FISHES. 



253 



and their enlarged pectorals are adaptable for short flights through the air. Hence 

 they have received, in common with the Exoccetines, the name of flying-fishes, and 

 are also called flying-robins, and bat-fishes. They are not, however, as good flyers as 

 most of the ExocoBtines. They associate together in schools, and are mainly inhab- 

 itants of the warm seas, although the best known species, Cephalacanthus or Dacty- 

 lopterus volitans, reaches quite a high latitude, for instance, the banks of Newfoundland. 

 Sometimes individuals reach a length of eighteen inches, but twelve inches is a much 

 more usual size. The changes undergone in course of growth are quite remarkable, 

 the young having comparatively short pectorals, and being otherwise difierent, so that 

 it was formerly considered to be a distinct generic type, the name Cephalacanthus 

 being given to it, while the old was known as Dactylopterus. The American natural- 

 ists have adopted the former name instead of the latter, because it was the first 

 given ; it is also the best, and alludes to one of the most characteristic features, the 

 long spines of the preoj^erculum, 

 while Dacti/lopterus, meaning 

 fingered fin, implies just what it 

 has not, and the absence of which 

 is one of the characters distin- 

 guishing it from the Triglidse. 



A family quite clinracteristic 

 of the North Pacific is one called 

 Chieidje. They may be known 

 by the compressed oblong, or 

 rather elongated, body, the long 

 double dorsal, of which the 

 spinous and soft parts are nearly 

 equal, and the jierfect thoracic ventral fins, 

 families. 



The species of one group are quite generally known as rock-trout. They have, in 

 addition to the latei-al line, other lines near the back, and near the belly and anal fin. 

 Besides rock-trout, they are called, in common with the Scorpsenidse, rock-cod, and 

 also sea-trout, boregata or boregat, bodieron and starling. They live chiefly in mode- 

 rately deep water, and feed mainly on crustaceans and small fishes. Two species 

 {Hexagrammiis lagocep>lialus and H. decagrammus) occur along the Californian 

 coast, and another {H. steUeri) is common farther northward. They are pretty 

 nearly of the same size, growing to a length of about fifteen inches, and a weight of 

 two or three pounds. As food fishes they are of " fair quality." The H. decagram- 

 mus " dies at once on being taken from the water, and the flesh becomes rigid and 

 does not keep as well as the other rock-fish." 



A better and larger fish of the family is one generally known at San Francisco as 

 the cod-fish ( Ophiodon elongatus) ; it is also called bastard cod, cultus cod, green cod, 

 buffalo cod, etc. The form is more regularly elongate than in the other Chiridfe, and 

 there are no supernumerary lateral lines. It sometimes reaches a length of five feet, 

 and a weight of fifty or sixty pounds. " As a food-fish it holds a high rank, being 

 considered rather superior to the rock-fish," or the species of Sebastichthys, etc., and 

 " from its great abundance, it is one of the most important fishes on the Pacific coast." 



Neatly related to the Chiridse is a fish which, by itself alone represents a peculiar 

 family — the Anoplopomid^. It is an elongate fish, with fins much like those of the 



Fig. 143. — Cephalacanthus volitans, flying-fish, flying-robin, bat fish. 



There are four different groups or sub- 



