92 NATURAL HISTORY OF AMIA CALVA LINNAEUS. 



tinged with green on the cheeks and sides; below dirty grayish between anals and 

 pectorals, light metallic green in front of pectorals; iris golden flecked with brown, 

 and brighter at its inner border. At this time the form is that of the adult. The 

 scales are fully developed; the nasal chimney is visible. The anal fin is large, the 

 pel vies are developed, but still small. The tail is still distinctly heterocercal. At 40 

 millimetres bright colors have appeared. The black has given place to a very dark 

 green on the top of head and back and on the sides of the body. The fins are trans- 

 parent, but bordered with black. The sides of the head (cheeks and opercles) are 

 now distinctly olive-green, fading to a light green on the lower surface of the head. 

 Three black stripes are left on the head; one extends through the eye and marks 

 also the iris, a second runs beneath the eye, and a third, fainter and narrower, extends 

 backward from below the angle of the mouth. The two upper stripes show a faint 

 border of orange, and the middle of the opercle shows an orange band broader below, 

 and the border behind this band is dark. The basal lobe of the pectoral is tinged 

 with orange. At 50 millimetres a small black tail-spot without orange border is present. 



Lame of 60 millimetres (PL VII, Fig. 1). The form is like that of the 40- 

 millimetre larvae, except that the tail is less strongly heterocercal. The upper 

 parts of the body are still dark olive-green, nearly black, becoming silvery below 

 between anal and pectoral, and metallic greenish white on the lower surface of the 

 head and on the lower part of the cheeks and opercle. There are now four black 

 stripes on the head, ocular, subocular, and mandibular as before, and in addition 

 a gular often bifurcated caudally. The ocular and subocular stripes are bor- 

 dered with yellow, the subocular more broadly. An oval black tail-spot is present 

 and is bordered with orange. The fins and opercle are all black-bordered, and there 

 is a black stripe lengthwise through the middle of the dorsal not yet developed in 

 the individual figured. The fins, except the pelvic, are no longer transparent, but 

 have a bright orange ground color traversed by indistinct black lines along the fin- 

 rays. The colors are now most brilliant and striking. They are not noticeably 

 different in larvse of 65 millimetres. (Compare the description of Amia ornata 

 Lesueur, 61 millimetres long, as given by Dumeril, '70.) 



Larvae of 70 millimetres (PL VII, Figs. 2, 3). The heterocercal tail is now 

 largely masked, and, except for the relatively somewhat smaller paired fins and the 

 somewhat different proportions of the body, the form is that of the adult. There 

 are three noteworthy changes in the color: 



(1) A curved black band has appeared crossing the middle of the caudal parallel 

 to its border and composed of discrete blotches on the fin-rays, and a similar black 

 band crosses the anal. 



