3180 Bulletin ^7, United States National Museum. 



oblique rows, none below lateral line. Minute pointed teeth on .jaws, 

 vomer, and palatines: jaws subequal, mouth horizontal, the maxillary 

 reaching a vertical below the anterior edge of pupil. Margin of pre- 

 -opercle armed with one sharp spine curved upward, below which are 1 

 and sometimes 2 very short blunt processes; margin of opercle ending 

 dorsally in a pointed flap. Branchiostegals 6, the membranes broadly 

 united, free from the isthmus; no slit behind the last gill. Dorsal fins 

 not joined, the soft dorsal very large; first dorsal beginning slightly in 

 advance of opercular flap, the upper edge much rounded, the fifth spine 

 being longest; origin of soft dorsal just in front of origin of the anal 

 in the female, directly above it in the male, the fin very long; pectoral 

 large, reaching a vertical below ninth ray of soft dorsal; origin of ven- 

 trals posterior to a point midway between anal and base of pectoral in the 

 male, anterior to it in the female, the difference caused by the enlarge- 

 ment of first 2 anal rays in the male; anal fin small, the rays slender, 

 the membranes of all deeply emarginate; the first 2 anal rays of male 

 greatly enlarged, joined by membrane to each other and to the rest of 

 the fin; the posterior edge of tail nearly straight; anal papilla incon- 

 spicuous. Cirri small and scarce, always occurring singly, never in 

 bunches or joined at the base, with the exception of a few pairs along the 

 anterior third of the lateral line; one above each orbit, 2 rows of 3 each 

 behind these on top of head, 1 cirrus on the inside of each nasal spine; a 

 cirrus on the end of maxillary, 2 or 3 on the margin of the preopercle 

 below the preopercular spine, and a row along the anterior half of the 

 lateral line. Color, light olive or reddish brown tinged with lavender, 

 marked dorsally with 4 or 5 wedge-shaped, indented spots of black, a 

 broken band of same color along the lateral line, sometimes sending 

 branches below it which sht>w a tendency to inclose round spots; a more 

 or less distinct spot of black on top of the head : a faint postocular line, a 

 spot below the eye, and a preopercular line running from eye to snout, all 

 of same color; pectoral and caudal indistinctly barred with brown, anal 

 tinged with it, and the dorsal covered with fine brown or black spots 

 sometimes very faint; throat and belly pale yellowish white, unspotted. 

 This'species is most closely related to Oxycottus embryum, with which it 

 agrees in general coloration, but differs decidedly in the presence of scales, 

 the slenderer body, the larger number of soft dorsal and anal rays, the 

 serrated margin of the preopercle, and the arrangement of the cirri. 

 Rare; only 2 other specimens from Point Lobos, California, are known 

 to us. It inhabits the tide-pools lined with corallines, and in its colora- 

 tion imitates very closely these algse. Length 40 mm. The smallest of 

 our tide-pool fishes. (Greeley.) (rimus, a crevice; rimensis, living in 

 crevices.) 

 Rusciculus rimensis, GREELEY, Bull. U. S. Fish Com. 1899 (Dec. 13, 1899), 13, fig. 3, 



Point Lobos, Monterey County, Cal. (Type, No. 6067, L. S. Jr. Univ. Mus. Coll. 



A. W. Greeley.) 



746 (b). DIALARCHUS, Greeley. 



Dialarchus, GREELEY, Bull. U. S. Fish Com. 1899 (Dec. 13, 1899), 14 (anyderi). 



Preopercular spine forked at tip; scales none; first anal ray of male 

 enlarged, joined to the second, the two widely separated from the rest of 



