359 



LUMPENUS NUBILUS (Richardson). 



Radii: Br. 6-6 ; D. 63/ ; A. 1/42; C. 17; P. 16; V. 1/4-1/4. 

 PLATE XXVIIL, nat. size. 



Professor Reinhardt, in his ' Ichthyologiske Bidrag til den 

 Gronlandske Fauna/ briefly notices several Greenland Gun- 

 nelli, under the generic appellation of Clinus, following in this 

 a former edition of the ' Regne Animal. 3 The typical species 

 of the group is the Blennius lumpenus of Fabricius, which is 

 the Gunnellus Fabricii of the ' Histoire des Poissons/ the 

 authors of that work rejecting the epithet lumpenus on ac- 

 count of its having originated in an erroneous compilation. 

 The same species is described and figured in Henrik Kroyer's 

 ' Scandinaviens Fiske' (pi. xiv.) under the generic name of 

 Lumpenus, which AVC have adopted, notwithstanding the objec- 

 tion made to it, since the group differs so much from the rib- 

 bon-formed Gunnelli as to need a distinctive appellation. 



Not having access to examples of the Lumpeni enumerated 

 by Professor Reinhardt, I am unable to compare Sir Edward 

 Belcher's fish with them, but a careful consideration of 

 the Professor's notices lead me to the conclusion that it is a 

 species not yet described. Though it greatly resembles Lum- 

 penus Fabricii in its markings, and does not much differ from 

 it in the number of its rays, it cannot be said to be round 

 (teres) , as Fabricius terms his fish, while, on the other hand, it 

 is far from being compressed and comparatively high in the 

 body, like Gunnellus vulgar is or G. fasciatus, and Kroyer's 

 figure represents a more coarsely scaled fish than nubilus : 

 moreover it wants the palatine teeth of Fabricius's lumpenus. 

 Indeed L. gracilis is the only member of the group with which 

 it agrees in having teeth neither on the vomer nor palatines ;* 



* Professor Reinhardt arranges the species according to their denti- 

 tion, thus : 



a. Teeth on the palatines, Clinus lumpenus, C. med'ms. 



b. Teeth on the palatines and vomer, C. aculeatus. 



c. No teeth in either of these positions, C. gracilis. 



