82 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



[38.] 1. Notacanthus nasus. (Cuvier.) Beaked Notacanth. 



Family, ScomberoideEe, Cuvier. Genus, Notacanthus (Acanthonotus), Bloch. 

 Acanthonotus nasus. Block, t. 431. Schneider, Bloch, p. 390. 

 Le Notacanthe nez (Notacanthus nasus). Cuv. et Val., viii., p. 467. 



The genera Rhynchobdella and Mastacembelus, are arranged in the Histoire 

 des Poissons as an appendix to the second tribe of Scomberoidese, to which they 

 bear nearly the same relation that the Xiphidee do to the first tribe, by the want of 

 ventrals ; and they also, by a singular coincidence, show an analogy to the Xip- 

 hidee, in possessing a somewhat prominent snout. Notacanthus resembles these 

 genera in having a series of free spines, unconnected by membrane, in place of a 

 dorsal fin, free spines before the anal, which is long and joins the caudal, small 

 oval scales, and a prominent snout ; but it differs from them in having ventrals, 

 and from the rest of the Scomberoidese in these fins being attached to the abdomen 

 far behind the pectorals. It has also some other extraordinary characters. 



Its form is riband-like, being greatly elongated and compressed. The anus is about one- 

 seventh of the total length, nearer to the snout than to the tip of the caudal. There are 

 about eighty rows of scales in a longitudinal line. 



Fins— Br. 8; D. 10/0; A. 13/116 ; C. 8; P. 17 ; V. 1/8. (Hist des Poiss.) 

 8; 10/10; A. & C. 13/149; 16; 2/10. (Schneider.) 



There are about thirty cylindrical, slightly-flattened teeth crowded into a single row on each 

 side of the upper jaw, and more slender, pointed, and slightly curved ones in the lower jaw, 

 disposed in three or four rows anteriorly, and in one on the sides. (Hist, des Poiss.) 



This fish was supposed by Bloch to be an inhabitant of the Indian Ocean ; but 

 it is, in fact, the native of a widely-distant country. Fabricius received a specimen 

 from Greenland, and described it under the generic appellation of Campylodon. 

 It was found in the winter time, lying dead near a hole in the ice, on one of the 

 rivers of that country, but it was not known whether it had come out of the Avater 

 by itself, or had been taken and abandoned there by a fisherman. 



Four of the third tribe of Scomberoideas, or those which have the sides of the 

 tail and part, or the whole, of the rest of the lateral line armed with scaly plates, 

 are known to frequent the coasts of the United States ; viz., Caranx punctatus, 

 C. chrysos, Argyreyosus vomer, and Vomer Broivnii, but the limit of their range 

 northwards is not ascertained Zeus gallus, L., is mentioned by Fabricius in the 



