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.
Lophius.—Head exceedingly large, broad, depressed, with the eyes on its upper surface; cleft of the mouth very wide. Jaws and palate armed with rasp-like depressible teeth of unequal size. Body naked; bones of the head armed with numerous spines. The three anterior dorsal spines are isolated, situated on the head, and modified into long tentacles; the three following spines form a continuous fin; the soft dorsal and anal short. Gills three. Young individuals have the tentacles beset with lappets, and most of the fin-rays prolonged into filaments.
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.
