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lower jaw, a chaffron somewhat concave and very strong, 

 denticulations to the preoperculum, and especially because 

 the soft parts of the dorsal and the anal are elongated into 

 obtuse points, which, with the rounded caudal, cause the 

 posterior parts of the body to appear to be divided into three 

 lobes. 



The Lobotes Surinamensis, we are told by Bloch, attains 

 the size of our common perch, that its flesh is sweet and fat, 

 and that it is considered as one of the best fish of Surinam. 

 Dr. Mitchill has described and represented a fish perfectly 

 similar to this in form and details, and which probably is the 

 same ; he names it Bodianus triourus, or triple-tailed black 

 perch. 



Tt is brought but seldom to New York. Dr. Mitchill has 

 seen one thirteen inches long, and weighing twenty-seven 

 ounces, taken on the coast of New Jersey, near Powles-Hook. 

 But there are some larger, and which weigh four or five 

 pounds. Some fishermen of the country also call it black 

 grunts (labrus nigerj. 



Scolopsides was a genus almost new to naturalists when 

 first proposed by M. Cuvier, in 1817. The brief but com- 

 prehensive characters given by the Baron in the text supersede 

 the necessity, with reference to most of the genera, of our 

 enlarging on mere structure. 



Many acanthopterygians have at the lower part of their 

 pectoral some simple and not branched rays although arti- 

 culated. Numerous examples of this are to be found in the 

 family of perco'ides, and in that of the buccae loricatae. In 

 some, as trigla, these rays are not united to the others by a 

 common membrane, and move freely ; in others, such as scor- 

 pamae, they are not only united by the same membrane, but 

 they do not pass it. There are some, in fine, as the cirrhites, 

 in which these radii, although united by the common mem- 

 brane, are thicker than the soft rays, and prolong their ex- 



