168 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. 39. 



(Type 23915 Banquereau obtained at a depth of 200 fathoms Sep- 

 tember, 1879, by the Gloucester fishin<^ vessel Marion, Capt. Philip 

 Merchant.— Skull 467.) 



Genus ANARRHICHAS. 



Anarrhichas (Gesner) Linn^us, Syst. Nat., 10th ed., 1758, vol. 1, p. 247. — 

 Steenstrup, Vid. Medd. Naturf. For. Kj0benhavn, 1876, pp. 159-292 (ex- 

 tended to include A. latifrons and A. denticulatus) . — Gill, Ann. Rec. Sci. 

 and Ind., 1876, 1877, p. clxvii. 



Type. — A. lujms Linnaeus. 



Anarrhichadids with a moderately elongated body, rudimentary 

 scales, dorsal fin elevated and with its hindmost spines especially 

 stiffened. 



Teeth more or less blunt; intermaxillary very robust, nearly 

 straight, and about 6 in an outer row, small and irregular in an inner 

 row, and a few intervening between rows; mandibular 4 large in 

 front with blunt summits; crowded and molar on sides; the ridge of 

 the dentary inflected and with largest teeth, the outer on the inflected 

 sides and smaller; voTnenne in a wide patch longer than palatine, 

 molar and closely crowded, in 2 rows and intervening smaller teeth; 

 palatine molar, crowded and biserial. 



Hypopharyngeal teeth subequal in a broad band. 



Branchiostegal rays 8, 4 to inferior edge of ceratohyal, 2 to hinder 

 edge of ceratohyal and 2 in depressed lower half of epihyal. 



Ossification complete. 



Cranial axis angular, the vomer subtending a high angle with the 

 parasphenoid. 



Parasphenoid much compressed, very narrow in front of cerebral 

 chamber. 



Postfrontal region much compressed and very narrow (pinched) 

 between interorbital region and superoccipital. 



Sphenotic and parietal separated by a large deep pit circumscribed 

 by the approximation of the bones before and behind. 



Suprascapula undivided and prolonged forward over the sphenotic- 

 parietal pit, and connected with the ridge in front and clamped 

 behind by the approximated sphenotic and parietal. 



Adinosts (two and three) not or little constricted at middle. 



The genus Anarrhichas, as now limited, includes three well-marked 

 species known to me through autopsy and another (orientalis) which 

 can not be identified with the only one seen by me (lepturus) occurring 

 within essentially the same geographical range. The measurements 

 attributed to the A. orientalis by Pallas are, however, irreconcilable 

 with the form typical of the genus. 



There is either a remarkable range of variation in the dentition of 

 species of the genus or more than one have been confounded under 



