) 



26 SUPPLEMENT ON 



fishes the name of Pomacanthus is restricted by M. Cuvier, 

 which was given by Count Lacepede to all the chsetodons, 

 whose preoperculura is armed with a spine or sting, but in 

 which the edge of this bone has not, or does not appear to 

 have any denticulation. 



Our countrymen in the West Indies know these fish in 

 general under the names ofjlat-jish, or Indian-Jish ; and the 

 French colonists call it Portngais. 



The Platax have not altogether the same sort of teeth as 

 chaetodons. Those of the first rank are trenchant, and divided 

 into three lobes or denticulations, a structure something of 

 which may be observed in many holocanthi, but which is 

 much more decided in the platax. It is only behind these 

 first teeth that there are any formed like a brush, as in the 

 common chsetodons. 



Psetta is the Greek name of a flat fish which some take for 

 the plaise, and others for the turbot, but which seems to the 

 Baron to be the dab (Platessa rliombus). Commerson has 

 given it the masculine form of Psettus, and has applied 

 it to a very compressed fish of the Indian Seas, which, with 

 the general characters of the chaetodons, has this peculiar 

 one in the ventrals, that but one spine is visible, which is also 

 extremely short. 



We may also say that the teeth are rather small and crowded 

 than brush -formed, but there are no palatine teeth. 



M. Bosc has seen the Pimelepteri follow vessels in the 

 open sea, and assemble in troops round the stem to devour 

 what was thrown out of the ship. They are not easily got 

 to bite at the hook, and they can even carry off the bait with- 

 out suffering themselves to be taken. Their flesh is esteemed 

 by the French, but our countrymen hold it in no great con- 

 sideration. 



The genus Brama furnishes a striking proof of the very 

 imperfect state in which Cuvier found the science of ichthyo- 



