_Stromateus fiatola_, the fiatola of the Italian fishermen, is an excellent food-fish of the Mediterranean. _Poronotus triacanthus_, the harvest-fish, or dollar-fish, of our Atlantic coast, is a common little silvery fish six to ten inches, as bright and almost as round as a dollar. Its tender oily flesh has an excellent flavor. Very similar to it is the poppy-fish (_Palometa simillima_) of the sandy shores of California, miscalled the "California pampano," valued by the San Francisco epicure, who pays large prices for it supposing it to be pampano, although admitting that the pampano in New Orleans has firmer flesh and better flavor. The harvest-fish, _Peprilus paru_, frequently taken on our Atlantic coast, is known by its very high fins. _Stromateoides argenteus_, a much larger fish than any of these, is a very important species on the coasts of China. [Illustration: 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. [Illustration: 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: