260 ORDER ACANTHOPTERYGII. 



They are taken in the Indian Ocean, and the 

 flesh of certain species is held in the highest estima- 

 tion '. 



Xyrichthys, Cuv. 



These fishes resemble a labrus as to form, but are 

 much compressed ; the front descends suddenly to- 

 wards the mouth in a trenchant and almost vertical 

 line, formed by the aethmoid and the ascending 

 branches of the inter maxillaries. Their body is co- 

 vered with large scales ; the lateral line is interrupted ; 

 the jaws are armed with a range of conical teeth, the 

 central ones longest ; the pharynx paved with hemis- 

 pherical teeth ; the intestinal canal is continuous, 

 twice folded, without cceca, and has no cul-de-sac to 

 the stomach : natatory bladder tolerably long. Up 

 to our time naturalists had always placed them 

 with the coryphsenae, from which they greatly differ 

 both internally and externally. They approximate 

 most to labrus, only differing in the profile of the 

 head 2 . 



The greater number of xyrichthys have a naked 

 head : such is 



X. novamla ; Coryphcena novacula, L., Rondel. 146., 



1 Renard, Poissons de la mer des Indes, part ii. pi. xii. f. 109. 

 Commerson, however, tells us that the eceruleus is but indifferent 

 food. 



2 The sharp edge of the head of the coryphaenae is owing to the 

 interparietal crest ; their scales are small and soft, their cceca nu- 

 merous. See Mem. du Mus. ii. 324. 



