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264 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
Dixon, Means, Marchard, or Vancouver, except that Means mentions 
them casually as sardines, and says the Indians are as fond of them and 
make quite as much account of them as they do of salmon. They are 
found in countless myriads in the waters of Alaska Territory, but hith- 
erto no other use has been made of them in that Territory except as an 
article of food for the Indians. . 
If some of the canneries of Alaska would try the experiment and put 
them up in oil similar to sardines, I predict that a lucrative trade would 
result. Noregular statistics of the Eulachon fishery have ever been kept 
either in British Columbia or Alaska, and the foregoing meager account 
of a very important food-fish is all that I have been able to procure. 
DESCRIPTION OF TWO NEW SPECIES OF FISHES, ASCELICHTHYS 
RHODORUS AND SCWTALEINA CERDALE, FROM NEAR BAY, 
WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 
By DAVID 8S. JORDAN and CHARLES H. GILBERT. 
Ascelichthys, genus nova. 
Family of Cottide. Body rather robust, covered with naked skin. 
Head comparatively broad and depressed, covered with naked skin. 
. Preopercle with a simple, strongly hooked spine. Villiform teeth on 
jaws, vomer, and palatines. Noslit behind fourth gill. Gill membranes 
broadly united, free from the isthmus. No ventral fins. Spinous dorsal 
of low flexible spines. Other fins normally developed. This genus has 
the general appearance of Oligocottus, but is distinguished at once from all 
the known genera of the family by the absence of the ventral fins; 
hence the generic name from aozed7-, without leg, and ?70dc, fish. 
° 
Ascelichthys rhodorus, sp. nov. 
Body rather plump, broad, and low anteriorly, nearly cylindrical 
mesially, becoming compressed behind. Head comparatively broad and 
low, ovate, regularly narrowed forward, and rounded anteriorly. Eyes 
rather large, placed high, separated by a slightly concave interorbital 
space, narrower than the eye. Mouth rather large, nearly horizontal, 
the maxillary extending to opposite the posterior border of the eye. 
Lower jaw slightly shorter than upper. Lips rather full, the upper jaw 
protractile. Teeth small, in villiform bands on jaws, vomer, and pala- 
tines. The palatine bands long and narrow. Pseudobranche large. 
Gill-rakers almost obsolete. No slit behind the fourth gill. Branchios- 
tegals six. Gillmembranes broadly united, free from the isthmus. A 
low, fringed dermal flap above the posterior part of each eye. No other 
cirri anywhere, and no trace anywhere, on body or head, of dermal 
prickles or scales. No nasal spines. Nostrils both with short tubes, 
the anterior the longer. 
Suborbital stay very slender, barely reaching the preopercle. Preop- 
ercle with a rather short simple spine, strongly hooked upwards and in- 
