cottoide^e. 37 



is widely spread in the higher northern latitudes, Cephalacanthus is proper to 

 South America, and Prionotus is common to both these districts. The habitat of 

 Tcenianotus is unknown, and it is consequently scarce, and most probably found 

 only in one locality. Of the twenty-five genera, therefore, which compose the 

 family of Cottoidege, sixteen are peculiar to certain limited portions of the ocean; 

 and eight of the remainder have species in two or more distinct districts. Hop- 

 lostethus has one Mediterranean species, and the only known specimen of a second 

 was taken from the stomach of a shark, caught in the Atlantic at some distance 

 from the coast of South America. Agriopus has one species not uncommon off 

 the Cape of Good Hope, and another in the sea of Chili. Sebastes has species in 

 the Mediterranean, and also in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans : this 

 form, which approaches nearer to the Percoideee than the other Cottoidese, having 

 a veiy general distribution. Aspidophorus has several species in the more northern 

 latitudes of the Pacific, and on the European and American sides of the North 

 Sea. The Trlgla are known in the Mediterranean, on both sides of the northern 

 Atlantic, at the Cape of Good Hope, in the Indian Ocean, the Australian Sea, and 

 in the seas of Japan and Kamtschatka *. Cottus, a genus either littoral or frequent- 

 ing tidal estuaries, with some entirely fresh-water species, has a very wide distri- 

 bution in the northern hemisphere, existing in the rivers and lakes of Europe, Asia, 

 and America, in Lake Baikal, the Icy sea of Asia, the Baltic, the North Sea, English 

 Channel, the seas of Iceland, Greenland, and Baffin's Bay, the Polar Sea, on the 

 Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America, and in the seas of Kamtschatka and 

 Japan ; but it is unknown in the Mediterranean and more southern districts of the 

 ocean, Scorp<ena, again, is comparatively a tropical genus, most of its species 

 being inhabitants either of the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and Archipelago, or of 

 the Polynesian seas ; it is known, however, also in the Mediterranean, in the 

 Atlantic, on the European side from the English Channel to the Canaries, and on 

 the American side from the United States to the Brazils ; it bears, like its sub- 

 genus Sebastes, a close resemblance to the Percoidese. Gasterosteus, consisting 

 principally of anadromous species, has a wide range in the northern hemisphere, 

 being found in the rivers of Europe, Greenland, and America, in the Baltic, both 

 sides of the North Atlantic, and in the sea of Kamtschatka. A new species has 

 even been detected at Otaheite by the naturalists of Captain Beechey's Expedition, 

 though there is none mentioned in the Histoire des Poissons, as occurring in the 

 southern hemisphere. 



* A species of Trigla is mentioned in the Appendix to Captain Beechey's Voyage, as occurring in the harbour of Rio 

 Janeiro, but it was most probably a Prionotus, perhaps the punetatus, which is known to exist there. 



