THE DISCOBOLI. 51 



operculum. Both suboperculum and interoperculum are wider and more 

 robust in the anterior half. Pleurapophyses are present. This is one of 

 the species of Liparis proper, all of which, so far as examined, have thirty- 

 eight or thirty-nine vertebras. The hindmost segment of the column, as 

 in the family at large, sends backward and obliquely upward a spine 

 connected with the lower edge of which there are two broad compressed 

 plates, widening backward and bearing the caudal rays on their hind 

 border. The lower of the plates reaches the lower edge of the centrum. 

 Compared with L. Agassizii, Plate III. Figs. 2, 3, the top of the head is 

 more triangular and more strongly ridged, the orbital spine is shorter, and 

 the dorsal and anal fins are not so perfectly continuous with the caudal. 



The gill rakers are more numerous on the second and third gills ; they 

 are provided with small teeth. The esophagus is short; the stomach is 

 U-shaped, as broad as long ; the pyloric caeca vary in number from twenty- 

 two, on a female, to twenty-eight, on a male ; the length of the intestine 

 equals about half that of the specimen ; the kidneys are elongate, slender, 

 and fused about three fourths of their extent; the bladder is simple and 

 rather large ; the ovaries are broad and thick, connecting posteriorly and 

 discharging through a common duct ; the liver is large, composed of a left 

 upper lobe, shorter and narrower, a left median lobe, longer, broader, and 

 thicker, and a right lobe shorter than the left upper; the gall bladder is 

 small and elongate. 



The mass of the brain is larger as compared with the entire bulk of 

 the fish than in Cyclopterus. In that genus the brain cavity is much too 

 large for the brain; in L. Montagui the chamber is almost entirely filled. 

 A closer approach to the Cottoid brain is made in this species than in 

 either of its congeners. As will be seen in Plate VIII. Fig. 9, the width 

 across the optic lobes is greater in proportion to the length. Each hemi- 

 sphere is somewhat smaller than either of the optic lobes, or than the 

 qerebellum. The latter extends back to cover the sinus ; at each side 

 of it the restiformia are rather prominent; behind it the lobi posteriores 

 are very distinct; and behind them, again, there is an opening into the 

 ventricle. 



