Fig. 220.—Harvest-fish, Peprilus paru (Linnæus). Virginia.
Psenopsis anomala takes the place of our butter-fishes in Japan, and much resembles them in appearance as in flavor.
To the Stromateidæ we also refer the black ruff of Europe, Centrolophus niger, an interesting deep-sea fish rarely straying to our coast. Allied to it is the black rudder-fish, Palinurichthys perciformis, common on the Massachusetts coast, where it is of some value as a food-fish. A specimen in a live-box once drifted to the coast of Cornwall, where it was taken uninjured, though doubtless hungry. Other species of ruff-and rudder-fish are recorded from various coasts.
Allied to the Stromateidæ are numerous fossil forms. Omosoma sachelalmæ and other species occur in the Cretaceous at Mount Lebanon. Platycormus germanus, with ctenoid scales resembling a berycoid, but with the ventral rays I, 5, occurs in the Upper Cretaceous. Closely related to this is Berycopsis elegans, with smoother scales, from the English Chalk.
Fig. 221.—Portuguese Man-of-war Fish, Gobiomorus gronovii. Family Stromateidæ.
Gobiomorus gronovii (usually called Nomeus gronovii), the Portuguese man-of-war-fish, is a neat little fish about three inches long, common in the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream, where it hides from its enemies among the poisoned tentacles of the Portuguese man-of-war. Under the Portuguese man-of-war and also in or under large jelly-fishes several other species are found, notably Carangus medusicola and Peprilus paru. Many small species of Psenes, a related genus, also abound in the warm currents from tropical seas.
The Rag-fishes: Icosteidæ.—Allied to the butter-fishes are the deep-water Icosteidæ, fishes of soft, limp bodies as unresistant as a wet rag, Icosteus ænigmaticus of the California coast being known as ragfish. Schedophilus medusophagus feeds on medusæ and salpa, living on the surface in the deep seas. Mr. Ogilby thus speaks of a specimen taken in Ireland:
"It was the most delicate adult fish I ever handled; within twenty-four hours after its capture the skin of the belly and the intestines fell off when it was lifted, and it felt in the hand quite soft and boneless." A related species (S. heathi) has been lately taken by Dr. Charles H. Gilbert at Monterey in California.
The family of Acrotidæ contains a single species of large size. Acrotus willoughbyi, allied to Icosteus, but without ventral fins and with the vertebræ very numerous. The type, five and one-quarter feet long, was thrown by a storm on the coast of Washington, near the Quinnault agency.