[Suggested by the termination of the generic name Lopholatilus, and by the brilliant coloring resembling ornamental tiles.] Name for the fish Lopholatilus chamæleonticeps, found in abundance in 1879 off the coast of New England, and valued as food; supposed to be extinct from the early part of 1882 till 1892, since which year its numbers have again increased.
1879. Chicago Tribune, 3 Nov., 3/5. The tile-fish resembles the cod in some particulars. It is said to be abundant, and is likely to become extensively used as an article of food.
1881. Tanner, in Rep. U. S. Comm. Fish & Fisheries (1884), 34. One of the tile-fish taken in the morning was boiled for dinner and served with egg sauce.
1884. Goode, Fisheries of U.S., I. 360. The Tile-fish … a form discovered on a hitherto unexplored ground, eighty miles southeast of Noman’s Land, Massachusetts, in [May] 1879…. Captain Kirby of Gloucester, who was the first to obtain specimens of this fish, caught in a few hours several hundred.
1893. Worthington’s Mag. (Hartford, CT), I. 150. The Tile Fish, with its back of pale violet hue and greenish-yellow spots, is one of the most brilliantly colored fishes in the world.
1902. Jordan & Evermann, Amer. Food Fishes, 504. The famous tilefish, whose discovery only a few years ago, and sudden disappearance a few months later, has interested commercial fishermen and scientists as well…. It was not until 1892 that they were found again.
