658 NEW YORK STATE MU'SEIDM 



At the latter place they were associated with Fundulus, 

 Oyprinodon, Lucanla, Mugil, Bairdiella, 

 A n g u i 1 1 a , and swarms of shrimp. 



This little goby seizes its food with a snap, and immediately 

 darts off to conceal itself in a rock crevice or behind plants. 



Group TRAGHINOIDEI 

 Trachinoid fishes 

 Family ur^^noscopidae 

 Starga^e7^s 

 Subfamily ura.noscof'inae:; 

 G-enus astrosoopus Brevoort 

 Body robust. Head above not entirely covered with bone, the 

 occipital plate ceasing much behind the orbits; from the middle 

 line anteriorly a Y-shaped bony process extends forward, the 

 tips of the fork between the eyes; a trapezoidal space on either 

 side of the Y, covered by naked skin, bounded by the Y, the 

 .eyes, the suborbitals, and the occipital plate. A covered furrow 

 behind and on the inner side of each eye terminating near front 

 of orbits, its edges fringed. Head without spines; humeral spine 

 obsolete; lips and nostrils fringed; no retractile tentacle in 

 mouth. Young individuals with top of head largely covered by 

 bone. Head scaleless; back and sides covered with close set 

 scales; belly mostly naked. No spine hef ore the ventrals. First 

 dorsal small, of four or five low, stout, pungent spines, connected 

 by membrane to the second dorsal which is rather high and long; 

 pectorals and ventrals large. Species American, distinguished 

 from the Old World genus, Uranoscopus, chiefly by the 

 unarmed head. 



322 Astroscopus guttatus Abbott 



Spotted Star gazer 



Astroscopus guttatus Abbott, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 365, 1860, Cape 

 May, N. J.; Bean, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. IX, 370, 1897; Jordan 

 & EVERMANN, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. Ill, 2310, 1898. 



Upsilonphorus guttatus Bean, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 60, 1879; Kirscii, 

 Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 264, 1889. 



Astroscopus anoplus Bean, Bull. U. S. F. C. VII, 136, pi. I, figs. 1, 2, 1888, 

 Somers Point, N. J., not Uranoscopus anoplos C. & V, 



