Fig. 391.—California Miller's Thumb, Cottus gulosus Girard. McCloud River, Cal. (Photograph by Cloudsley Rutter.)
According to Fabricius, Myoxocephalus grœnlandicus is "abundant in all the bays and inlets of Greenland, but prefers a stony coast clothed with seaweed. It approaches the shore in spring and departs in winter. It is very voracious, preying on everything that comes in its way and pursuing incessantly the smaller fish, not sparing the young of its own species, and devouring crustacea and worms. It is very active and bold, but does not come to the surface unless it be led thither in pursuit of other fish. It spawns in December and January and deposits its red-colored roe on the seaweed. It is easily taken with a bait, and constitutes the daily food of the Greenlanders, who are very fond of it. They eat the roe raw."
Fig. 392.—Pribilof Sculpin, Myoxocephalus niger (Bean). St. Paul Island, Bering Sea.
The little sculpin, or grubby, of the New England coast is Myoxocephalus æneus, and the larger eighteen-spined sculpin is Myoxocephalus octodecimspinosus. Still more numerous and varied are the sculpins of the North Pacific, Myoxocephalus polyacanthocephalus being the best known and most widely diffused. Oncocottus quadricornis is the long-horned sculpin of the Arctic Europe, entering the lakes of Russia and British America. Triglopsis thompsoni of the depths in our own Great Lakes seems to be a dwarfed and degenerate descendant of Oncocottus.
Fig. 393.—18-spined Sculpin, Myoxocephalus octodecimspinosus (Mitchill). Beasley Point, N. J.
Fig. 394.—Oncocottus quadricornis (L.). St. Michael, Alaska.