GOBIESOCID^E. LXXX. 155 



soon disappears. Some species have poison glands at base of dorsal 

 and opercular spines. 



a. Body naked; lateral line indistinct, without shining bodies ; dorsal spines 

 3; a foramen in the axil; no poison glands ; teeth strong, blunt. 



BATRACHUS, 199. 



199. BATRACHUS Bloch & Schneider. (Qdrpaxos, frog.) 



430. B. tau (L.). TOAD-FISH. OYSTER-FISH. SAPO. Pores 

 on jaws with cirri; subopercie with a strong spine. Blackish green, 

 with dark markings; fins with dark bars. Head 2; depth 4. D. 

 1 1 [ - 27. A. 24. L. 18. Cape Cod to W. I., very abundant. (T., 

 from the form of the bones of the top of the head.) 



XENOPTERYGII. We pass next to the suborder XENOPTERYGII, 

 a little group, distinguished by the peculiar sucking disk at the 

 breast, formed from the skin of the body and not from the ventral 

 fins. There is no spinous dorsal or suborbital ring, and the pala- 

 tine arcade is said to be materially modified. The relations of these 

 fishes are obscure, but they are probably descended from Batrachoid 

 or Cottoid forms. 



FAMILY LXXX. GOBIESOCID^J. (THE CLING-FISHES.) 



Body elongate, the head very broad and depressed, the skin 

 smooth, naked ; mouth moderate, upper jaw protractile ; teeth coni- 

 cal or incisor-like; opercle reduced to a spine; pseudobranchias 

 small or ; gills 2 or 3 ; gill membranes broadly united ; D. small, 

 posterior, similar to anal, both of soft rays only; V. I, 4 or I, 5; 

 the fins wide apart, and between them a very large sucking disk 

 composed chiefly of folds of skin. No air-bladder. Vertebrae 26 to 

 36. Small carnivorous fishes of the warm seas, living in tide pools 

 and clinging firmly to stones. Genera 10; species 30. 



a. Gill membranes free from isthmus ; gills 3 ; lower jaw with incisors ; pos- 

 terior part of sucking disk without free anterior margin. 



GOBIESOX, 200. 



200, GOBIESOX Lace'pede. (Gobius f Esox.) 



431. G. strumosus Cope. Lower incisors not serrate. Head 

 very wide, its width 2| in total (withC.); eye small; teeth |-|; no 

 canine. Plumbeous, fins blackish. D. 11. A. 10. Va. to S. C., 

 scarce. (Lat., swollen.) 



SCYPHOBRANCHII. The Blennioid, Gobioid, and Uranoscopoid 

 fishes show more or less definite affinities with each other, and in 

 some degree with the HAPLODOCI and CATAPHRACTI. Like the 

 latter they have the third upper pharyngeal enlarged and basin- 

 shaped, but they have no suborbital stay, unless the bony cheek in 

 URANOSCOPID.E be regarded as representing the latter. They 



