BATRACHOIDE^. 103 



tortus*, Chironectes lavigatus (or Lophius gibbus, Mitchill), Malthe vespertilio 

 (Loph. vespert., Schcepf.), Batrachus tau (Loph. bufo, Mitch., or Batr. vernueil, 

 Le Sueur), B. variegatus, Le Sueur, and Batrachus grunniens (or Cottus grun- 

 niens, L. Schcepf.) frequent the sea of New York. 



The Thutinameg, or Wind-jisli of Hudson's Bay, which is said to come to the 

 surface in windy weather only, belongs most probably to this family. It is, indeed, 

 referred by Pennant to Lophius piscatorius, but on the authority merely of a short 

 notice by Mr. Hutchins. It does not occur in the Fauna Grcenlandica. 



[50.] 1. Lophius (Malthe) cubifrons. (Richardson.) Square-browed 



Malthe. 



Family, Batrachoidese. Genus, Lophius. Linn. Sub-genus, Malthe. Cuv. 



The sub-genus Malthe has the following characters assigned to it in the Regne 

 Animal. The head much depressed and greatly widened by the jutting out of the 

 elongated subopercula ; the eyes far forward ; the snout projecting like a small 

 horn; the protractile mouth, of a moderate size under the snout; the gill-mem- 

 branes sustained by six or seven rays, and opening on the dorsal aspect by a hole 

 above each pectoral ; a solitary, small, soft dorsal ; the body studded with bony 

 tubercles and furnished along the sides with barbels, but no free rays on the head-; 

 neither pyloric caeca nor air-bladder. 



Mr. Audubon has very kindly presented to me a fish of this sub-genus, taken 

 on the Labrador coast, which appears to belong to a species hitherto undescribed. 

 I have compared it with the figures of Malthe vespertilio (Bl. 110 and Edwards 

 283), of M. nasuta (Seba., i., 74, f. 2), and of M. stellata (Krusenstern's Voy., 

 lxi., lower fig.), to all of which it is very dissimilar in the form of the cranium, 

 and particularly of the snout. Three other species are indicated in the Regne 

 Animal, which are still unpublished ; viz., M. notata, angusta, and truncata. The 

 last of these names is the only one which is in any respect applicable to our new 

 species, in which the forehead may be said to be truncated, instead of gradually 

 narrowing into a projecting snout. I have received no account of the habits of 

 the Square-browed Malthe. Its intestines were filled with small crabs and uni- 



* The L/jph:m piscator, or Bellows-fish, of Mitchill, as far as his description goes, does not appear to differ from the 

 L.piscatonus of the European seas. His variety, fuliatus, is most probably a distinct species. 



