COTTOIDS. 
159 
also been taken in Trondhjem Fjord, at depths varying 
from 100 to 200 fathoms. During Nordenskiold’s 
Expedition of 1883 a male 157 mm. in length, with 
a large genital papilla, was taken on the 6th of Sep- 
tember, off the east coast of Greenland, 65° 30' N., on 
a clayey bottom and at a depth of 130 fathoms. 
As Collett has remarked, the broad pectoral tins, 
■with their rays, which are thick and free at the tips, 
especially the lower ones, are without doubt of great 
service to this fish. By their help it digs up the soft 
clay of the bottom and flounders along, preying on the 
worms or small mollusks and crustaceans which live in 
its company at a depth of 100 fathoms or still more. 
We have no further knowledge of its manner of life; 
and it can be of special interest to us only in a syste- 
matical and zoogeographical respect. 
Genus GYMNOCANTHUS. 
Two distinct dorsal fins. Skin without, scales. Head of average size ( less than x / 3 of the length of the body). 
Four , pointed , preopercular spines , the uppermost of which is furnished with from 1 to 5 lateral spines directed 
upwards. Palatine bones and vomer toothless. Branch, iostegal membranes united to the isthmus throughout the 
greater part of its length , but their margin continued in a free dermal fold over its surface. No gill-slit behind 
the fourth branchial arch. Base of the anal fin longer than that of the second dorsal. Bags in the anal, fin 
less than 20. 
This genus is as truly Arctic as the former, if not 
more so, but it belongs to the littoral fauna. It was 
first formed by Swainson" in 1839, but from Kroner 4 , 
in 1845, it received a new name, Phobetor , by which 
it has been better known since that time. Though its 
most remarkable character consists in the absence of 
teeth on the palatine 1 tones and the vomer, the two spe- 
cies which belong to it, may be recognised most easily, 
within the Scandinavian fauna, by the singular form 
of the uppermost preopercular spine. 
a Nat. Hist. Fish. Amph. Rept., II, pp. 181 and 271. 
6 Natiirh. Tidskr., 2:den Raskke, l:ste Bind, p. 263. 
