404 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
° 
OTHER GENERA 
Other genera of Batrachoidids are Halophryne or Marcgravia and 
Thallassothia. 
II. THe STARGAZERS. 
The Uranoscopids or Stargazers are a very natural and well 
defined family readily distinguishable by their form and physiog- 
nomy. The general form is oblong and the head more or less 
cuboidal, with the eyes on the upper surface looking directly up- 
wards; the mouth is almost or quite vertical, the snout being short 
and the suspensorium for the lower jaw pushing forward; the 
branchial apertures are very large, procurrent below in front of the 
pubic bones and covered in front by a fold of skin, continued from 
the branchiostegal membrane; the dorsal furniture is mostly de- 
veloped as two fins, a short spinous one and a long soft one, but in 
a few the spinous fin is obsolete or united ,with the soft and con- 
sequently there is only a single fin; the anal fin is oblong and spine- 
less; the pectoral fins have very wide bases procurrent forwards, 
and the ventral are close together, inserted far forwards under the 
throat, and have the normal acanthopterygian structure (1+ 5). 
Coincident with these are many other characteristics, superficial 
as well as anatomical. Granular ossification is variously developed 
on the roof as well as sides of the head, and a membranous sub- 
opercular border is more or less developed and may extend forwards 
and connect with the fold covering the branchiostegal membrane. 
The lips are deeply slashed or fringed and the opercular membrane 
is also sometimes fringed. 
The species are inhabitants of warm or temperate waters, some 
two dozen being known, representing eight or nine genera. Most 
of the genera are notably distinct and some of the kinds of variation 
may be realized by comparison of the main characteristics of the 
European and American species, the former being typical of the 
genus Uranoscopus and the latter constituting the genera Astro- 
scopus, Kathetostoma and Execestides. It is only some of the most 
salient characters that are utilized for the distinction of the genera, 
for there are many more that differentiate them from each other 
and from other genera. 
I 
The Uranoscopes (Uranoscopus) have the opercles free all 
around, the branchial apertures extending upwards and forwards in 
front of the suprascapular region; the skull is completely ossified 
