CLASS PISCES. 395 



Exocettjs, L 1 . 



Are to be instantly recognized among the abdom- 

 inal fishes, by the exceeding size of their pectorals, 

 sufficiently extended to support them for some mi- 

 nutes in the air. Their head and body are scaly, 

 a longitudinal range of carinated scales forms a 

 salient line at the bottom of each flank, as in Belone, 

 Hemiramphus, &c. 2 Their head is flatted above, and 

 at the sides ; their dorsal is placed above the anal, 

 their eyes are large, their intermaxillaries without 



Commersonii, Cuv., Lacep. V. vii. 3 ; or the demi-bec de BaggewaaL 

 Renard, part II. pi. v. No. 21. 



Species of America : H. Brasiliensis, Cuv., or Esox Brasiliensis, 

 Bloch 391. //. hepsetus, or Es. hepsetus, Bl., Schn., and others 

 which we shall describe in our history of fishes. See also the article 

 of M. Lesueur, Journ. des Sc. Nat. de Philad. I. 134, &c. 



N.B. M. de Lacepede unites the Esox hepsetus of Lin. to the 

 Es. marginatus ; but the Esox hei^setus is a compound of two fishes ; 

 one, the piquitinga of Marcgr. 159, (the mcenidia of Brown, Jam. 

 xlv. 3.) is an anchovy ; the other, Amcen. Ac. I. p. 321, appears to 

 me indeterminable, but cannot be an hemiramphus. 



1 'E^w/cotroe (lying out), the Greek name of a fish, which, according 

 to the report of the ancients, was in the habit of coming to repose 

 upon the shore. It was probably some Gobius, or Blennius, as 

 Rondelet and others have conjectured. It is impossible to compre- 

 hend how Artedi could have associated our present fishes to these 

 blennies. Linnaeus has separated them, preserving this name of 

 Exocetus, which did not belong to them. 



2 This carinated range must not be confounded, as Bloch has done 

 with the lateral line, which is at its usual place, though often but 

 slightly marked. 



