HISTORY OF THE FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 267 



FAMILY IX. LOPHID^E. 



Scales usually absent, or replaced by bony plates, or by small grains armed with 

 spines. The two carpal bones elongated, and forming a kind of arm to support the 

 pectoral fin. Branchial aperture round, or a vertical slit behind the pectorals. Sub- 

 orbital bone wanting, except in the genus Malthea. 



GENUS I. LOPHIUS, AETEDI. 



Head enormously large, broad, and depressed. Mouth large, armed with slender con- 

 ical teeth on the jaws, palatines, vomer, and pharyngeals. Tongue smooth. Branchial 

 rays, six ; branchial arches, three. Dorsal fins, two ; the anterior rays distant, de- 

 tached, forming long filaments supporting fleshy slips. 



LOPHIUS AMERICANUS, Cuv. 

 The American Angler. 



(PLATE XVIII. FIG. 2.) 



Lophius piscator, Bellows-fish or Common Angler, MITCH., Trans. Lit. and Phil. Soc. of N. Y., i. p. 465. 

 Lophius piscatorius, Angler, Frog-fish, Sea-Devil, Goose-fish, Wide Gab, STORER, Report, pp. 71, 404. 

 La Baudoire (FAmtrique, Lophius Americanus, Cuv. et VAL,., XH. p. 380. 

 Lophius Americanus, American Angler, DEKAT, Report, p. 162, pi. 28, fig. 87. 



" " " " STOKER, Mem. Amer. Acad., New Scries, n. p. 381. 



" " " " " Synopsis, p. 129. 



Color. All the upper part of the body, in the living fish, is of a dark-brown color, 

 caused by minute irregular markings somewhat resembling reticulations, which occa- 

 sionally appear like blotches ; breast of a dirty white color. Cirrhi of a light brown. 

 Pupils black, hides yellowish-brown. 



Description. Body compressed, orbicular anteriorly, elongated and attenuated pos- 

 teriorly. Its width in front of the pectoral fins is rather less than one half of its 

 length. The length of the head from the tip of the snout to the occiput is equal to 

 about one fourth the length of the entire fish. Numerous fleshy cirrhi are arranged 

 along the lower jaw, edging it to its angles ; beyond these, they are continued to, and 

 upon, and back of, the pectoral fins, to the base of the tail : beneath the jaw these 

 cirrhi are much larger than they are upon the sides of the body ; on the posterior 

 portion of the body they are smallest. The branchial apertures are large, and situated 

 under and back of the pectorals. The vertical gape of the mouth, when expanded, is 

 very large ; the distance across the head, from the outer angles of the jaws, is less than 



