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seen incessantly swimming with great vivacity between the 

 rocks, and in the small pools of water which are left by the 

 sea at the time of the reflux. Although generally edible, none 

 of their species furnish an important article of nutriment, in 

 consequence of their diminutive size, and because they are 

 not gregarious. 



We proceed to the fourth family, the Sparoides. 



Artedi had united in his genus spams fifteen species of 

 fish, most of them of the Mediterranean, and all resembling 

 each other in an oval body, a spiny dorsal, undivided and not 

 scaly, a palate without teeth, a preoperculum not denticu- 

 lated, an operculum not spinous, the membrane of the gills 

 supported by five or six rays and some few pyloric append- 

 ages. All these positive characters would have determined 

 the Baron and his co-adjutor to leave these fishes and the 

 numbers analogous, which have since been discovered for 

 them, together, had it not been that among the groups which 

 should compose this family there were some whose parts 

 could not exactly be thus defined, notwithstanding the rela- 

 tions by which they are connected with the rest. Such, 

 therefore, our eminent ichthyologist was forced to separate 

 from this family. We shall first speak of the genus SARGUS. 



The most prominent character of this genus consists in the 

 form of the incisors, which are broad, compressed, and trun- 

 cated at their extremity, rendering them similar to human 

 incisors, especially in the individuals of large dimensions. 



The sargi are littoral fishes, common enough on the coasts 

 of the southern provinces of France, and one species of which 

 at least is to be seen on the western coasts of Spain ; but they 

 do not advance beyond that along the northern coasts of the 

 ocean. They do not enter the channel, and we find no men- 

 tion of them in the north of Europe. Pennant, Donovan, 

 Muller, Linnaeus, and also Fabricius, are alike silent regarding 

 them. 



