REVIEW OF LOCAL FISHES 85 



fin rounded or even, skin everywhere covered with fine prickles. A 

 larger species which sometimes occurs here, the Smooth Swellfish, has 

 the dorsal and anal fins higher and more pointed with twelve to fourteen 

 rays and a somewhat lunate caudal fin. 



The Spiny Boxfish is in a way intermediate between the trunk and 

 Swellfishes, being oval in shape, covered with skin, w r hich is more or less 

 backed up with a firm subcutaneous structure, and the body everywhere 

 armed with short heavy scattered spines. This species is uncommon 

 here in autumn though scarcely rare enough to be called accidental. 



Probably the most peculiar of all this line of fishes and the one which 

 is generally considered the most removed from the more conventional 

 triggerfish type, is the Headfish or Sea Sunfish, a large species with 

 small mouth and eye and leathery skin, deep compressed form, high 

 pointed dorsal and anal fins, with practically no body behind them, the 

 tail fin reduced into a long vertical fringe between their posterior axils. 

 The pectoral fin is placed almost in the center of the side with the very 

 small gill-opening before it. This creature looks like the head of some 

 gigantic fish without any body behind it. It is a deep sea or pelagic 

 species, reaching a large size, with very wide world range, and recorded 

 once or twice from this vicinity. 



XIII. THE SCULPIX-LIKE FISHES 

 (Ldricati) 



This chapter deals mostly with marine fishes with large spiny heads. 

 Only one of our twelve species occurs in fresh water, the others are 

 marine. The technical character which differentiates them from fishes 

 in other groups is the extension backward of the third suborbital bone 

 which forms a bony stay across the cheek. 



The Blob or Miller's Thumb, locally common in some of the streams 

 within fifty miles of New York, is our one fresh-water Sculpin. It is a 

 concealingly colored fish given to lying on the bottom. It has a large 

 depressed head and a moderately strong spine in the preopercle con- 

 cealed except when the fish assumes a defensive attitude. The first 

 dorsal fin of eight rather weak spines is followed by one with sixteen 

 soft rays and there are twelve soft rays in the anal fin. We have three 

 or four marine species of Sculpins proper. The Brassy Sculpin is un- 

 common here throughout the year, perhaps most numerous in the fall. 

 The allied MitchilTs Sculpin, which may be only a phase of the other, is 



