2094 Bulletin 4.7, United States National Museum. 



gray, dusky below; a black band from mouth across orbit to pectoral and 

 alongside of body, much interrupted; dark markings deepest on sides 

 of body; a dark cross baud halfway between occiput and dorsal, 1 in front 

 of dorsal, 1 under posterior half of dorsal (running up on latter), and about 

 2 on caudal peduncle; posterior half of dorsal dark, marbled; a marbled 

 patch at base of pectorals, another on their distal third ; ventrals pale in 

 both sexes; anal with dark patches on or behind the rays, darker posteri- 

 orly; caudal black at its base and on its distal half, the 2 patches con- 

 nected by a black band along middle of fin, leaving 2 light patches on the 

 dorsal and ventral thirds of the proximal half of the fin ; the bands of 

 color very much as in A* monopterygius, but better defined. Length 4 

 inches. Coast of Alaska, south to Vancouver Island; not abundant; 

 recorded from Vancouver Island (Giinther) ; eastern Aleutian Islands, 34 

 to 59 fathoms, and Bristol Bay. (Gilbert.) Here described from speci- 

 mens from the Aleutian Islands and Bristol Bay. (inermis, unarmed.) 



Aspidophoroidesinermis, GUNTHER, Cat., n, 524, 1860, Vancouver Island ; LUTKEN, Forelob. 

 Medd.omNord. TJlkefiske; Yidensk. Meddel. NaUirhist. Foren. Kjob., 385, 1876; JOR- 

 DAN & GILBERT, Synopsis, 725, 1883 ; JORDAN, Cat. Fishes 1ST. A., 113, 1885. 



Anoplagonus inermie, GILL, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., xm, 1861, 167. 



Family CLXXXII. CYCLOPTERUXE.* 

 (THE LUMP SUCKERS.) 



Body short and thick, more or less elevated, covered with a thick skin, 

 which is smooth, tubercular, or spinous ; head short and thick ; suborbital 



* Dr. Gill thus defines the superfamily Cyclopteroidea, including the Oyclopteridce and the 

 Liparididce, the group being equivalent to that called by other writers "Discoboli" : 



"Acanthoptergians with the third infraorbital bone developed as a stay obliquely cross- 

 ing the cheek and connecting with the preoperculuin, the myodome suppressed, the post 

 temporal bifurcate and normally connected with the cranium, the actinosts enlarged and 

 mostly connected with the inner ridge of the proscapula, the hypercoracoid being dis- 

 lodged upward and the hypercoracoid downward on a row with the 4 actinosts; ribs ses- 

 sile on the vertebral centra or hsemapophyses ; pharyngials reduced to the large 

 epipharyngeal (homologous with the third of typical Acanthoptergians), and ventrals 

 modified to form a suctorial disk supported by 6 immovable rays on each side converted 

 into osseous tissue and without articulations; typically suppressed. They appear to 

 have the branchial apparatus constructed on the same plan as in the Cotioidea,- 2 or 3 

 basibranchials ossified; hypobranchials of 3 pairs in line with the corresponging cerato- 

 branchials of fourth arch suppressed; ceratobranchials of all and epibranchials (of all or 

 3) arches well developed; pharyngobranchials reduced to 1 pair of compressed epipharyn- 

 geals; hypopharyngeals divergent and rather compressed. There are 3 gills, that is 

 double branchiae, on all the arches except the fourth, which has a single row of filaments. 

 There is no fissure behind the fourth arch." (Gill.) 



Mr. Garman (Monograph of the Discoboli, 1892, 19) has the following remarks on the 

 Cyclopteridce: 



"Anteriorly the form of the lump fishes is stout, thick, and deep; behind the body 

 cavity, which occupies the greater portion of the length, it rather abruptly becomes 

 weak and slender. The head is short and broad, subquadrangular in transsection ; the 

 snout is short and blunt; the mouth is of moderate width, anterior, and opens slightly 

 upward; the teeth are small, subconical, and arranged in a baud or cord; the eyes are of 

 medium size and have a lateral outlook. All of the members of the family have pseudo- 



nd 



ng the sides of the disk. The vertical fins are not of large 

 extent ; the caudal and the 2 dorsals are quite separate. The disk is comparatively large. 

 Early in life the skin is' tender and naked; later it grows tough and is covered with 

 roughened or spine-bearing osseous tubercles. Semicartilaffinous describes the skeleton 

 with tolerable accuracy ; the small amount of bony matter lies in thin plates, often form- 

 ing cells and chambers similar to those to be noticed in the bones of Lophius. The third 



