GILL] LIFE HISTORIES OF TOADFISHES 415 
The family includes six or seven known species which have been 
generally retained in the single genus Trachinus but by others 
deemed to be referable to two or three genera. The distribution 
would be remarkable if real! All the described species are confined 
to the east Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts but one—and that 
one has been accredited to Chile. The so-called Chilian species 
(Trachinus cornutus), however, has not been found by Chilian 
ichthyologists and, in the “Catalogo de los Peces de Chile por 
Fedrico T. Delfin” (1901, p. 82), that as well as T. draco (the 
European greater weever) is retained as a Chilian fish solely on 
the authority of European authors. 
Only two of the Trachinids are found in Northern Europe, the 
greater weever (Tvrachinus draco) and lesser weever (Echichthys 
vipera). According to Boeke (1903), “both species are present in 
considerable abundance. The lesser weever is captured more often 
on the English. coast (in the shrimp nets and sometimes in the 
trawl)”; the greater weever “ especially on the Dutch coast, where 
they arrive in great numbers in summer to spawn, though here, too, 
the lesser weever is by no means rare. Both decrease in numbers 
towards the north.” In the Baltic and further north only the greater 
weever occurs as a regular inhabitant although the lesser weever 
is admitted by Smith as an occasional or accidental visitor. “‘On 
the whole the lesser weever has a more southern distribution and 
lives in the shallow water near the shore and on sandbanks; the 
greater weever lives in deeper water.” 
All the species bear the English name weever, sometimes written 
weaver ; this is by some claimed to be a derivative of the Anglo- 
Saxon word for a viper or serpent (wivere) and cognate with 
wivern, the dragon of heraldry, and by others to be a corruption of 
the French name for the fish (vive) or at least cognate with it. 
While weever is the best known and book name, however, it is not 
the only one. According to Day, the greater weever or stingfish 
is also known as the seacat (in Sussex), catfish, stingbull, and 
sand-eelbill (Ayrshire), while the little weever or stingfish is dis- 
tinguished as the adder-pike, otter-pike, bishop, blackfin, and stony 
cobbler. 
The weevers are essentially bottom fishes and affect sandy coasts 
specifically. According to Smith, “the greater weever lives in 
of the “ Trachinus vipera” (p. 131); it is contradicted by Day (1, 82) who 
attributes to the species “a row of small papille along the upper edge of 
the lower lip.” Papille are developed along the upper as well as the lower 
lip so large as to be readily discernible by the naked eye (of some persons 
at least). 
