ACANTHOPTERYGII. 299 



scarcely affirm that it does differ specifically. According to 

 MM. Quoy and Gaymard, this fish, from its abundance, con- 

 stitutes a portion of the riches of Cape Town. Thousands of 

 them are caught every day with the hook or drag-net. This 

 fish is salted and dried like cod. Its flavour is excellent, and 

 the flesh is firm. 



The scicena pama, or bola pama, of the Ganges, resembles 

 the maigres in the rank of strong and pointed teeth which it 

 has round each jaw, and in the extreme smallness of its anal 

 spine ; but it has distinct characters in the number of soft 

 rays of its dorsal, which go from forty-one to forty-five, and 

 in the singular form of its natatory bladder. 



This is the fish, which, when but twelve or fifteen inches 

 long, bears, more especially at Calcutta, the misapplied name 

 of whiting, but it becomes considerably larger than our true 

 whiting, and some of them are seen four or five feet in 

 length. It is caught in great abundance at the mouths of 

 the Ganges. But it never ascends higher than the tide. 

 When it is very fresh it furnishes a light and salubrious nutri- 

 ment. 



We have now to speak of the subgenera Otolithus and 



Ancylodon. 



The colonists of Pondicherry give the denomination, half 

 French and half Portuguese, of Peche-Pierre, to a fish of 

 the former subgenus, in consequence of the large stones which 

 it has, as they say, in the head, but which are the stones of 

 its ears. Although this name indicates but a circumstance of 

 organization common to the whole family of the sciaenae, it has 

 served to form that of otolithus (ear-stone) which is given 

 by M. Cuvier to this entirely foreign subgenus. 



The otolithi resemble the maigres in all the details of their 

 structure, and especially in the extreme smallness of their 

 anal fins, and partake with them the general and exterior 

 character of the sciaenae, the gibbous head, the cavernous bones 



