182 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.39. 



attained. ' ' It feeds chiefly on sea-urchins and sand-dollars " {Echina- 

 rachnius excentricus) , according to Jordan and Evermann. Lock- 

 ington (1879) found "a very stout-looking example, 5 feet long," 

 whose stomach was "filled with the tests of Echinarachnius excentricus, 

 the common cake-urchin of the [Californianl coast, broken into large 

 fragments, many of them considerably more than an inch across." 

 Its diet, in fact, seems to be much like that of the common wolffish. 

 "It is rarely used as food," say Jordan and Evermann (1898), but 

 earlier (1880) Jordan had found that "as a food-fish, it meets with a 

 ready sale. " Now, as in 1880, ' 'nothing special is known of its breed- 

 ing habits, enemies, or diseases. " Certainly some fish student of one 

 of the Californian universities or laboratories should supplement this 

 very scanty information. 



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