162 NEW-YORK FAUNA. 
FAMILY XV. LOPHID:. 
Scales usually absent, or replaced by bony plates, or by small grains armed with spines. 
The two carpal bones elongated, and forming a kind of arm to support the pectoral fin. 
Branchial aperture round, or a vertical slit behind the pectorals. Suborbital bone want- 
ing, except in the genus Malthea. 
Oss. The genera which now compose this family, were for a long time arranged among 
the cartilaginous fishes, from the apparently soft and yielding nature of their skeletons. Cuvier 
has, however, clearly demonstrated its fibrous structure, and established its place in the natural 
series of bony fishes after the family Gobide. In his great work, it is designated as “ Pec- 
torales pédiculées ;” which we designate, however, under the name of Lophida, in accord- 
ance with our general system of nomenclature. It is divided into five genera, including at 
present about fifty species. 
GENUS LOPHIUS. Artedi, Cuvier. 
Head enormously large, broad and depressed. Mouth large, armed with slender conical 
teeth on the jaws, palatines, vomer and pharyngeals. Tongue smooth. Branchial rays 
six ; branchial arches three. Dorsal fins two ; the anterior rays distant, detached, forming 
long filaments supporting fleshy slips. 
THE AMERICAN ANGLER. 
LopHIUs AMERICANUS. 
PLATE XXVIII. FIG. 87. 
Lophius piscator, Sea Devil. MitcHiLt, Report, p. 28. 
L. piscatorius. In. Lit, and Phil. Soc. N. York, Vol. 1, p. 465. 
The Angler, L.id. Storer, Mass. Report, p. 71 and 404. 
Characteristics. Intermaxillary teeth smaller, and those of the vomer larger, than in the 
European species. Length two to three feet. 
Description. Body flat, orbicular in front, elongate and attenuated behind. Head broad, 
depressed. Surface covered with a smooth skin. Lower jaw longest, with a series of fleshy 
cirri an inch long arranged along its margin, and extending as far back as the pectorals. 
Along the flanks there are also series of fleshy processes, extending to the base of the caudal 
fin. On the central portion of the upper jaw are also two rounded pendulous processes. 
Eyes large, vertical, longitudinally oval, with a depression between them. Supra-orbital crest 
prominent and tubercular. 
Teeth. A single row of long slightly recurved conical unequal teeth on each side, and a 
double row of large teeth in the upper jaw; the lower with a single row of long acute teeth. 
