370 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Family SCORP-flENID-ffi. 



The Rock Fishes. 



Body oblong", more or less compressed. Head large, with r 

 or more pairs of ridgfes above which usually terminate in spines. 

 Mouth terminal, usually large, with villiform teeth on vomer and 

 in jaws, also usually on palatines. Premaxillaries protractile. 

 Maxillary broad, without supplemental bone, not slipping under 

 preorbital. Opercle usually with 2 spinous processes, preopercle 

 with 4 or 5. Gill-openings wide, extending forward below. 

 Gill-membranes separate and free from isthmus. Usually no 

 slit behind fourth gill. Pseudobranchise large. Air-vessel usually 

 present. Pyloric coeca in small or moderate number, less than 

 12. A narrow bony stay extending backward from suborbital 

 toward preopercle. Actinosts moderate, inserted on posterior 

 edges of hypercoracoid and hypocoracoid. Ribs borne on en- 

 large pleurapophyses. Post-temporal bifurcate, normally con- 

 nected. Myodome more or less developed. Scales ctenoid, some- 

 times nearly obsolete. Lateral line single, continuous, concurrent 

 with back. Dorsal continuous, sometimes so deeply notched as to 

 divide it into 2 parts with VIII to XVI rather strong spines and 

 about as many soft rays. Anal rather short, with III spines and 

 5 to 10 soft rays. Soft rays of all fins branched, except some or 

 all pectoral rays. Ventrals thoracic, of normal Percoid form, 

 I, 5, rays branched. 



Fishes living about rocks, non-migratory, mo,stly of large size, 

 and all used as food. Many are viviparous, producing young in 

 great numbers when about % of an inch in length. They are 

 especially abundant in the temperate parts of the Pacific Ocean.. 

 One species recorded from our ,shores. 



Genus Sebastes Cuvier. 



The Rose Fishes. 

 Sebastes marinus (Linnaeus). 

 Plate 79. 

 Red Sea Perch. 

 Dorsal usually with XV spines, and anal with 7 or 8 soft rays,, 

 also pectoral long and narrow. 



