Jordan and Evermann. Fishes of North America. 2455 



which is similar to dorsal. Flesh colored, with much mottling of purplish 

 in tine pattern; belly nearly plain; caudal reddish-edged. Length 6 

 inches. Straits of Juan de Fuca; burrowing among rocks near tide 

 mark. The 2 original types came from the shore of Waadda Island, near 

 Cape Flattery, where the species lives in wet shingle and shows extraor- 

 dinary activity in hiding among rocks when disturbed. In the same 

 locality 25 additional specimens have been dug out of the gravel by Mr. 

 E. C. Starks in 1895. The species is still unknown from any other locality. 

 }, the wary one, the fox.) 



Scytalina cerdale, JORDAN & GILBERT, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., in, 1880, 266, Waadda Island 

 (Type No. 27400. Coll. Jordan & Gilbert); JORDAN & GILBERT, Synopsis, 791,1883; 

 JORDAN & STARKS, Fishes of Puget Sound, in Proc. Cal. Ac. Sci. 1895, 849, pi. 104. 



Family CCVI. ZOARCID^E. 

 (THE EEL-POUTS.) 



Body elongate, more or less eel-shaped, naked or covered with very 

 small, embedded, cycloid scales; head large; mouth large, with conical 

 teeth in jaws, and sometimes on vomer and palatines; bones of head 

 unarmed. Gill membranes broadly united to the isthmus, the gill open- 

 ing reduced to a vertical slit; pseudobranchiae present; gills 4, a slit 

 behind the fourth. Dorsal and anal fins very long, of soft rays only, or 

 the dorsal with a few spines in its posterior portion ; vertical fins some- 

 times confluent around the tail; pectorals small; ventrals jugular, very 

 small or wanting, if present, inserted behind the eye. Lateral line obsolete 

 or little developed, sometimes bent downward behind pectorals, sometimes 

 sending a branch on median line backward. Gill rakers small; pyloric 

 cseca rudimentary; vent not near head. Pseudobranchiaj present. Genera 

 about 15 ; species 50. Bottom fishes, chiefly of the Arctic and Antarctic 

 seas ; some of them, at least, are viviparous, and some descend to consid- 

 erable depths. Dr. Gill thus enumerates the skeletal characters of the 

 Zoarcidce: 



Orbito-rostral portion of the cranium contracted and shorter than the 

 posterior, the cranial cavity open in front, but bounded laterally by the 

 expansion of the annectant parasphenoid and froutals, with the supra- 

 occipital declivous and tectiform behind, the occipitals above inclined 

 forward along the sides of the supraoccipital, and the exoccipital condyles 

 distant, with the hypercoracoid foraminate about its center and the hypo- 

 coracoid with an inferior process convergent to the proscapula. These 

 characters are formulated from the skeleton of Zoarces anguillaris. (Gill, 

 Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1884, 179.) ZoarcMdce,* SWAINSON, Nat. Hist. 

 Class. Fishes, n, 82, 184, and 283, 1839. Lycodidce, GUNTHER, Cat., iv, 319- 

 326, 1862; genus Zoarces, GUNTHER, Cat., in, 295. 1861. 



ZOAKCINJE: 



I. Dorsal fin low behind, some of its posterior rays short and spine-like; ventrals 



small; scales present; teeth strong, conic, in jaws only; lateral line present, 

 along middle of side. ZOARCES, 931. 



II. Dorsal fin continuous, of soft rays only. 



* The name ZoarcMdce or Zoarcidcr, is prior to that of Lycodidce. 



