2296 Bulletin //, United States National Museum, 



ventral outline well rounded from chin to caudal peduncle, the curve 

 much more gradual posteriorly; head and body everywhere covered with 

 thin naked skin. Mouth large, superior, nearly vertical, the lower jaw 

 projecting, its tips entering the profile; lips fringed; maxillary reaching 

 to middle of pupil; teeth in 2 or 3 rows, small, sharp and recurved; teeth 

 on vomer; palatines toothless. Eyes placed high, their diameter equal lo 

 length of snout; interorbital wide and flat, a third wider than eye; top 

 of head smooth, sometimes rugose in younger individuals, covered with 

 thin smooth skin; anterior nostril ending in a tube; preopercle with 5 

 spines, the 1 at angle largest, the 2 upper ones pointing upward and 

 backward, the middle one pointing downward and backward, the 2 

 lower ones pointing downward and forward; opercle with radiating 

 ridges; gill rakers short and slender, numerous. Origin of spinous dorsal 

 behind base of pectoral, its distance from snout 3 in body, the spines not 

 varying greatly in length, the last one connected by a membrane to the 

 back ; soft dorsal well separated from spinous, its rays about equal to 

 spines in length, highest in front ; anal long, its origin nearer to the snout 

 than base of caudal by a distance equal to the length of the eye. Pec- 

 toral, when spread, broadly rounded behind, its lower rays rapidly decreas- 

 ing in size below, reaching well past front of anal; ventrals inserted 

 behind base of pectorals a distance equal to f- eye, their tips reaching to 

 vent. Lateral line running high. Vertebras 17 + 30 = 47. Color silvery, 

 light brown above; a dark brown streak following the lateral line, 

 broken up into spots anteriorly; quadrangular, dark brown marks along 

 the back at base of dorsals, chain-like markings in front of dorsal on 

 nape; snout and tip of lower jaw dark; a dark line at lower part of eye; 

 dorsals light, a dark streak along upper part of spinous dorsal ; pectorals 

 dusky; ventrals and anal colorless. Length 8 to 10 inches. North 

 Pacific, on sandy shores, from Bering Sea to Monterey; very abundant 

 northward; burying in the sand. Here described from a specimen, 8| 

 inches in length, from Herendeen Bay, Alaska (Albatross collection). 

 Possibly detailed comparison may show a difference between California 

 specimens and those from Bering Sea. 



Trachinus trichodon, TILESIUS,* Mem. Acad. St. Petersburg, iv, 1811, pi. 15, fig. 8, 473, 

 Kamchatka; PALLAS, Zoographia Rosso- Asiatica, HI, 235, 1811-t 



* The specific name trkhodon should apparently date from Tilesius, 1811. Although 

 Vol. IV, of the Mem. Acad. St. Petersburg bears the date 1813 it was for the year 1811, and 

 it is evident that the plate containing the figure of this species was accessible to Pallas 

 as early as 1811, for, in his "Zoographia," printed in 1811, though not published until 

 1831, Pallas refers to the plate of Tilesius in very definite terms. The fact that Pallas 

 was, in 1811, thus able to refer definitely to Tiles'ius's plate of Trachinus trichodon, fixes 

 the date of publication of that plate at least as early as 1811. That this plate appeared 

 in the volume of Memoirs for 1811 (though the volume was not published until 1813), fixes 

 1811 as the date for the name. Though the "Zoographia" of Pallas was not formally 

 published until 1831, it was printed in 1811, and Cuvier & Valenciennes evidently had a 

 copy in 1829, as they refer to it. 



t Tilesius confused matters greatly by using, in one and the same article, three different 

 names or combinations of names for this fish. At the beginning of this article (p. 406) in 



page 473, he has "Trachinus trichodon" together with a description which 

 he says applies to the young, and finally his pi. 15, fig. 8, is marked "Trachinus tricho- 

 don. 



