ORDER V. 



LOPHOBRANCHII. 



Family I. 

 SYNGNATHIDAE. 



Syngnathus. Lin. 



Generic characters. Bodij elongated, slender, covered with 

 a series of indurated plates arranged in parallel lines ; head 

 long ; both jaios produced, united, tubular ; no ventral fins. 



S. fuscus. Nobis. The broiun Pipe fish. 



I am strongly impressed with the behef that the fish noticed 

 as the " S. typhle,'" by Mitchell, in his ^'Fishes of NcivYork,^^ 

 is not that fish, but the same as the species before me, which 

 I conceive to be a previously unnoticed species. I am in- 

 indebted for my specimen to Mr. Jonathan Johnson of Nahant. 



Body elongated, tapering exceedingly to the tail, covered with 

 parallel horny plates, of an irregular dull brown color above ; 

 lighter beneath. Body, in front of the anal fin, heptangular, 

 with three ridges on each side ; above, in the middle, and be- 

 low, and another in the middle of the abdomen terminating 

 at the anus. Throughout the greater portion of the length of 

 the dorsal fin, the body is hexangular. In front of the anus, 

 are nineteen transverse plates ; between the anus and the cau- 

 dal rays, are forty plates. Length of the specimen six inches ; the 

 distance from the tip of the snout to the posterior angle of the 

 operculum one eighth the length of the fish ; the distance be- 

 tween the snout and the anterior angle of the eye, and that 



