COTTOIDS. 
187 
it is probably the bright hook that really entices it. 
In the islands on the west coast the Sea Scorpion is 
generally taken on the hooks cast for other, more 
useful fishes, and often in shore-nets or seines; but it 
is usually thrown away or cut up into bait for other 
fishes. Fabricius describes, how this fish is taken in 
Greenland with the pimpeldon. 
(Ekstrom, Smitt.) 
THE FATHER-LASHER (sw. oxsimpan). 
COTTUS BUBAL1S. 
Plate VII, figs. 2 (tf) and 3 ($). 
Top of the head f urnished with spines and ridges and rough with protuberances and bars. Four preop ercular spines, 
the length of the uppermost in full-grown specimens being greater than the longitudinal diameter of the eye. Lateral 
line straight ( without any sharp bend) and armed with spines. The length of the \ maxillary bones , which is less 
than the length of the ventral fins and than 80 % of the base of the anal fin , varies between 38 and 56 %, and 
the length of the lower jaw between 50 and 72 %, of the length of the base of the second dorsal fin. Least depth 
of the tail more than 57 2 % of the length of the body and varying between 29 and 41 % of the length of the 
base of the anal fin. Margins of the branchiostegal membranes united to the isthmus, which separates them. Dermal 
fringes often present on the upper margin of the eye and always on the posterior part of the maxillary bones. 
Number of rays in the second dorsal fin at most 13, in the anal fin at most 10, in the ventral fins 4. 
R. hr. 6«; D. 7 — 8|10 — 13 ; A. 8—10; P. 14 — 1 5 6 ; V. 1 / 3 ; 
C. x + 7 ]. 8 1. 9-K-p; L. lat. 82 — 35. 
Syn. Cottus Bubalis , Eupiir., Vet.-Akad. Hand]. 1786, p. 65, tab. Ill, 
fig. 2 et 3; Retz., Fn.Suec. Lin., p. 328; Cuv., Val., Hist. 
Nat. Poiss., vol. IV, p. 165, tab. 78; Nilss., Prodr. Icliih. 
Scancl., p. 97; Ekstr., Vet.-Akad. Handl., 1834, p. 72; Fr., 
Ekstk., Wright, Skand. Fislc., ed. 1, p. 27, tab. 6, fig. 1 
et 2; Kr., Damn. FisJce, vol. I, pp. 118 et 582; Sundev., 
Stockh. L. Hush. Sallsk. Handl. 1855, p. 80; Nilss.. Skand. 
Fn., Fisk., p. 74; Gthb, Brit. Mas. Cat., Fish., vol. II, p. 
164; Lindstr., Gotl. L. Hush. Sallsk. Arsber. 1866, p. 14 
(sep.); Steindachn., Stzber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, LVI, I (1867), 
p. 694; Coll., Vid. Selsk. F?rh. Christ., 1874, Tillasgsh., 
p. 29; ibid., 1879, No. 1, p. 13; Ltkn, Vid. Meddel. Naturli. 
For. Kbhvn, 1876, p. 377; Malm, Gbgs, Boh. Fn., p. 389; 
Winth., Zool. Dan., Fiske, p. 9, tab. II, fig. 3; Naturh. 
Tidskr. Kbhvn, ser. Ill, vol. XII, p. 10; Day, Fish. G:t 
Brit. Irel., vol. I, p. 51, tab. XX, fig. 2; Lilli., Sv., Norg. 
Fisk., vol. I, p. 153; Mor., Hist. Nat. Poiss. Fr., vol. II, 
p. 302; M6 b., Hcke, Fiscli. Osts., p. 46; Jord., Gilb., Bull. ! 
U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 16, p. 701. 
Obs. Though it was our countryman, Euphrasen, who first gave 
the ichthyologists full information of this species, which he discovered 
in 1783 at Kyrksund in Bohuslan, we still find by a short, but fairly 
clear, description in Schonevelde ( Iclithyol ., Slesv. IIols., p. 67: “ alia \ 
Scorpii species in Sleia ”) that at that early date (1624) he both | 
knew and recognised it as distinct from the common Sea Scorpion. At 
about the same time as Euphrasen, StrOm also discovered this species | 
in Norway and adopted it as an independent species, two years before 
the publication of Euphrasen’s description, under the name: Cottus , 
capite lateribusque spinosis (see Nye Samling af det Kongl. Norske 
Vidensk. Selskabs Skrifter, Bd. 1, p. 151). Valenciennes, on the 
other band, was mistaken — and in this mistake he has been followed 
by many — when he identified the “ Fislc-sympen ” of Tonnixg (Trondj. 
Selsk. Skrifter, 2:den Deel, Kbhvn 1763, p. 345, tab. XIII and XIV) 
with this species. Tonning’s fish was evidently a Sea Scorpion. 
The Father-Lasher belongs to a group of the genus 
which reaches its highest development in the Pacific 
Ocean. Its characters are far more sharply marked 
there, and there is the home of the giants of the group 
— the Father- Lasher is only a stunted form of the type 
which has otherwise been named Enophrys 0 , Aspicottus' 1 , 
Clypeocottus e or Ceratocottus f . The character of this 
group which is perhaps most important in a systema- 
tical respect, lies in the development of the dermal 
fringes, which remind us of the relationship between 
the Cottoids and the Scorpamoids. Side by side with 
this, however, we find a character that, reminds us of 
the Gurnard type, in the nakedness and roughness of 
the upper part of the head. The head is otherwise dis- 
tinguished by the high, but deeply concave, interorbital 
region; the broad ridges on the top, which are poster- 
° Sometimes 5, according to Kruyer. 
b Or 16, according to Day, Lilljeborg and Moreau. 
c Swainson, Nat. Hist., Classif. Fish, vol. II, p. 271. 
d Aspicottus bison, Girard, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc., Philad. 1854, p. 130. 
e Clypeocottus robustus, Ayres, Proc. Calif. Acad. Nat. Sc., 1854, p. 12. 
/ Ceratocottus diceraus, Gill, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc., Philad. 1859, p. 165. 
