f;72 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



base of the caiulal; vertical fin closely spotted with darker; 

 head above thickly, speckled; body sometimes {'Hncyrnatus ") 

 entirely immaculate. The wrymouth or ghostflsh has been taken 

 from Labrador to Long Island sonnd. It is recorded by Linsley 

 in his catalogue of the Fishes of Connecticut. The species grows 

 to a length of 24 inches or more. According to Dr Smith, it 

 is very rare at Woods Hole Mass. A specimen from Woods Hole, 

 now in the National Museum, was taken about 1875. Sep. 18, 

 1896, an individual 18 inches long was caught there in a fyke 

 net set in Great harbor. In Massachusetts bay the fish is also 

 rather rare. Storer, in his History of the Fishes of Massachusetts, 

 1867, mentioned seven specimens: one from Nahant, one from 

 Dorchester, one from Provincetown, three from Massachusetts 

 bay; the seventh was from a beach in Nova Scotia. The U. S. 

 Fish Commission collected seven specimens on the coast of Mass- 

 achusetts previous to 1879. There is an albinp form of this fish, 

 of which four individuals were known prior to 1879. One of 

 these was obtained at Marblehead and another at Swampscott. 



Family anarhichadidae 

 Wolf Fishes 

 Genus anarhichas (Artedi) Linnaeus 

 Body moderately elongate, covered with rudimentary scales; 

 head scaleless, without cirri, compressed, narrowed above, the 

 prolilc strongly decurved; mouth wide, oblique; premaxillary 

 not protractile; jaws with very strong conic canines anteriorly; 

 lateral teeth of lower jaw either molars or with pointed tuber- 

 cles; upper j;i\v without lateral teeth; vomer extremely thick 

 and solid, wilh 2 series of coarse molar teeth; palatines with 

 one or two similar series; gill membranes broadly joined to tlje 

 istlnnus; ti.> lateral line; dorsal fin rather high, composed en- 

 tirely of 11< xiblc spines which are enveloped in the skin; anal 

 fir. lower; candal fin developed, free from dorsal and anal; no 

 ventral fins; peetoral fins broad, placed low; air bladder present; 

 no pylori.- .ae. a. Northern seas. 



