2 SCLEROGENIDJ:. 



destructive of the fry of Blennies, Salmon, Herrings, and 

 Haddocks. It even attacks larger fish, does not spare its 

 own species, devours crabs and worms, and in fact pur- 

 sues every living thing that it can master.* It is bold, 

 lively, and incautious ; but habitually keeps at the bot- 

 tom of the sea, coming to the surface only when it is led 

 thither in pursuit of its prey. It spawns in December 

 and January, depositing its roe on sea-weeds. It is prized 

 as an article of food by the Greenland Eskimos, who 

 eat it daily both boiled and dried, and find it agreeable 

 and wholesome for the sick. Many of them eat its eggs 

 raw ; and some even consume the fish itself in that condi- 

 tion. They capture it with lines armed with four hooks, 

 disposed crosswise, and with no other bait than something 

 coloured or shining placed above the hooks. Sometimes 

 they spear it. 



The female, Fabricius states, is larger than a male of 

 the same age, and may be distinguished at once by its 

 white belly, which appears yellow in the water and is 

 spotted. The posterior cranial tubercles are nearer to 

 each other in the males than in the females. There are 

 four of these tubercles on the upper aspect of the head, 

 one at each corner of an area, which in the female is 

 nearly square and flat. There are besides eight spines 

 on each half of the head and shoulders, viz. a nasal, 

 opercular, subopercular, scapular, and humeral one, with 

 three preopercular ones. The principal spine is the one 

 at the angle of the preoperculum. Its tip falls about 

 its own length short of the point of the opercular spine. 

 The interval between the orbits is much depressed, and 



* The omnivorous appetite ascribed to this Bullhead by Fabricius was 

 proved by an examination of the contents of the stomachs of several New- 

 foundland specimens, which consisted of the vertebral columns of several 

 small fishes, some entire crabs, the peelings of potatoes, and other substances. 

 These Bullheads were caught off the end of a landing jetty. 



