228 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



both edges, and covered by skin to near tip. When set they point 

 almost sideways, and when depressed they lie inside the innomi- 

 nate bones. Color brownish-olive, mottled with darker and dusky, 

 silvery below. Ventrals of male with bright crimson membrane. 

 Length i^/i6 inches. Beesley's Point. 



Color in life brownish-olivaceous generally, median line of 

 back and top of head more brownish, and sides more olivaceous. 

 Flanks with blackish mottlings or blotches. Back with about 

 four or five dull or obscure dusky saddle-like blotches. A black- 

 ish streak from tip of snout laterally to orbit. Two streaks of 

 same color from behind orbit back along postorbital region of 

 head. Lips dusky, and branchiostegal region same. Body with 

 more or less translucent appearance, and peritoneum showing 

 through abdomen with silvery and brassy reflections. Lower 

 side of head also with similar colored reflections. Pectoral and 

 caudal with dilute amber or gamboge tints. Dorsal brownish, 

 except membranes behind first spine, which are tinted with deep 

 scarlet. Pubic spines whitish. Anal fin dilute brownish. Iris 

 brownish with dull olive reflections. An adult from Crosswicks 

 Creek, near Trenton, May 9th, 1905. 



Most abundant of all our fishes in the lower Delaware, par- 

 ticularly in tide-water. In many places they swarm by the thou- 

 sand among the eel-grass and aquatic vegetation. They are too 

 small to be very dangerous to handle, though some of the larger 

 ones are capable of pricking the skin and causing a little blood to 

 flow by means of their set spines. I have only taken a very few 

 solitary individuals above tide-water. 



Gasterosteus quadraats Baird, 9th An. Rep. Smiths. Inst., 

 1854, p. 328. 



Apeltes quadracus Abbott, Geol. N. J., 1868, p. 815. — Abbott, 

 Am. Nat., IV, 1870, p. 115. — Abbott, Nat. Rambles, 1885, p. 

 478.— Bean, Bull U. S. F. Com., VII, 1887, p. 146.— Moore, 

 Bull. U. S. F. Com., XII, 1892, p. 360. 



Family FISTULARIIDiE. 



The Cornet Fishes. 



Body extremely elongate, much depressed, broader than deep. 

 Head very long, anterior bones of skull much produced, forming 



