272 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



is one of the most valuable fishes that we have on our 

 Atlantic Coast. It belongs to the family of scisenids, 

 which furnishes in the south more than half of the total 

 catch of fishes for edible purposes along that coast, and the 

 weakfish furnishes more than half of the total number of 

 scisenids. So it is a very important article of food. 



I have used the word weakfish in the singular as a generic 

 term. There are really two very distinct species. There is 

 some distinction as to the value of the weakfish of the north 

 and south — that is, the flesh of the weakfish of the south 

 does not seem to be quite as soft nor quite as loosely con- 

 structed as that of the north. The southern fish is, therefore, 

 a better one than the northern. 



Now to furnish some of the characters. The family of 

 Scisenids is one of the most important of all the families 

 of fishes. It is a very natural family exhibiting a number 

 of osteological characters in common, but they would be too 

 technical to speak of — so I will simply allude to a few. 



There are a number of foramina in the upper surface of 

 the skull which furnish exits for blood-vessels and nerves. 

 Such are some of the characters that strike the observer 

 of the skeleton. If you will look at the mouth you will find 

 also a number of characteristics that strike the attention 

 forcibly. There are a number of lobelets and holes along 

 the edge of the head next to the jaws and mouth, but the 

 weakfishes rather differ from others of the family in that 

 they are reduced to the minimum. 



The other characteristics are too technical to enter into. 

 I will only state that the natural associates of the family 

 of scisenid fishes are numerous. About twenty species have 

 been recognized and these twenty are all confined to 

 America, north and south. The species are almost entirely 

 tropical and warm-water forms. The weakfish of our 

 northern waters, the common weakfish of New York, is 

 the most northern of all of them. 



With respect to the size : probably you have little idea as 

 to the diversity of opinion and the diversity of statements 



