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.
Agonus.—Head and body angular, covered with bony plates. Two dorsal fins; no pectoral appendages. Small teeth in the jaws.
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.
Aspidophoroides, from Greenland, has a very similar form of the body, but possesses one short dorsal fin only.
Siphagonus.—With the snout produced into a long tube like a Syngnathus; chin prominent, with a barbel.
From Behring’s Strait and Japan.
Peristethus.—Head parallelopiped, with the upper surface and the sides entirely bony; each præorbital prolonged into a long flat process, projecting beyond the snout. Body cuirassed with large bony plates. One continuous dorsal, or two dorsals, of which the second is the more developed. Two free pectoral appendages. Teeth none; lower jaw with barbels.