12 FOSSIL FISHES OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 



the dorsal fins closer together. In making the restoration of the broken 

 parts of the head of AUXIDES the artist has drawn somewhat on the 

 type of TUNITA, which does not visibly differ from our idea of the head 

 of AUXIDES, and which, when the drawing was made, we supposed to be 

 the same species. 



Family LIPARID^. 



7. Bulbiceps raninus Jordan, new genus and species. 

 (Plate VI) 



In the sandstone from Soledad are two impressions (No. LVIII) 

 of small tadpole-like fishes, each about two inches long. To all appear- 

 ances they are Liparids or sea-snails. Little more than the general form 

 can be described and the great size of the head may be due in part 

 to the specimens having been pressed flat in the rock. 



Head 2y 2 in length ; depth of head 2% ; depth of body at front of 

 dorsal four. Eye small, shorter than snout ; mouth small ; only a trace of 

 dorsal and ventral left; anal and pectoral wholly obliterated; caudal fin 

 well developed, 1^ in head, apparently deeply forked in both examples. 

 Traces of eight vertebrae with their neural and haemal spines visible ; 

 the total number apparently about twenty-five; apparently no hypural 

 bones ; skin smooth. 



Of the living genera of Liparids, PROGNURUS Jordan & Evermann 

 is the only one having a forked caudal, but the species in hand bears no 

 other likeness to PROGNURUS CYPSELURUS (Gilbert), a deep-water fish of 

 the northern sea. I therefore place it in a separate genus, BULBICEPS, the 

 complete characters of which await further study. 



I may here notice EOPERCA Jordan, a new genus of PERCID^: from 

 the Eocene of Wyoming, its type being MIOPLOSUS MULTIDENTATUS Cope. 



The species from the Ree Hills, described by Cope 4 as MIOPLOSUS 

 MULTIDENTATUS, can hardly be retained in MIOPLOSUS. It represents a 

 new generic type, EOPERCA, midway between MIOPLOSUS and the existing 

 genus, PERCA. From MIOPLOSUS, as Cope points out, it differs in having 

 twelve dorsal spines instead of nine, fourteen dorsal vertebras instead of 

 ten, and nine antrorse spines on the lower limb of the preopercle instead 

 of five. 



In PERCA, the dorsal spines are fourteen or fifteen, the vertebrae 

 20 -{-21=41, and the antrorse serrae are smaller, more than twelve in 

 number. Like the perch, which it must have resembled, EOPERCA was 

 a river-fish. All the others noticed in these pages were strictly marine. 



Amer. Nat., 25, 1891, p. 657. 



