FAMILY ECHENEID^ — ECHENEIS. 309 



I insert tliis species as I find it in Mitchill's account of the Fishes of New- York. It varies 

 somewhat from the description of the E. naucrates, but I am inclined to believe that the 

 number of transverse plates is (although restricted within certain limits) not constant in num- 

 ber in the same species. It certainly is not in the following. 



The E. naucrates has been observed on the banks of Newfoundland. 



THE COMMON REMORA. 



ECHENEIS KEMORA. 



Echmeis remora. LiNNEDS. Schcepff, Beobachtungen u. s. w. Vol. 8, p. 145. 



Echmeis remora, Small Oceanic Sucker. Mitchill, Transact. Lit. and Phil. Soc. Vol. 1, p. 378. 



Characteristics. Dusky brown ; lighter beneath. Adhesive disk with seventeen or eighteen 

 transverse bars. Tail concave. Length 12 - 18 inches. 



Description. Form as in the preceding. Length of the head about one-fifth of the total 

 length. Head flattened above, with a disk extending from near the tip of the upper jaw to 

 the ends of the pectorals, and equal to one-third of the total length. Seventeen to eighteen 

 pairs of bony laminae, the edges of which are furnished with rows of minute tooth-like pro- 

 jections. Mouth wide ; lower jaw longest ; a single band of small incurved teeth in the upper 

 jaw, also on the vomer and tongue. Branchial aperture large. Dorsal and anal opposite and 

 coequal. Pectoral small and rounded. Ventrals narrow, and with a membrane attaching 

 them to the body. Caudal fin crescent-shaped. 



Color. Dusky brown above ; the under part of the body lighter. The fins darker than the 

 rest of the body. 



Length, 12-0- 18-0. 



Fin rays, D. 21 ; P. 22 ; V. 4 ; A. 20 ; C. 20. 



The indications given by Dr. Mitchill are sufficiently explicit to lead me to arrange this 

 species among those fishes, which, occasionally at least, visit our shores. Schcepff saw both 

 this and the preceding species taken from the bottoms of vessels in the harbor of New- York. 



(EXTRA-LmiTAL.) 



E. 14. laminatus. (Storer, 1. c. p. 155.) Reddish brown. Adhesive disk with fourteen serrated 

 bars. Length five and a half inches. Coast of Massachusetts. An juv. ? 



