2172 Bulletin 4.7, United States National Museum. 



bands, the 3 median broadest and forked or Y-shaped above ; upper edge 

 of pectoral pale; pectoral appendages reddish, barred with darker. 

 Young with soft dorsal, caudal, anal and ventral fins plain ; spines pro- 

 portionally longer and fins shorter. South Atlantic coast, from Long 

 Island to Brazos Santiago; very common southward; our description 

 chiefly from Galveston specimens, verified on others from Pensacola, 

 Cedar Keys, Charleston, and Beaufort. A very abundant species, well dis- 

 tinguished from the others of the Atlantic by the greater development of 

 the spines of the head. The young have these spines much larger and 

 more compressed than the adult, and in the very young 3 or 4 strong 

 knife-like spines are developed on each side of the snout, as in P. horrens. 

 In very young examples the spine at the base of the preopercular spine is 

 much larger than the latter. (tribuluSj scraping, from the thorny head.) 



Trigla Carolina, BLOCH, Ichthyologia, 352, 1793, Carolina ; not of LINNAEUS. 



Trigla tribulus, CUVIEE, Regne Animal, Ed. 2, vol. 2, 161, 1829, America. 



Prionotus tribulus, CUVIER & VALENCIENNES, Hist. Nat. Poiss., iv, 98, pi. 74, 1829, New 

 York; Carolina; DE KAY, New York Fauna : Fishes, 48, ]842; GUNTHER, Cat., n, 195, 

 I860-; JORDAN & GILBERT, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1878, 373 and 374; GOODE, Proc.U. S. 

 Nat. Mus. 1879, ill; GOODE & BEAN, Proc. U. S.Nat. Mus. 1879, 128; JORDAN & GIL- 

 BERT, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 288 ; JORDAN & GILBERT, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, 

 615; JORDAN & GILBERT, Synopsis, 735, 1883; BEAN, Cat. Fishes, London Intern. 

 Exhibit., 49, 1883; JORDAN & SWAIN, Proc. U. S, Nat. Mus. 1884, 233; JORDAN, Cat. 

 Fish. N. A., 115, 1885; JORDAN & HUGHES, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1886, 366. 



2500. PRIONOTUS HORBE1VS, Richardson. 



Head2; depth 4; eye 5^ in head. D. X-12; A. 10; scales about 100; 

 gill rakers rather long, about 5 developed. Body rather stout ; head large ; 

 interorbital area concave, 1 J times diameter of the eye ; bones of the head 

 with strong, radiating stria3 ; a preocular and 2 postocular spines ; occipi- 

 tal and temporal ridges not very prominent, each ending in a spine; 

 opercular and humeral spines simple; preopercular spine with a smaller 

 one at its base; nuchal spine present; snout emarginate, its lobes den- 

 tate, its length 2 in head; cheek with spine at point of radiation of 

 striae; a, similar spine about distance to tip of snout; first dorsal spine 

 nearly as long as second, its edge nearly smooth ; the second the longest, 

 its length 2 in head; edge of first dorsal ray smooth; longest dorsal ray 

 2| in head ; longest anal ray 3 in head ; caudal fin emarginate, If in head ; 

 pectorals rather short, their tips reaching about third anal ray, 3 in length 

 of the body ; ventrals not reaching anal by a distance equal to the diam- 

 eter of the eye, 3| in length of body. Color, uniform brownish above, 

 lighter below ; spinous dorsal dusky ; no distinct black blotch ; soft dorsal 

 and caudal fins irregularly barred; ventrals -and anal white; pectoral 

 dusky on basal third, the rest of the fin lighter, with an interrupted broad 

 black transverse band across middle, a narrower one across the tip. 

 Pacific coast of tropical America; not rare in shallow water; known from 

 Mazatlan to the Galapagos.. The specimens here described from Mazatlan 

 and Albatross Station 3041, off Lower California. Young examples in the 

 British Museum are almost exactly like the young of P. tribulus, differ- 

 ing chiefly in the still larger proportionate size of the knife-like spines 

 on the head, 



