658 Pareioplite, or Mailed-cheek Fishes 
varied are the sculpins of the North Pacific, Myoxocephalus 
polyacanthocephalus being the best known and most widely 
diffused. Oncocottus quadricornis is the long-horned sculpin of 
Arctic Europe, entering the lakes of Russia and British 
oO 
Fic. 562.—18-spined Sculpin, Myoxocephalus octodecimspinosus (Mitchill). 
Beasley Point, N. J. 
America. Triglopsis thompsoni of the depths in our own Great 
Lakes seems to be a dwarfed and degenerate descendant of 
Oncocottus. 
The genus Zesticelus contains small soft-bodied sculpins from 
the depths of the North Pacific. Zesticelus profundorum was 
Fic. 563 —Oncocottus quadricornis (L.). St. Michael, Alaska. 
taken in 664 fathoms off Bogoslof Island and Zesticelus bathybius 
off Japan. In this genus the body is very soft and the skeleton 
feeble, the result of deep-sea life. Another deep-water genus less 
degraded is Cottunculus, from which by gradual loss of fins the 
still more degraded Psychrolutes (paradoxus) and Gilbertidia 
(sigolutes) are perhaps descended. In sculpins of this type the 
liparids, or sea-snails, may have had their origin. Among the 
