Eighth Family.—Trachinidæ.

Body elongate, low, naked or covered with scales. Teeth small, conical. No bony stay for the præoperculum. One or two dorsal fins, the spinous portion being always shorter and much less developed than the soft; the anal similarly developed as the soft dorsal; no finlets. Ventrals with one spine and five rays. Gill-opening more or less wide. Ten or more than ten abdominal, and more than fourteen caudal vertebræ.

Carnivorous coast-fishes of small size, found in every quarter of the globe, but scarcely represented in the Arctic zone (Trichodon); on the other hand, they are rather numerous towards the Antarctic circle. All are bad swimmers, generally moving along the bottom in small depths. Only one genus (Bathydraco) is known from the deep-sea.

A genus which shows the principal characters of this family (Callipteryx), has been found in the tertiary deposits of Monte Bolca; it is scaleless. A second genus, Trachinopsis, has been recently described by Sauvage from the Upper Tertiary of Lorca in Spain; and a third (Pseudoeleginus) from the Miocene of Licata.

This family may be subdivided into five groups:—

The position of the eyes on the upper surface of the head, which these fishes have in common with many others, is well expressed by the name Uranoscopus (Stare-gazer). Their eyes are very small, and can be raised or depressed at the will of the fish. They are inactive fishes, generally lying hidden at the bottom between stones, watching for their prey. The delicate filament attached to the bottom of their mouth, and playing in front of it in the current of water which passes through the mouth, serves to lure small animals within reach of the fish. Eleven species are known from the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic, and one (U. scaber) from the Mediterranean; they attain rarely a length of twelve inches.

Leptoscopus macropygus, not rare on the coast of New Zealand.

Other genera of Stare-gazers are Agnus from the Atlantic coasts of North America; Anema from the Indian Ocean and New Zealand; and Kathetostoma from Australia and New Zealand.

The “Weevers” are common fishes on the European coasts, and but too well known to all fishermen; singularly enough they do not extend across the Atlantic to the American coast, but reappear on the coast of Chili! Wounds by their dorsal and opercular spines are much dreaded, being extremely painful, and sometimes causing violent inflammation of the wounded part. No special poison-organ has been found in these fishes, but there is no doubt that the mucous secretion in the vicinity of the spines has poisonous properties. The dorsal spines as well as the opercular spine have a deep double groove in which the poisonous fluid is lodged, and by which it is inoculated in the punctured wound. On the British coasts two species occur, T. draco, the Greater Weever, attaining to a length of twelve inches, and T. vipera, the Lesser Weever, which grows only to half that size.

Champsodon vorax is not uncommon at small depths off the Philippine Islands, Admiralty Islands, and in the Arafura Sea.

Fifteen species; small, but prettily coloured shore-fishes of the Indo-Pacific.

Eight species; small, plain-coloured shore-fishes, common in the Indian Ocean to the coasts of Australia.

Three species are known from the South Pacific.

A deep-sea fish, found at a depth of 1260 fathoms in the Antarctic Ocean (south of Heard Island).

Chænichthys rhinoceratus from Kerguelen’s Land (see Fig. 108, p. 291); and Ch. esox from the Straits of Magelhaen.

Other genera belonging to this group are Aphritis, Acanthaphritis, Eleginus, Chænichthys, and Chimarrhichthys from the South Pacific and Antarctic zone; Cottoperca from the west coast of Patagonia; Percophis from the coast of Southern Brazil; and Trichodon from the coast of Kamtschatka.

Two genera, Pinguipes and Latilus, from various parts of tropical and sub-tropical seas, belong to this group.

These fishes are inhabitants of coral reefs or coasts: Opisthognathus, Pseudochromis, Cichlops, and Pseudoplesiops.

They (with others) represent in the Antarctic zone the Cottoids of the Northern Hemisphere: they have the same habits as their northern analogues. In Notothenia, which on the southern extremity of South America, in New Zealand, Kerguelen’s Land, etc., is represented by about twenty species, the body is covered with ctenoid scales, and the bones of the head are unarmed; whilst Harpagifer, a small species with a similar range as Notothenia, has the body naked, and the operculum and sub-operculum armed with long and strong spines.

Ninth Family—Malacanthidæ.

Body elongate, with very small scales; mouth with thick lips; a strong tooth posteriorly on the intermaxillary. Dorsal and anal fins very long, the former with a few simple rays anteriorly; ventrals thoracic, with one spine and five rays. Gill-opening wide, with the gill-membranes united below the throat. Ten abdominal and fourteen caudal vertebræ.

One genus only, Malacanthus, with three species from tropical seas.

Tenth Family—Batrachidæ.

Head broad and thick; body elongate, compressed behind; skin naked or with small scales. No bony stay for the præoperculum. Teeth conical, small or of moderate size. The spinous dorsal consists of two or three spines only; the soft and the anal long. Ventrals jugular, with two soft rays; pectorals not pediculated. Gill-opening a more or less vertical slit before the pectoral, rather narrow.

Carnivorous fishes, of small size, living on the bottom of the sea near the coast in the tropical zone, some species advancing into the warmer parts of the temperate zones.

Some of the fishes of this genus possess a subcutaneous spacious cavity behind the base of the pectoral fin, the inside of which is coated with a reticulated mucous membrane. It opens by a foramen in the upper part of the axil.—This apparatus is the same which is found in many Siluroid fishes, and which has been noticed above, p. 192. There cannot be any doubt that it is a secretory organ, but whether the secretion has any poisonous properties, as in the Siluroids, or as in Thalassophryne, has not been determined. No instance of poisonous wounds having been inflicted by these fishes is on record. Twelve species are known, the distribution of which coincides with that of the family; one very fine species, B. didactylus, occurs in the Mediterranean.

Two species are known from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America. The poison-apparatus is more perfectly developed than any other known at present in the class of fishes; it has been described above, p. 192. The species figured, Th. reticulata, is not uncommon at Panama, and attains to a length of fifteen inches.

Two species, from the Atlantic and Pacific sides of Central and South America.

Eleventh Family—Psychrolutidæ.

Body rather elongate, naked; head broad. Spinous dorsal separate or absent. Ventral fins close together, thoracic, composed of a few rays. Teeth small. Three gills and a half; pseudobranchiæ well developed; gill-openings of moderate width, the gill-membranes being attached to the isthmus.

Of this family only two representatives are known, viz. Psychrolutes paradoxus, from Vancouver’s Islands, without first dorsal fin; and Neophrynichthys latus, from New Zealand, with two dorsal fins. Both are very scarce marine fishes.

Twelfth Family—Pediculati.

Head and anterior part of the body very large, without scales. No bony stay for the præoperculum. Teeth villiform or rasp-like. The spinous dorsal is advanced forwards, composed of a few more or less isolated spines, often transformed into tentacles; or entirely absent. Ventral fins jugular, with four or five soft rays, sometimes absent. The carpal bones are prolonged, forming a sort of arm, terminating in the pectoral. Gill-opening reduced to a small foramen, situated in or near the axil. Gills two and a half, or three, or three and a half; pseudobranchiæ generally absent.

This family contains a larger number of bizarre forms than any other; and there is, perhaps, none in which the singular organisation of the fish is more distinctly seen to be in consonance with its habits. Pediculates are found in all seas. The habits of all are equally sluggish and inactive; they are very bad swimmers; those found near the coasts lie on the bottom of the sea, holding on with their arm-like pectoral fins by seaweed or stones, between which they are hidden; those of pelagic habits attach themselves to floating seaweed or other objects, and are at the mercy of wind and current. A large proportion of the genera, therefore, have gradually found their way to the greatest depths of the ocean; retaining all the characteristics of their surface-ancestors, but assuming the modifications by which they are enabled to live in abyssal depths.

These fishes are well known under the names “Fishing-Frog,” “Frog-fishes,” “Anglers,” or “Sea-devils.” They are coast-fishes, living at very small depths. Four species are known: the British species (L. piscatorius) found all round the coasts of Europe and Western North America, and on the Cape of Good Hope; a second (Mediterranean) species, L. budegassa; L. setigerus from China and Japan; and L. naresii from the Admiralty Islands.

The habits of all these species are identical. The wide mouth extends all round the anterior circumference of the head, and both jaws are armed with bands of long pointed teeth, which are inclined inwards, and can be depressed so as to offer no impediment to an object gliding towards the stomach, but prevent its escape from the mouth. The pectoral and ventral fins are so articulated as to perform the functions of teeth, the fish being enabled to move, or rather to walk, on the bottom of the sea, where it generally hides itself in the sand, or amongst seaweed. All round its head, and also along the body, the skin bears fringed appendages, resembling short fronds of seaweed; a structure which, combined with the extraordinary faculty of assimilating the colours of the body to its surroundings, assists this fish greatly in concealing itself in places which it selects on account of the abundance of prey. To render the organisation of these creatures perfect in relation to their wants, they are provided with three long filaments inserted along the middle of the head, which are, in fact, the detached and modified three first spines of the anterior dorsal fin. The filaments most important in the economy of the fishing-frogs is the first, which is the longest, terminates in a lappet, and is movable in every direction. There is no doubt that the Fishing-frog, like many other fish provided with similar appendages, plays with this filament as with a bait, attracting fishes, which, when sufficiently near, are ingulfed by the simple act of the Fishing-frog opening its gape. Its stomach is distensible in an extraordinary degree, and not rarely fishes have been taken out of it quite as large and heavy as their destroyer. The British species grows to a length of more than five feet; specimens of three feet are common. Baird records that the spawn of the same species has been observed as a floating sheet of mucus, of from some 60 to 100 square feet.

Ceratias holbölli, a deep-sea fish; only a few examples have been found near the coast of Greenland, and from the mid-Atlantic; the latter at a depth of 2400 fathoms. Deep black.

This is another deep-sea form, hitherto found in very few examples in the Arctic and Mid-Atlantic Oceans. The single tentacle is beset with many long filaments at its extremity, thus answering the same purpose which is attained by a greater number of tentacles. Deep black.

Two species are known from the Atlantic: M. bispinossus and M. johnsonii, obtained at depths of from 360 to 1800 fathoms. The specimen figured was not quite four inches long, and contained in its stomach, rolled up spirally into a ball, a Scopeline fish which measured 7½ inches in length and one inch in depth.

The fishes of this genus are pelagic, frequently met with in mid-ocean between the tropics, especially in parts of the sea with floating vegetation; not rarely individuals are found far from their native latitudes, carried by currents to the coasts of Norway and New Zealand. Their power of swimming is most imperfect. When near the coast they conceal themselves between corals, stones, or fucus, holding on to the ground by means of their arm-like pectoral fins. Their coloration is so similar to their surroundings that it is hardly possible to distinguish the fish from a stone or coral overgrown with vegetation. Their way of attracting and seizing their prey is evidently the same as in the other fishes of this family. The extraordinary range of some of the species which inhabit the Atlantic as well as the Indo-Pacific Oceans, is the consequence of their habit of attaching themselves to floating objects. Almost all the species are highly coloured, but the pattern of the various colours varies exceedingly. These fishes do not attain to any considerable size, and probably never exceed a length of ten inches. A great number of species have been distinguished by ichthyologists, but probably not more than twenty are known at present. The species figured on p. 295 (A. caudomaculatus) is common in the Red Sea, and probably occurs in other parts of the Indian Ocean.

Brachionichthys and Saccarius are allied genera from South Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.

A deep-sea fish (Ch. pictus), of uniform pink colour; hitherto found near Madeira and the Fidji Islands, at a depth of 215 fathoms.

Although the rostral tentacle is situated at the lower side of the projection of the snout, it must be regarded as the homologue of a dorsal spine. In some of the preceding genera, Oneirodes and Chaunax, the first dorsal spine is so far advanced on the snout as to come into connection with the intermaxillary processes; and the position of the rostral tentacle in Malthe is only a still more advanced step towards the same special purpose for which the first dorsal spine is used in this family, viz. for the purpose of obtaining food. In Malthe it is obviously an organ of touch. This genus belongs to the American shores of the Atlantic; M. vespertilio being a tropical, M. cubifrons a northern species.

A coast-fish (H. stellata) from China and Japan. Frequently found dry in Chinese insect-boxes.

This genus appears to be represented in the Atlantic Ocean by Halieutichthys from Cuba, and by Dibranchus, dredged at a depth of 360 fathoms off the coast of West Africa; the latter genus possesses two gills only. Another genus, covered with large scattered tubercles, Aegæonichthys, has recently been described from New Zealand.

Thirteenth Family—Cottidæ.

Form of the body oblong, sub-cylindrical. Cleft of the mouth lateral. Dentition feeble, generally in villiform bands. Some bones of the head are armed; and a bony stay connects the præopercular spine with the infraorbital ring. Two dorsal fins (rarely one), the spinous being less developed than the soft and than the anal. Ventrals thoracic, with five or less soft rays.

The fishes of this family are of small size, bad swimmers, and generally living on the bottom, near the coasts, of almost all the arctic, temperate, and tropical seas. Only a few live in fresh water. They prefer shallow to deep water; and there is only one instance known of a member of this family living at a great depth, viz. Cottus bathybius from the Japanese sea, which is stated to have been dredged in a depth of 565 fathoms. Fossil representatives are few in number: two or three species of Trigla; others, although having a general resemblance to the genus Cottus, were covered with ctenoid scales, and therefore are referred to a distinct genus, Lepidocottus; they are from tertiary formations.

The “Bull-heads” or “Miller’s Thumbs” are small fishes from the shores and fresh waters of the northern temperate zone. Some forty species are known; the greater number live in the northern half of the temperate zone. On the shore, as well as in rivers, they prefer rocky or stony to muddy ground, lying concealed between the stones, and watching for their prey, which consists of small crustaceans and other aquatic animals. The common British Miller’s Thumb (C. gobio) is found in almost all suitable fresh waters of Northern and Central Europe, especially in small streams, and extends into Northern Asia. Other freshwater species abound in North America and Northern Asia. Cottus scorpius and C. bubalis, the common European marine species, range across the Atlantic to the American coasts. The male is said to construct a nest, for the reception of the spawn, of seaweeds and stones, and to anxiously watch and defend his offspring. The spine at the angle of the præoperculum, which is simple in the majority of the freshwater species, is frequently armed with accessory processes, and antler-like, in marine.

Eleven species are known, distributed like Cottus, but absent in Europe and North-western Asia.

Represents Cottus in the far north; I. hamatus is common in Spitzbergen and Greenland, and has been found in abundance in lat. 81° 44’.

About forty species are known, of which some attain a length of two feet. This genus represents in the tropical Indian Ocean the Cotti of the Arctic, and the Nototheniæ of the Antarctic zone. Like these, they live on the bottom in shallow water, hidden in the sand, the colours of which are assimilated by those of their body. Therefore, they are very scarce near coral islands which are surrounded by great depths; whilst the number of species is rather considerable on many points of the shelving Australian coasts. Their long and strong ventral fins are of great use to them in locomotion. P. insidiator is one of the most common Indian and Australian fishes, and readily recognised by two oblique black bands on the upper and lower caudal lobes.

One species, H. langsdorffii, is common on the coast of Japan, and frequently placed dry by the Chinese into their insect-boxes.

Two dorsal fins. Three free pectoral rays. Villiform teeth. Air-bladder generally with lateral muscles, often divided into two lateral halves. The species may be referred to three groups:—

About forty species of “Gurnards” are known from tropical and temperate zones. They are too well known to need detailed description; one of their principal characteristics is the three free finger-like pectoral appendages, which serve as organs of locomotion as well as touch, and which are supplied with strong nerves, as noticed above (pp. 108 and 120). The fins are frequently beautifully ornamented, especially the inner side of the long and broad pectorals, which is most exposed to the light when the fish is floating on the surface of the water, with pectorals spread out like wings. The grunting noise made by Gurnards when taken out of the water is caused by the escape of gas from the air-bladder through the open pneumatic duct. Gurnards are generally used as food; seven species occur on the British coast: the Red Gurnard (T. pini), the Streaked Gurnard (T. lineata), the Sapphirine Gurnard (T. hirundo), the Grey Gurnard (T. gurnardus), Bloch’s Gurnard (T. cuculus), the Piper (T. lyra), and the Long-finned Gurnard (T. obscura or T. lucerna). Singularly, the European species cross the Atlantic but rarely, the American species belonging chiefly to the division Prionotus.

Several other genera belong to this family; for completeness’ sake they are mentioned here, viz. Bunocottus from Cape Horn; Rhamphocottus, Triglops from Arctic North America; Podabrus, Blepsias, Nautichthys, Scorpænichthys, Hemilepidotus, Artedius, from the North Pacific; Ptyonotus, from Lake Ontario; Polycaulus from Indian Seas; Bembras from the Japanese Sea.

Fourteenth Family—Cataphracti.

Form of the body elongate, sub-cylindrical. Dentition feeble. Body completely cuirassed with osseous keeled scales or plates. A bony stay connects the angle of the præoperculum with the infraorbital ring. Ventrals thoracic.

Marine fishes, and partly pelagic. Petalopteryx, from the chalk of Mount Lebanon, is supposed to have a resemblance to Dactylopterus.

Small fishes, from the northern parts of the temperate zone and extending into the Arctic Ocean; the genus reappears in the Southern Hemisphere on the coast of Chile. Of the eleven species known, one (A. cataphractus) is not uncommon on the coast of Great Britain.

From Behring’s Strait and Japan.

Singularly shaped fishes, of rather small size, from the Mediterranean, the warmer parts of the Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean; of the ten species known one species only has been found in the Pacific, near the Sandwich Islands. The European species is P. cataphractum. They are not common, and probably inhabit greater depths than the Gurnards, with which they have much in common as regards their habits.

Of “Flying Gurnards” three species only are known, which are very abundant in the Mediterranean, the tropical Atlantic, and Indo-Pacific. They, and the Flying Herrings (Exocoetus), are the only fishes which are enabled by their long pectoral fins to take flying leaps out of the water, and deserve the name of “Flying-Fishes.” They are much heavier, and attain to a larger size, than the Exocoeti, specimens of eighteen inches in length not being scarce. When young, their pectorals are much shorter, and, consequently, they are unable to raise themselves out of the water (Cephalacanthus).

The vertebral column shows a singular coalescence of the anterior vertebræ, which form a simple tube, as in Fistularia.

We insert here as an appendix to this division the small family of Pegasidæ, the natural affinities of which are not yet clearly understood, but which resembles in some of its characters the Cataphracti.

Fifteenth Family—Pegasidæ.

Body entirely covered with bony plates, anchylosed on the trunk and movable on the tail. Barbels none. The margin of the upper jaw is formed by the intermaxillaries and their cutaneous prolongation, which extends downwards to the extremity of the maxillaries. Gill-cover formed by a large plate, homologous to the operculum, præoperculum, and sub-operculum; interoperculum a long fine bone, hidden below the gill-plate. One rudimentary branchiostegal. The gill-plate is united with the isthmus by a narrow membrane; gill-openings narrow, in front of the base of the pectoral fin. Gills four, lamellated. Pseudobranchiæ and air-bladder absent. One short dorsal and anal fin, opposite to each other. Ventral fin present. Ovarian sacs closed.

One genus only is known, Pegasus. Its pectoral fins are broad, horizontal, long, composed of simple rays, some of which are sometimes spinous. Ventral fins one- or two-rayed. Upper part of the snout produced into a shorter or longer process. Mouth inferior, toothless. Suborbital ring well developed, forming a suture with the gill-cover. Vertebræ in small number, thin; no ribs. Four species are known, two of which are of a shorter, and the two others of a longer form. The former are P. draconis, common in the Indian Ocean, and P. volans, which is frequently stuck by the Chinese into the insect-boxes which they manufacture for sale. The two elongate species, P. natans and P. lancifer, are from the Chinese and Australian coasts. They are all very small fishes, probably living on sandy shoal places near the coast.

Ninth Division—Acanthopterygii Gobiiformes.

The spinous dorsal, or spinous portion of the dorsal is always present, short, either composed of flexible spines, or much less developed than the soft; the soft dorsal and anal of equal extent. No bony stay for the angle of the præoperculum. Ventrals thoracic or jugular, if present, composed of one spine and five, rarely four, soft rays. A prominent anal papilla.

Shore-fishes, mostly exclusively marine, but some entering and living in fresh waters.

First Family—Discoboli.

Body thick or oblong, naked or tubercular. Teeth small. Ventral fins with one spine and five rays, all being rudimentary and forming the osseous support of a round disk, which is surrounded by a cutaneous fringe. Gill-openings narrow, the gill-membranes being attached to the isthmus.

Carnivorous fishes, living at the bottom of the shores of northern seas. By their ventral disk they are enabled to attach themselves very firmly to rocks.

Three species of “Lump-suckers” are known from the northern temperate and the arctic zones. The common North European and North American species, C. lumpus, is known also by the names of “Cock- and Hen-Paddle.” It attains to a length of twenty-four inches, but generally is much smaller. It is difficult to remove it from any object to which it once has attached itself by means of its sucking-disk. Its skin is so thick as to more or less entirely conceal the first dorsal fin; it is covered with rough tubercles, the larger ones being arranged in four series along each side of the body. In young specimens these tubercles are absent. The arctic species, C. spinosus, has large conical plates on the head and body, each plate with a spine in the centre. Also of this species the young are naked, the plates making only gradually their appearance, in the form of groups of tubercles. Their development is irregular, as young specimens of the same size may be entirely naked or tubercular. This species ranges beyond the 81° lat. N.

Small fishes from the northern coasts of the temperate zone, ranging beyond the arctic circle. Eight species are known, of which two (L. lineatus and L. montagui) occur on the British coasts.

Second Family—Gobiidæ.

Body elongate, naked or scaly. Teeth generally small, sometimes with canines. The spinous dorsal fin, or portion of the dorsal fin, is the less developed, and composed of flexible spines; anal similarly developed as the soft dorsal. Sometimes the ventrals are united into a disk. Gill-opening more or less narrow, the gill-membranes being attached to the isthmus.

Small carnivorous littoral fishes, many of which have become acclimatised in fresh water. They are very abundant with regard to species as well as individuals, and found on or near the coasts of all temperate and tropical regions. Geologically they appear first in the chalk.