GILL] LIFE HISTORIES OF TOADFISHES 409 
The larva after hatching is intensely colored and much less trans- 
parent than most pelagic larvz. The larval fish, nevertheless, has a 
form not very dissimilar to that of the matured stage, or at least it 
suggestively resembles it. The internal organs, the mouth, the 
cartilaginous branchial skeleton, and the primitive cranial cartilages, 
which are mostly developed in extra-ovarian life, are all manifest 
in the egg stage. 
No data are at hand respecting the postlarval ee later devel- 
opment and growth of the fish. 
In the countries round the Mediterranean, like almost all other 
fishes, the stargazer is utilized. Considerable numbers are sold in 
the French markets of Nice, Toulon, Marseilles, and Cette, often 
intermingled with other inferior fishes. Their flesh is white but 
more or less unsavory. According to Risso, the quality depends 
on the places where the fish live, those frequenting rocky places 
being the best, and not being as tough (coriaces) as others. They 
are principally used for making an inferior chowder. 
It 
The Astroscopes (Astroscopus) have the opercles tied by mem- 
brane to the shoulders so that the branchial apertures cease a short 
distance above the level of the pectoral axilla; the head has a pair 
Fic. 118.—Astroscopus y-grecum. After Jordan and Evermann. 
of naked areas above; the preopercles and subopercles are spine- 
less, and so are the shoulder girdle and pubic bones, thus con- 
trasting pointedly with the corresponding parts of the Uranoscopes, 
but in compensation the dorsal spines are very robust and pointed. 
The anterior nostrils are subtubular with fimbriated edges; the 
posterior have raised fringes continued backwards in curves parallel 
with the upper margins of the eyes. There is no intralabial' ten- 
tacle. The differences between the Astroscopes and typical Urano- 
scopes are, indeed, so many and so great that surprise must be 
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