NO 1263. JAPANESE TRACHINOID FISHES— JORDAN AND SNYDER. 473 
Upper parts with 4 broad, dusky cross-bands, extending- over the 
back and downward to the lateral line, the anterior 1)and on nape, the 
posterior one on caudal peduncle; dorsal tin very dark; upper half of 
iris blue black. 
The dorsal and caudal tins are injured, making- a correct description 
of their outline impossible; the first dorsal is very low. Perhaps 
older or larger specimens might show vomerine or palatine teeth. 
The t^'pe is numbered 50009, U. S. National Museum; collected in 
Suruga Bay. Japan, by the U. S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross. 
No other specimens were taken. 
( Verecundus, modest.) 
Family III. URANOSCOPID.E. 
THE STAR-GAZERS. 
Head large, broad, parth' covered with bony plates. Body elongate, 
conic, subcompressed. widest and usually deepest at the occiput. 
Body either naked or covered with very small, smooth, adherent scales, 
Avhich are arranged in very oblique series running downward and back- 
ward; the scales on the belly inconspicuous or obsolete. Lateral line 
little developed, running high. Eyes small, on anterior and upper 
portion of head, with vertical rings. Mouth vertical, with strong and 
prominent mandible; teeth moderate, on jaws, vomer, and palatines. 
Premaxillaries freely protractile; maxillary broad, without supple- 
mental bones, not slipping under the preorbital. Gill openings wide, 
continued forward; gill membranes nearly separate, free from isthmus. 
Pseudobranchia3 present; 6 branchiostegals; 3i gills, a slit behind the 
last; no anal papilla. Spinous dorsal very short or wanting; second 
dorsal long. Anal and pectorals large, the latter with broad oblique 
bases, the lower rays rapidh' shortened, most of them branched; ven- 
trals jugular, close together. I. 5, the spine very short, innermost ray 
longest; caudal not forked. Pterygials. according to Boulenger much 
reduced, fused with the hypercoracoid and hypocoracoid, hyperacoid 
with a foramen or fenestra; parapophjses strongly developed on most 
of the precaudal vertebrte, the riljs attached to their upper surface. 
Air bladder absent; pyloric cajca in moderate number. Vertebrae 24 
to 20. Carnivorous fishes, living on the bottom of the shores of most 
warm regions. 
a. Uranoscopiniv. Spinous dorsal separate from soft dorsal of 4 or 5 pungent species; 
scales present; very small fringes on opercle; no fringed humeral appendage; 
scapular spine long; lips and nostrils fringed; mouth with a retractile filament; 
top of head almost entirely bony, the occipital plate extending forward to the 
orbits Uranoscopus, 5. 
aa. Spinous dorsal not forming a separate fin. 
b. Ichthyscopinse. Humeral region with a fringed appendage; opercle conspicuously 
fringed; body scaly; chin without appendages; no barbel Ichthyscopus, 6. 
