412 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



naked; body covered with small, linear, embedded scales, wbicb 

 are irregularly arranged; fins scaleless. T>. V, I, 20; A, II. I, 

 20; V. I, 5; P. I, 16. Top of bead and back bluisb; sides and 

 lower parts silvery; fins, interopercle and iris yellow. 



The leather jacket inhabits both coasts of tropical America^ 

 extending northward to Cape Cod and Lower California; it is 

 very common in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. Rare 

 at Woods Hole, Mass., where only three examples were secured 

 from 1874 to 1886 in traps and pound nets. At Newport R. I. 

 the species is occasionally seen. The fish is rare in Gravesend 

 bay; an example 9f inches long and 2^ inches deep was secured 

 in John B. De Nyse's pound in the summer of 1896. The fish 

 has no value as food. 



Genus naucrates Rafinesque 



This genus differs from S e r i o 1 a only in the reduction of 



the spinous dorsal to a few (four or five) low, unconnected 



spines. The young, called N a u c 1 e r u s and X y s t o p h - 



o r u s , have the spines of the dorsals connected by membrane, 



and a more or less distinct strong spine at the angle of the 



operculuiii. A single ]iolagic species widely distributed in the 



open seas. 



206 Naucrates ductor (Linnaeus) 



Pilotfish 



Gasterosteus ductor Linnaeus, Sjst. Nat. ed. X, I, 295, 1758, pelagic. 



Scomber ductor Mixchill, Traus. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y. I, 424, 1815. 



Naucratrs uovcbo^acciisis Cuvier & Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss. Ylir, 

 335, 1831; De Kay, N. Y. Fauna, Fislies, 112, 1842, and figure of 

 Naucrates ductor, pi. 74, fig. 235. 



Naucrates ductcr Cuvier & Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss. VIII, 312, pi. 

 2.^2, 1.S31; GuNTHER, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus. II, 374, 1860; Jordan & 

 CiMSKRT, Bull. 10, U. S. Nat. Mus. 443, 1883; Jordan & Evermann, 

 Unll. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. 900, 1896, pi. CXXXIX, fig. 379. 1900; Smith, 

 Bull. U. S. F. C. XVII, 97, 1898. 



Naticnilcs iiidinis Ct vier, Ilegue Anini. 111. Poiss. pi. 54, fig. 1, 1830. 



r>"Ml\ fusiform, elongate, moderately thick, its greatest hight 

 oiir t'oiirlli of IoImI length without the caudal, and about equal 

 i> l<ii;:ili of inad, its width equal to three fifths of length of 

 '''"I; \i-:\s\ (Icjiili of ciindal peduncle about equal to long 

 <li;iiiH)ii- (f rv.-; jicnd siihconical, the snout obtuse, length of 



