FISHES OF NEW YORK 



639 



Genus myoxocephalus (Steller) Tilesius v 



Body slender or robust, subfusiform, covered with thick skin, 

 in which are sometimes embedded prickly plates; deciduous, 

 granular, or stellate tubercles also sometimes present, but no 

 true scales. Head large. Mouth terminal, large, the lower jaw 

 always included, the uppermost the longer; villiform teeth on 

 the jaws and vomer, none on the palatines; suborbital stay 

 strong; preopercle with two strong straight spines above 

 directed backward, and one below directed downward and for- 

 ward; operele, nasal bones, orbital rim, and shoulder girdle more 

 or less armed; gill membranes forming a fold across the rather 

 narrow isthmus; slit behind last gill reduced to a mere pore, or 

 wanting; vertebrae about 28. Branchiostegals mostly six. 

 Dorsal fins two, separate, the first short, its spines rather slen- 

 der; ventral rays I, 3; caudal fin mode'rate, fan-shaped; pectoral 

 fin broad, its lower rays procurrent. Lateral line well devel- 

 oped, its tubes sometimes provided with bony or cartilaginous 

 plates, never chainlike nor reduced to separated pores. Species 

 numerous, in the seas of northern regions; coarse fishes, little 

 valued as food. 



Subgenus acanthocottus Girard 



312 Myoxocephalus aeneus (Mitchill) 

 Grubby; Brassy Sculpin; Pigmy Sculpin 



Cottus wneus Mitchill, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y. I, 380, 1815, New 



York; Cuviek &; Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss. IV, 189, 1829; 



De Kay, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 52, 1842 (not figure); Goode & Bean, 



Bull. Essex Inst. XI, 13, 1879; Jordan & Gilbert, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. 



Mus. 702, 1883; Bean, 19th Rep. Comm. Fish. N. Y. 251, 1890'. 

 Cottus Scorpio Mitchill, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y. I, 380, 1815, New 



York. 

 Cottus mitcMlli Cuvier & Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss. IV, 188, 1829, 



New York; De Kay, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 53, pi. 17, fig. 47, 1842; 



Gunther, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus. II, 164, 1860. 

 Cottus (AcantJiooottusJ anceps Sauvage, Nouv. Archiv. Mus. Paris (2), I, 145, 



pi. 1, fig. 13, 1878, New York. 

 Acanthocottus ceneus Bean, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. IX, 369, 1897; H. M. 



Smith, Bull. U. S. F. C. 1897, 105, 1898. 

 Myoxocephalus ceneus Jordan «& Evermann, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. II, 



1972, 1898, pi. OCXOV, fig. 716, 716a, 1900. 



