Jordan and Evermann. Pishes of North America. 597 



small, acute, and numerous; vomerine fangs very large, nearly equal, 

 slender, and slightly curved, the longest 6| in head ; large palatine teeth 

 similar, about 10 in hea;l ; small trenchant teeth behind them, large teeth 

 of lower jaw 12 in head, slender, moderately curved. First dorsal ray 

 rather stout and with a prominent compressed ridge anteriorly, which is 

 crenulate in front; ventral fins at least as long as head, the first ray 

 undivided, creuulate. 



Alaska to Puget Sound, occasionally cast on shore by storms ; only 

 mutilated specimens yet seen. The head in the type 1\ inches long. 

 The type from Puget Sound ; another taken by Prof. George Davidson 

 at Captain's Harbor, Uualaska; ahead from Puget Sound, and another 

 from the Aleutian Islands, preserved in collections in San Francisco, are 

 the only specimens known, (borealis, northern.) 



Alepidosanrm (Caulopux) borealis, GILL, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1862, 128, Puget Sound; 

 GUNTHER, Cat., v. 423, 1864; JOBDAN & GILBERT, Synopsis, 278, 1883. 



893. ALEPISAURUS SERRA (Gill). 



(SERRA.) 



Head 6 in total length, flattish above, its height f its length ; eye 5 in 

 head; snout 2 in head; V. 13; snbopercle divided into two parts by a 

 ridge, the upper nearly equally triangular, its base lunately emarginate, 

 with 10 to 14 radiating striae ; the lower portion with its upper surface 

 wrinkled parallel with the oblique posterior margin, its lower half with 

 slight radiating striae ; lower jaw li in head, its upper outline nearly 

 straight; longest vomerine teeth 8 in head; smaller palatine teeth closer 

 together than in A. borealis', fins destroyed, except base of ventral. This 

 11 species differs from Caulopus borealis by the oblong operculum, and the 

 nearly equal triangular shape of the coalescent infraopercular bone (sub- 

 opercle and interopercle) above the dividing ridge, but with an oblique 

 excavation at its base, which describes nearly the third of a circle, as 

 well as the sculpture of the portion below the dividing ridge. The 

 vomerino teeth are stronger, but less elongated, and the palatine approx- 

 imated and not curved. (Gill.) Known from one specimen discovered 

 at Monterey, California, by Mr. A. S. Taylor, in 1859. It weighed 7 

 pounds; its length 4 feet; the sun-dried fragments constituting the 

 type of the description, (serra, saw, the Spanish name. ' which has the 

 advantage of at the same time perpetuating the popular name, and of 

 being classical, and of describing one of the peculiarities of the palatine 

 dentition which distinguishes it from the A. (C.) borealis. 1 " (Gill.) 

 Alepidosattnw (Caulopus) serra, GILL, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1862, 129, " Monterey, Lower 

 California." (Coll. A. S. Taylor.) 



Family LXXXII. ODONTOSTOMID.E. 



Body oblong, compressed, naked ; mouth very wide, its margin formed 

 by premaxillaries only ; premaxillaries with curved teeth ; large, curved, 

 lanceolate, depressible teeth on mandible, vomer, and palatines. Eye 

 very large, the orbital cavity expanded downward. Dorsal short, 



