GILL] LIFE HISTORIES OF TOADFISHES 401 
Goode (1885) forecast for the toadfish an acceptability which it 
did not enjoy in his time; it may, he foretold, “be regarded as 
constituting one of the undeveloped resources of our waters, and 
it can scarcely be questioned that in future years it will be con- 
sidered as much more important than at present.” 
PoRICHTHYS 
.The genus Porichthys has a naked skin with several longi- 
tudinal rows of pores and shining spots, head smaller and less broad 
than in Opsanus, and with various rows of pores, the opercle chiefly 
developed as a single spine, the subopercle spineless and little 
Fic. 112.—Porichthys porosissimus. After Jordan and Evermann. 
developed, and the spinous dorsal reduced to two spines. The air- 
bladder has more attenuated anterior pointed divisions than that of 
Opsanus. 
This is a genus remarkable for the silvery spots which remind 
one of the photophores of Scopelids and other deep sea fishes, though 
they are entirely dissimilar otherwise. The three 
species are confined to the American waters. 
One of the species is common along the Cali- 
fornian coast; it is the Porichthys notatus, which at- 
tains a length of about fifteen inches. Its popular 
names are singing-fish, canary-bird-fish, midship- 
man, cabezon and sapo. “It makes a peculiar hum- 
ming noise with its air-bladder, hence the name Fig. 113.— 
singing-fish,” say Jordan and Evermann. It has areas ee 
been asserted by C. F. Holder to make “the loudest | 
noise’’ she ever “heard made, by a- fish.” \-One 
scarcely “a foot long,’ which he “kept in a tank,” would utter “a 
loud resonant croak or bark under water which could be heard with 
startling distinctness fifty feet away.” 
A couple of other genera are noteworthy, one as the name-giving 
