membranes broadly united to 
isthmus. Gill-opening reduced to a vertical slit. Gills 4, a slit 
behind fourth. Gill-rakers small. Pseudobranchiz present. 
Pyloric coeca rudimentary. Body naked or covered with very 
small imbedded cycloid scales. Lateral line obsolete or little 
developed, sometimes bent downwards behind pectorals, some- 
times sending a branch on median line backward. Dorsal and 
anal fins very long, of soft rays only, or dorsal with a few spines 
in its posterior portion. Vertical fins sometimes confluent around 
tail. Pectorals small. Ventrals jugular, very small or wanting, 
if present inserted behind eye. Vent not near head. 
Bottom fishes chiefly of the Arctic and Antarctic seas, some 
viviparous and descending to considerable depths. 
Genus ZOARCES Cuvier. 
The Eel Pouts. 
Zoarces anguillaris (Peck). 
Fel Pout. Conger Eel Pout. 
Head 5%4; depth 8; D. 93, XIX, 24; A. 112; snout 3 in head; 
eye 714; maxillary 144; interorbital space 6; pectoral 144 ; ven- 
tral 6% ; width of mouth 2% ; twelfth dorsal ray 334; sixth anal 
ray 5%. Body long, slender, compressed, and tapering pos- 
teriorly. Head robust, heavy, large, becoming narrow above, and 
upper profile convex from orbit. Snout rather long, broadly con- 
vex. Eye elongate, high, anterior. Mouth large, mandible in- 
ferior, and lips very thick and fleshy. Maxillary reaching a little 
beyond orbit. Teeth in jaws biserial in front, uniserial laterally, 
strong, conic, blunt, and those in outer series a little enlarged. 
No vomerine or palatine teeth. Interorbital space narrow, 
slightly convex.: Gill-rakers 5 + 10 short asperous tubercles. 
Scales small, circular, rather far apart and imbedded in skin. 
Lateral line of fine pores, midway in depth of fish. Origin of 
dorsal about opposite posterior margin of preopercle, covered 
with thick skin and decreasing in height posteriorly. Spinous 
