FISHES OF NEW YORK 691 



Suborder ANACAXTHIXI 



Jugular Fislies 

 Family XUEDRLUCIIDAE: 



Whitings 



Genus MERLUCIUS Rafinesque 



Body elongate, covered with small, deciduous scales; head 

 slender, conic, the snout long, (^pressed; a well-defined, oblong, 

 triangular excavation at the forehead, bounded by the ridges 

 on the separated frontal bones, these ridges converging back- 

 ward into the low occipital crest; eye rather large; edge of 

 preopercle free; preopercle with a channel behind its crest, 

 crossed by short radiating ridges; mouth large, oblique; maxil- 

 lary extending to opposite the eye; lower jaw longer; no barbels; 

 jaws with slender teeth, of various sizes, in about two series, 

 those of the inner row longer and movable; vomer with similar 

 teeth; palatines toothless; branchiostegals seven; gill rakers 

 long; gill membranes not united; dorsal fins two, well separated, 

 the first short, the second long, with a deep emargination; anal 

 emarginate, similar to second dorsal; ventral fins well developed, 

 with about seven rays; vertebrae peculiarly modified, the neural 

 spines well, developed and wedged into one another; frontal bone 

 double and the skull otherwise peculiar in several respects. 

 Species several, very similar in appearance, ill-favored fishes of 

 soft flesh and fragile fins, inhabiting water of some depth. 

 Large, voracious, little valued as food. 



344 Merlucius bilinearis (Mitchill) 

 Whitiny: Kilcer Hake 



$t(jinf,i1nn JiiliiH'tiri* MITCHILL, Rep. Fish. X. Y. 7, 1814. 



Gad us merlucius MITCHILL, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. X. Y. I. 371, 1815. 



Gadus ettidus MITCHILL, Jour. Ac. Xat. Sci. Phila. I. 409, 1817. 



Merlucius aWidus DE KAY. X. Y. Fauna. Fishes 280, pi. 46, fig. 148, 1842; 



STOKER, Hist Fish. Mass. 185, pi. XXVIII, fig. 2, 1867. 



Merlucius lilinearis GOODE & BEAN, Bull. Essex Inst. XI, 9, 1879; JORDAN & 

 GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Xat. Mus. 809, 1883; BEAX, 19th Rep. Comm. 

 Fish. X. Y. 249, pi. IV, fig. 5, 1890; GOODE & BEAN, Oceanic Ichth. 386, 

 fig. 330, 1896; H. M. SMITH, Bull. U. S. F. C. 1897, 107, 1898; JORDAN & 

 KYEEMANN. Bull. 47. U. S. Xat. Mus. Ill, 2530, 1898; BEAN, 52d Ann. 

 Rep. X. Y. State Mus. 109, 1900. 



