530 The Blennies: Blenniide 
“The whole disk is exceedingly large, subcircular, longer 
than broad, its length being (often) one-third of the whole 
length of the fish. The central portion is formed merely by 
skin, which is separated from the pelvic or pubic bones by 
several layers of muscles. The peripheric portion is divided 
into an anterior and posterior part by a deep notch behind the 
ventrals. The anterior peripheric portion is formed by the 
ventral rays, the membrane between them and a broad fringe 
which extends anteriorly from one ventral to the other. This 
fringe is a fold of the skin, containing on one side the rudimen- 
tary ventral spine, but no cartilage. The posterior peripheric 
portion is suspended on each side on the coracoid, the upper 
bone of which is exceedingly broad, becoming a free, movable 
plate behind the pectoral. The lower bone of the coracoid is 
of a triangular form, and supports a very broad fold of the skin, 
extending from one side to the other, and containing a carti- 
lage which runs through the whole of that fold. Fine processes 
of the cartilage are continued into the soft striated margin, 
in which the disk terminates posteriorly. The face of the disk 
is coated with a thick epidermis, like the sole of the foot in 
higher animals. The epidermis is divided into many polygonal 
plates. There are no such plates between the roots of the 
ventral fins.” 
The body is formed much as in the toadfishes. The skin 
is naked and there is no spinous dorsal fin. The skeleton shows 
I 
Pein. 
Fig. 482.—Aspasma ciconie Jordan & Snyder. Wakanoura, Japan. 
several peculiarities; there is no suborbital ring, the palatine 
arcade is reduced, as are the gill-arches, the opercle is reduced 
to a spine-like projection, and the vertebree are numerous. The 
species are found in tide-pools in the warm seas, where they 
cling tightly to the rocks with their large ventral disks. 
