566 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



inhabiting the deep sea§ of almost all parts of the globe, as well as 

 by numerous species lurking in tropical coral groves, and in the 

 sargasso meadows of the high seas. The group is distinguished by 

 so many peculiar characters that it is ranked as an order or sub- 

 order by all modern ichthyologists under the name of Pediculati or 

 Pediculates. The name is primarily due to Cuvier, who gave the 

 form Acanthopterygiens a pectorales pediculees, or, for short, Pec- 



FiG. 1. — The common Angler {Lophius piscatoritts). After Smitt. 



torales pediculees as a family designation. This was latinized as 

 Pediculati and subsequently used as a subordinal and still later as an 

 ordinal term. With the last sense it is here used. The old authors 

 mostly associated with the Pediculates, the Batrachoidids, or Toad- 

 fishes, and they have been restored to the order by Regan (1909), but 

 not by other authors, nor in the present article. 



