806 FISHES——-CATOSTOMIDZ. 
taries in company with the species of Bubalichthys and Carpiodes. It 
reaches a considerable size, a well-grown specimen weighing 15 to 25 
pounds. It is used everywhere as food, and sells readily, but the flesh is 
full of small bones, scarcely worth the picking. According to Professor 
Forbes it feeds chiefly on Hntomostracans. 
GeNUS 15. BUBALICHTHYS. Agassiz. 
Bubalichthys, AGassizZ, Am. Journ. Sci. Arts. 1855, 92. 
Sclerognathus, GUNTHER, Cat. Fishes, Brit. Mus., vii, p. 22, 1¢68. 
Catostomus et Carpiodes, sp. of authors. 
Type, Carpiodes urus, Agassiz. 
Etymology, boubalos, buffalo; ichthus, fish. 
Head moderate or rather large, deep and thick, its superior outline rapidly rising, its 
length about four in that of the body ; eye moderate, median or rather anterior in posi- 
tion ; suborbital bones comparatively narrow ; fontanelle always present and widely 
open ; mouth moderate or small, more or less infericr, the mandible short, little oblique, 
or typically quite horizontal, the mandible less than one-third the length of the head ; 
the premaxillaries in the closed mouth below the level of the Jower part of the orbit; 
lips rather thin, thicker than in Ichihyobus, the upper protractile, narrow, plicate, the 
plicee sometimes broken up into granules; lower lip comparatively fall (for a Buffalo- 
fish), faintly plicate, the plice broken up into granules, the lower lip having the general 
q-shaped form seen in Carpiodes ; jaws without cartilaginous sheath; muciferous system 
well developed; opercular apparatus well developed, but less so than in Jchthyobus, the 
operculum strongly rugose; isthmus moderate ; pharyngeal bones triangular, with large 
teeth, which increase in size fron above downward ; teeth compressed, their grinding 
edge blunt, slightly arched in the middle, and provided with a little cusp along the 
inner margin, which is hardly detached from the crown, and does not rise above the 
surface; gill-rakers of anterior arch slender and stiff above, growing shorter downward ; 
body ovate or oblong, the dorsal outline more or less arched, the sides of the body com- 
pressed, the ventral outline curved also, but to a less degree; scales very large, about 
equal over the body, their posterior outlines somewhat serrate; lateral line well deve- 
loped, nearly straight, with 35 to 42 scales, 12 to 14 in a cross-series from ventrals to 
dorsal; dorsal tin beginning near the middle of the body, somewhat in advance of the 
ventrals, its anterior rays elevated, their height about equal to half the base of the fin, 
the number of rays in the dorsal fin ranging from 25 to 32; caudal fin well forked, the 
lobes about equal, not falcate ; anal fin comparatively long and rather low, of eight or 
nine developed rays; ventrals moderate, 10 rayed; pectorals rather short; sexual 
peculiarities, if any, unknown; coloration dull dark-brown, nearly plain, not silvery ; 
fins olivaceous or more or less dusky; air-bladder with two chambers: size quite large. 
In general appearance, the species of Bubalichthys bear a considerable resemblance to 
those of Carpiodes. The form is, however, coarser than that of any Carpiodes, the dorsal 
fin is lower, and the coloration is darker and duller. The species reach a larger size 
than do those of Carpiodes, bnt whether larger or not than the species of [chthyobus I am 
unable to say. In external appearance, Bubalichthys is intermediate between Carpiodes 
and Ichthyobus, the one species, bubalus, resembling Carpiodes most, the other, urus, 
being most like Ichthyobus. 
