FISHES OF NEW YOKK 671 



halibut. The species grows to the length of 12 to 15 inches. 

 Other names for it are eel blenny and snake blenny. No record 

 of its occurrence in New York waters has yet appeared, but it 

 may be found in moderate depths off Long Island. 



Family cryf'x^^cj'^nthodidae 



Wrymouths 

 Genus cryptacaivthodes Storer 

 Body long and slender, compressed, naked, without lateral 

 line; head cuboid, with vertical cheeks and conspicuous mucifer- 

 ous cavities; eyes small, placed high; mouth large, very oblique, 

 the very heavy lower jaw prominent in front; jaws, vomer, and 

 palatines with stoutish conic teeth, in few series; gill openings 

 prolonged forward below, narrowly attached to the isthmus; 

 dorsal fin of stoutish spines, hidden in the skin; dorsal and anal 

 joined to caudal; pectorals short; ventrals wanting. 



330 Cryptacanthodes maculatus Storer 



Ghostfish; Wri/mouth 



Cryptacanthodes maculatus Stoker, Rep. Fish. Mass. 28, 1839; Hist. Fish. 

 Mass. 34, pi. VIII, fig. 6, 1867; De Kay, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 63, 

 pi. 18, fig. 50, 1842. from Massachusetts specimen; Linsley, Am. 

 Jour. Sci. Arts, XLVII, 60, 1844, Long, Island Sound; Gunther, Cat. 

 Fish. Brit. Mus. Ill, 291, 1861; Goode & Bean, Bull. Essex Inst. 

 XI, 10, 1879; Jordan & Gilbert, Bull. 16. U. S. Nat. Mus. 780, 1883; 

 H. M. Smith, Bull. U. S. F. C. 1897, 106, 1898; Jordan & Evermann, 

 Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. Ill, 2443, 1898, IV, pi. CCCXDV, fig. 843, 

 1900. 



The depth of the body is one thirteenth of the length, which is 

 six and one half times the length of the head. Eyes small, 

 placed high, not so wide as interorbital space, which has two 

 ridges and three pits; orbital rim raised; two deep pits behind 

 eye at the temples, a deeper pit on top of head between them; 

 a raised ridge continued backward on each side of head behind 

 orbital rim; maxillary extending to beyond eye; pseudobranchiae 

 small; pectorals short, three in head, their tips reaching beyond 

 front of dorsal ; vent a little in front of the middle of the body. 



D. LXXIII; A. 50. 



Light brownish, with several series of smallish dark spots, 

 arranged in more or less regular rows, from the head to the 



