ACANTIIOPTERYGII. 1^7 



pointed or laminiform, but generally stronger than usual ; an 

 intestinal canal either without caeca, or with two very small 

 ones, and a strong natatory bladder. 



Labrus, Lin. 



A very numerous genus of fishes which strongly resemble each other 

 in their oblong form; their double fleshy lips, from which they de- 

 rive their name, one adhering immediately to the jaws and the other 

 to the suborbitals^ their crowded branchiae with five raysj their co- 

 nical maxillary teeth, the middle and anterior of which are the 

 longest, and their cylindrical and blunt pharyngeal teeth arranged 

 en pave, the upper ones on two large plates, the lower on a single 

 one which corresponds to the two others. Their stomach does not 

 form a cul-de-sac, but is continuous with an intestine without caeca, 

 which after two inflexions, terminates in a large rectum. They have 

 a single and strong natatory bladder. 



Labrus, properly so called. 



The opercula and preopercula without spines or dentationsj 

 the cheek and operculum covered with scalesj the lateral line 

 straight, or nearly so. The seas of Europe produce several species 

 the variation of whose colours rarely allows them to be clearly dis- 

 tinguished.(l) 



L. maculatus; Duham. Sect. IV, pi. ii, f. I; Lab. maculatusj 

 Bl. 284.?^ Lab. bergilta, Ascan. Ic. I. From a foot to eighteen 

 inches in lengthj twenty or twenty-one dorsal spines; blue or 

 greenish above, white beneath; every where chequered with 

 fawn colour, which sometimes becomes general.(2) 



L.variegatus, Gm.; L. lineatus, Penn. XLV, cop.Encycl. 402. 

 One or more clouded, irregular dark bands along the flank, on 

 a ground more or less reddish; sixteen or seventeen spines in 

 the dorsal, which is marked with a dark spot in front. (3) 



(1) With respect to these fishes we can neither trust to the figures of Bloch nor 

 to the descriptions of Gmelin. 



(2) The Fielle tacheUe was indicated by Lacep., under the name o{ Lahreneus- 

 trien. It is possible that the Labrus maculatus, 131., 294, was a bad figure of it, 

 taken from a dried specimen whose colours had been entirely changed; the La- 

 brus tinea, Shaw, Nat. Misc., 426, and Gen. Zool., IV, pi. ii, p. 499, is a beautiful 

 variety, red spotted with white, but is not the tinea of Lin.; the Lab. ballan, 

 Penn., 44, cop. Encycl., 400, is the fawn coloured variety; the L. comber, Penn., 

 XLII, cop. Encycl, 405, is a red variety, with a suite of white spots along the 



flank. 



(3) The only good drawing of this fish is that of Pennant; I suspect the Labr. 



