286 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



144 Synodus foetens (Linnaeus) 

 Lizard Fish 



Salmo foetens LINNAEUS, Syst. Nat. ed. XII, I, 513, 1766, South Carolina. 

 Esov salmoneus MITCHILL, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y. I, 442, 1815, New 



York. 



Saurus mexicanus CTJVIER, Regne Anim. ed. II, 314, 1829, Mexico. 

 Saurus foetens GUNTHER, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus. V, 396, 1864. 

 Synodus foetens JORDAN & GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 280, 1883; 



BEAN, Bull. U. S. F. C. VII, 148, 1888, 19th Rep. Comm. Fish. N. Y. 



275, 1890; JORDAN & EVER&ANN, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. 538, 1896, 



pi. LXXXVIII, fig. 236, 1900. 



Body slender, elongate fusiform, its greatest depth about one 

 seventh of total length without caudal; caudal peduncle short, 

 stout, its least depth equal to length of snout; head conical, 

 sharply pointed, its length contained four and one third times in 

 total without caudal; snout much flattened above, pointed, its 

 length about one fourth the length of head, and nearly twice 

 diameter of eye; jaws nearly equal in front or the lower included, 

 maxilla reaching well behind orbit, the upper jaw as long as 

 postorbital part of head; anterior nostril with a flap, posterior 

 simple, the anterior nearer to eye than to tip of snout; eye .small, 

 partly on top of head, two elevenths of length of head, about 

 two thirds of interorbital width ; teeth of upper jaw closing down 

 over the mandible; dorsal origin nearer to tip of snout than to 

 base of caudal, over the 18th scale of the lateral line, dorsal 

 base one half as long as the head, longest dorsal ray equal to 

 upper jaw, last dorsal ray one third as long as head; adipose 

 dorsal very small and slender, its length not equal to eye; ventral 

 equidistant from tip of snout and vent, the fin four fifths as 

 long as the head; pectoral short and rounded, its length equal 

 to snout and eye combined; anal origin distant from caudal base 

 a space equal to one fourth the length without caudal, anal base 

 three fifths as long as the head, longest anal ray one half as 

 long as head without the snout, last anal ray one half as long 

 as anal base; "caudal deeply forked, the middle rays less than 

 one half as long as the outer; interorbital space slightly concave. 

 D. 10, the first two and the last simple; A. 14; V. 8; P. 14. Scales 

 7-59-7; here described from specimens numbered 35936, U. S. 

 National Museum, from Fire island, L. I. 



