SCULPINS AND GURNARDS. 
Now the Sculpin is a little water beast which pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs 
about the piles on which West Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait and hook intended for flounders. 
On being drawn from the water, it exposes an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full 
of spines, ridges, ruffles and frills that the naturalists have not been able to count them without quarreling about 
their number; and that the colored youth, whose sport they spoil do not like to touch them, and especially to 
tread on them unless they happen to have shoes on to cover the soles of their broad black feet. 
Holmes: The Professor at the Breakfast Table. 
our Atlantic coast are found several species of this family, generally 
known by the name “ Sculpin,” and also by such titles as “ Grubby,” 
“Puffing-grubby,” “Daddy Sculpin,” “Bullhead,” “Sea-robin,” “Sea- 
toad,” and “Pig-fish.” Their economic value is little or none, but 
they are important as scavengers, and are used for lobster bait. They are 
often a source of great annoyance to the fishermen by cumbering their 
hooks and by stealing their bait. The most abundant species is the 
Eighteen-spined Sculpin, Coitus octodecimspinosus , which frequents shallow 
and moderately deep waters from Labrador to New York. It is usually 
associated with a smaller species, Coitus ceneus, which may be called the 
“ Pigmy Sculpin,” and which ranges from the Bay of Fundy to New York. 
Coitus scorpius , of Europe, is represented on our coasts by C. scorpius 
sub-species grcenlandicus , which is abundant everywhere from New York to 
Greenland and Labrador. This sub-species has been found on the coast of 
Ireland,* and the typical Coitus scorpius has been shown by Dr. Bean to 
occur in Maine. This is also, in addition to several insignificant species 
seldom seen except by naturalists, a large, brilliantly colored form, known 
* Annals of Natural History, 1844, p. 402. 
