THE FISHES OF NEW JERSEY. 371 



A bright red fish of the northern seas which is occasionally 

 taken off our north shore in deep water. It reaches a length of 

 18 inches, and is a valuable food-fish. I have no examples. 



Sebastes norvegicus Abbott, Geol. N. J., 1868, p. 816. 



Family COTTID^. 



The Sculpins. 



Body moderately elongate, fusiform or compressed, tapering 

 backward from head. Head usually broad and depressed. Eyes 

 placed high. Teeth equal, in villi form or cardiform bands in 

 jaws and often on vomer and palatines. Premaxillaries protrac- 

 tile. Maxillary without supplemental bone. Interorbital space 

 usually narrow. A bony stay connecting suborbital with pre- 

 opercle, usually covered by skin. Upper angle of preopercle 

 usually with i or more spinous processes, head again sometimes 

 wholly unarmed. Gill-membranes broadly connected, often joined 

 to isthmus. Gills 3^ to 4, slit behind last small, often obsolete. 

 Gill-rakers, short, tubercle-like or obsolete. Pseudobranchi^e 

 present. Vertebras numerous, 30 to 50. Scapular arch normal. 

 Myodome developed. Actinosts large, partly intervening be- 

 tween hypercoracoid. Ribs sessile on vertebrae. Pyloric coeca 

 usually in small number, 4 to 8. Air-vessel commonly wanting. 

 Body naked or variously armed with scales, prickles or bony 

 plates, but never uniformly scaled. Lateral line present, simple, 

 sometimes chain-like. Dorsal fins separate, or somewhat con- 

 nected, spines VI to XVIII, usually slender, sometimes con- 

 cealed in skin, and soft part elongate. Anal similar to soft dorsal, 

 without spines. Caudal separate, rounded. Pectorals large, with 

 broad procurrent bases, rays mostly simple, and upper sometimes 

 branched. Ventrals thoracic, rarely entirely wanting, insertion 

 well forward, and usually I, 3, to I, 5. 



A large family of rock-pool and shore-fishes of northern re- 

 gions, many also in fresh water, and others found at great depths 

 in the sea. They are mostly of small size and singular aspect, and 

 none are valued as food. 



