PISHES OP NEW YORK ■ 691 



■f 



Suborder anacanthini 



Jugular Fishes 

 Family ivierliiciidae^ 



WMtings 

 Genus merlucius Rafinesque 



Body elongate, covered with small, deciduous scales; head 

 slender, conic, the snout long, depressed; a well-defined, oblong, 

 triangular excavation at the forehead, bounded by the ridges 

 on the separated frontal bones, these ridges converging back- 

 ward into the low occipital crest; eye rather large; edge of 

 preopercle free; preopercle with a channel behind its crest, 

 crossed by short radiating ridges; mouth large, oblique; maxil- 

 lary extending to opposite the eye; lower jaw longer; no barbels; 

 jaws with slender teeth, of various sizes, in about two series, 

 those of the inner row longer and movable; vomer with similar 

 teeth; palatines toothless; branchiostegals seven; gill rakers 

 long; gill membranes not united; dorsal fins two, well separated, 

 the first short, the second long, with a deep emargination; anal 

 emarginate, similar to second dorsal; ventral fins well developed, 

 with about seven rays; vertebrae peculiarly modified, the neural 

 fipines well developed and wedged into one another; frontal bone 

 double and the skull otherwise peculiar in several respects. 

 Species several, very similar in appearance, ill-favored fishes of 

 soft flesh and fragile fins, inhabiting water of some depth. 

 Large, voracious, little valued as food. 



344 Merlucius bilinearis (Mitchill) 

 Whiting; Silver Hake 



Stomodon Bilinearis Mitchill, Rep, Fish. N. Y. 7, 1814. 



Gadus merlucius Mitchill, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y. I, 371, 1815. 



Gadus alUdus Mitchill, Jour. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. I, 409, 1817. 



Merlucius alhidus De Kay, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes 280, pi. 46, fig. 148, 1842; 

 Stoker, Hist. Fish. Mass. 185, pi. XXVIII, fig. 2, 1867. 



Merlucius bilinearis Goode & Bean, Bull. Essex Inst. XI, 9, 1879; Joedan & 

 Gilbert, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 809, 1883; Bean, 19th Rep. Oomm. 

 Fish. N. Y. 249, pi. IV, fig. 5, 1890; Goode & Bean, Oceanic Ichth. 386, 

 fig. 330, 1896; H. M. Smith, Bull. U. S. F. C. 1897, 107, 1898; Jordan & 

 Evermann, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. Ill, 2530, 1898; Bean, 52d Ann. 

 Rep. N. Y. State Mus. 109, 1900. 



