Ij6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS I VOL. 50 



ventrals, a short anal, generally a short, soft dorsal, and, typically, a 

 more or less distinct spinous dorsal, but sometimes none at all. 



Such are the chief superficial characters common to all the species ; 

 but if we would appreciate the distinctness of the family, we must 

 examine the skeleton. The species are few, but the differences be- 

 tween them great. All those that are certainly known are confined 

 to the cold northern seas and most of them to the high Pacific Ocean 

 or Bering Sea. The two best known, however, are inhabitants of 

 the North Atlantic ; one of these, the name-giving member of the 

 family, is familiar to all frequenters of the high northern waters ; the 

 other, Euniicrotrcmus spinosus, is a more northern form, beyond the 

 ken of most civilized men, and, being a small and deep-living form, 

 has received no popular name. 



A peculiar characteristic of the Cyclopterids, and especially of the 

 common Lumpsucker, is the extreme reduction of the osseous ele- 

 ments and the inverse development of the cartilaginous skeleton. 

 The extent of the cartilage is such that a skeleton cannot be made, or 

 at least kept, like that of an ordinary fish, but shrinks and becomes 

 distorted and shriveled up. All the bones, however, are there, but 

 existent in a reduced state or as thin membrane-like pieces fastened 

 to the cartilaginous mass. On account of this condition of the skel- 

 eton, the old writers on ichthyology were greatly misled as to the 

 relationship of the fish, and Linnaeus, in his classification, ranged the 

 fish with the sharks, rays, sturgeons, and some others in a group 

 which he called the order Chondropterygii. It has, however, not the 

 slightest affinity with any of those fishes, but is really most nearly 

 related to the Sculpins or Cottids, which have the bones firm and 

 well ossified and very little persistent cartilage. 1 Like them, never- 

 theless, the Lumpsuckers have the second suborbital bone after the 

 preorbital broad and obliquely prolonged to the inner margin of the 

 preopercle to connect as a stay with the latter. Coordinate with this 

 structure are numerous modifications of the skeleton which essen- 

 tially resemble corresponding ones of the Cottids. Especially note- 

 worthy are the characteristics of the bases of the pectoral fins. (See 



%• 3 2 -) 



II 



The species of Cyclopterids are few, but so distinct that there are 

 almost as many genera as species. Only eleven species are definitely 



1 The characteristics and affinities of the Lumpsuckers have been considered 

 by the present writer in an article "on the relations of the Cyclopteroidea," in 

 the Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum for 1890 (xiii, 361-376, pis. 

 28-30). 



