374 D— 
Zoancus. Cuv. 
Generic characters. Body elongated, covered with 
a mucous secretion; head smooth, muzzle blunt; 
ventral fins situated before the pectorals ; dorsal, 
anal and caudal fins united ; all the fins very thick ; 
vent anterior to the middle of the body, its situation 
marked by a tubercle ; teeth conical, placed in a sin- 
gle row ; branchiostegous rays 6. 
Z. anguillaris. Peck. The eel-shaped Blenny. 
Memoirs American Academy, vol. ii. et fig. 
Trans. Lit. et Philosoph. Soc. N. Y. vol. i. p. 375, et fig. 
Me Murtrie's Cuv. vol. iii. p. 177. 
Although Dr. Mitchell called this ves « labro- 
sus,” in his paper on the “ Fishes of New York," 
read before the “ Literary and Philosophical Society ` 
of New York," in 1814, and Cuvier has retained this 
specific name in his * Regne Animal," still, as Peck, 
in 1794, wrote a good description of this fish under 
the name of “ Blennius anguillaris,” and published 
his account, accompanied by a very respectable fig- 
ure, in the 2d part of the 2d volume of the “ Me- 
moirs of the American Academy of Arts and Scien- 
ces,” in 1804, I should be doing injustice to the 
memory of a distinguished naturalist, were I not so 
regardful of his honor as to acknowledge the pri- 
ority of his description, and to attempt the estab- 
lishment of his specific name. 
This species, which is incorrectly ealled by our 
fishermen the “ling,” sometimes attains the size of 
three and a half feet. It is seldom met with in Bos- 
