cottoidejE. 45 



Its margins are formed by the intermaxillaries and lower jaw. The maxillaries have an 

 elongated wedo-e-form, and lie in a membrane behind the intermaxillaries. Both jaws and 

 the vomer are set with bands of fine teeth, en velours. Tongue obtuse and smooth, as are the 

 palate and maxillaries. The preoperculum is armed beneath with three strong divaricated 

 spines, the posterior one, which measures half an inch, being the longest. The gill-covers are 

 composed of several bones connected by membrane, and armed on their exterior edges with 

 four or five small spinous teeth. The bones which support the pectoral fins are also armed 

 with small spines and have sharp rough edges. The branchiostegous membrane contains six 

 slender cylindrical curved rays. The Body is much narrower than the head, and tapers to 

 the insertion of the caudal fin. The anus is situated midway between the mouth and the 

 caudal. The lateral line is rough and runs near the back — above it there is a row of small 

 orbicular, scabrous, bony plates, the row being doubled opposite to the second dorsal. There 

 are no other perceptible scales. 



Fins,— Br. 6. P. 1G. V. 3. D. 7—13. A. . C. 12. 



The pectoral fins are sub-orbicular and contain sixteen rays, none of them branched. The 

 upper ray is scabrous throughout. The others are scabrous only near their middles. The 

 ventrals, soft and whitish, have three rays, of which the first is the strongest, but none of them 

 ^ire spinous *. The first dorsal commences posterior to the pectorals and terminates opposite 

 to the anus. It has seven simple rays, The second dorsal is larger and has thirteen rays. 

 Its commencement and termination correspond with those of the anal, and most of its rays 

 are scabrous. Both dorsals are rounded or arched. The anal fin occupies about two-thirds 

 of the space between the anus and caudal, commencing near the former. This fin becomes 

 slightly lower or less deep posteriorly. The caudal is cuneiform and has twelve rays, most of 

 them forked. 



Obs. In the form of the bony processes, on the top of the head, this species approaches 

 closely to C. quadricornis of the Baltic ; but it does not appear, from the descriptions I have 

 consulted, that there is a distinct pair on the nasal bones of the latter. There are also differ- 

 ences in the form of the spines of the preoperculum, those of C. hexacornis being quite simple, 

 while in the other they are truncated, or divided at, the point. In the C. quadricornis, also, 

 there is a thick spine on the supra-scapular bone, which is likewise truncated; while in C. hexa- 

 cornis, that bone, the humerals, and the gill-covers, are merely armed with small spinous 

 teeth. And the rows of scales on the body are different. 



It appears to me likely, that the C. quadricornis, Sabine (Zool., App. to Captain Parry s 

 First Voyage, p. ccxiii), may be really the C. hexacornis. Captain J. C. Ross, who con- 

 siders it to be the same with the C. scorpioides of Fabricius, says that, though very abundant 

 on the Greenland coast, it is more rare in the higher latitudes, but several were taken on 

 both sides of the peninsula of Boothia. The natives prize it highly as an article of food, 

 preferring it to cod-fish or salmon. The Esquimaux of Boothia call it Kaneeok, the same 

 name which the Greenlanders give to C. Groenlandicus. 



* It is possible that a small spine might be attached so closely to the first ray of thf ventral as to escape my observation, 

 or, as Cuvier says of the ventrals of C. scorpius, " Biles sont etroi/es, et leur (pine est si inlimemcnt unie a leur premier rayon 

 mou, qu 'elles puroissent n avoir que Irois rayons? 



