426 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
colored like back. Ventrals dirty white. Length about 41 inches. 
Delaware Bay. 
This large fish is abundant on our coast and is known by a 
variety of common names. It is noted for its great voracity and 
exceptional ugliness of appearance. I have records of its capture 
at Cape May, Stone Harbor, Sea Isle City, Atlantic City and 
Asbury Park. It also occurs in deep water, but 1s usually seen 
in our limits about the shallows, where it is frequently taken by 
fishermen. It is not used as food and is usually the object of 
disgust. 
Lophius americanus Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss., XII, 1837, 
p. 283. 
Sophius americanus Abbott, Geol. N. J., 1868, p. 818, evi- 
dently misprint for Lophius. 
Family ANTENNARIIDE. 
The Frog Fishes. 
Head and body more or less compressed. Mouth very oblique, 
opening upward. Lower jaw projecting. Premaxillary protrac- 
tile. Jaws with cardiform teeth. Gill-openings small, pore-like, 
in or behind lower axils of pectorals. Gills 2% or 3. No pseudv- 
branchiz. No pyloric cceca. Skin naked, smooth or prickly. 
Pectoral members forming an elbow-like angle. Pseudobrachia 
long, with 3 actinosts. Spinous dorsal of I to III serrated ten- 
tacle-like spines. Rayed dorsal long, larger than anal. Ventrals 
present, jugular, near together. 
Fishes of tropical seas, pelagic, often living in or among float- 
ing sea-weed. By filling their capacious stomachs with air they 
are enabled to sustain themselves on the surface of the water. 
Two species straying to our shores. 
Genus PTEROPHRYNE Gill. 
The Mouse Fishes. 
Key to the species. 
a. Bait on first dorsal bifurcate at tip. HISTRIO 
aa. Bait on first dorsal bulbous, covered with fleshy filaments. GIBBA 
