SALMON- L A U N C E S . 
945 
while trawling in 1,100 fathoms of water (71° 59 N. lat. ; 
11° 40' E. long.), and Captain Gray found it floating at 
the surface, but still alive (73° 12' N. lat.; 14° 28’ W. 
long.). Whether it was the same species that was met 
•with in 1880 — 83 by the United States’ Fish Commis- 
sion “off the southern shores of New England” and by 
the Blake Expedition (34° — 41° N. lat.; 65° — 75° W. 
long., see Beown-Goode and Bean, 1. c.), is doubtful. 
No description is extant of the specimens found on these 
occasions, and the figures show important differences 
from the Arctic Scopelus as described above". 
The large eyes of the Arctic Scopelus are unmis- 
takable tokens of a life in deep water; and most of the 
specimens have consisted of unlucky individuals, borne 
with too great rapidity to the surface of the ocean, and 
there left to the mercy of wind and wave. But this 
species is, no doubt, a nocturnal surface-fish as well, 
voluntarily repairing in the darkness to the upper strata 
of the sea, for it has frequently been found off the 
coast of Greenland in the stomach of seals, which can- 
not live in the true deep-sea regions. All that is known 
besides of its manner of life is that it feeds on small 
crustaceans, though not exclusively on the most minute 
kinds, for Collett found in its stomach fragments of 
an Amphipod, Themisto lib ell ul a , which attains a length 
of 20 — 60 mm. The remaining food, as far as could 
be determined, consisted of several specimens of an 
Ostracod, Conccecia borealis , which, according to Saks, 
has never been found at a depth of less than 300 
fathoms. 
Subfamily P A IS A L h V I D I N Jf. 
Dorsal fin situated considerably behind the middle of the body. Snout longer than the postorbital part of the head. 
Pseudobranchice present; but air-bladder and pyloric appendages wanting, or the latter present only in a rudi- 
mentary form. 
Within this subfamily Gunther 6 includes two very 
closely related genera of Ammodytes- like fishes, first 
known from the Mediterranean, that were united into 
one genus by CuvieiU, and ranged among the Acantho- 
pterygians beside Spliyrcena, to which they also sIioav 
resemblances in form of body. The Salmon-Launces are 
elongated and compressed (in general a foot long or less), 
silvery, more or less transparent, pelagic fishes, of pre- 
datory habits, as testified by the long and pointed 
canines, with which their intermaxillaries, lower jaw, 
and palatines are generally armed. Ten species have 
been described or at least mentioned by name: five from 
the Mediterranean and the Atlantic outside, three from 
the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, and two from 
the Pacific. All these species, however, may well be 
contained within the limits of a single genus. 
o o 
Genus SUDISN 
Of this genus one species is indeed known from the 
high North, from Greenland and Iceland, namely Sadis 
( Paralepis ) borealis e , which is described at length by 
Kroyer in the “Naturhistorisk Tidskrift”, 2:den Raekke, 
2:det Bind, p. 241, and figured in Gaimaiid’s Voyage 
en Scandinavie etc., Poissons , pi. 16, B, fig. 1. But in 
Scandinavia this species has not yet been found. On 
the other hand, Kroyer has given, in Fiedler and 
Feddersen’s “Tidskrift for Fiskeri”, 2:den Aargang 
(1868), p. 70, a brief account of the discovery of a 
° Both in Todd s figure (Buown-Goode) and in Agassiz the dorsal fin begins much further forward than in the Arctic Scopelus, and 
the adipose fin is high and short as in the Greater Scopelus. In Todd s figure the base of the anal fin is considerably longer, in Agassiz 
considerably shorter, than in the Arctic Scopelus. Along the base of the anal fin Todd’s figure shows a row of 15 luminous spots, Agassiz’ 
only 6. The lateral line contains in Todd’s figure 46 scales, in Agassiz 35. 
b Cat. Brit. Mils., Fish., vol. V, p. 418. 
c Cuv., Val., Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. Ill, p. 356. 
d Rafinesque, Car. Ale. N. Gen., p. 60. Paralepis, Risso, Hist. Nat. Fur. Merid. tom. Ill, p. 472. 
e Reinhardt, D. Vid. Selsk. Naturh., Math. Afh., vol. V, p. LXXV; vol. VII, p. 125. Probably Clupea encrasicolus , Fabr., Fn. 
Groenl., p. 183. 
