208 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OP 



Genus SEBASTOPLUS Gill. 

 Sebastes sp. Auct. 



Body oblong, much compressed, and with the caudal peduncle rather low 

 or narrow. 



Scales moderate (60-65), ctenoid, arranged in very obl'que rows, and with 

 no supernumerary ones. Lateral line simple, in scales like the others. 



Head scaly, oblong, with the profile uniformly declining, pointed at the 

 snout, and with no coronal depression. Supraciliary and coronal crests con- 

 spicuous. Cheeks with a serrated horizontal carina continued from the pre- 

 orbital beneath the eye to the hinder margin of the preopercnlum above or on 

 a line with the superior spine. Preorbital with two recurved teeth below. 



Preoperculum oblique behind, broadly rounded towards its angle, with a 

 muciferous channel, and armed along its margin with four spines decreasing 

 downwards. 



Operculum with two spines, continued forwards as converging keels, the 

 lower more prominent. 



Filaments and barbels obsolete. 



Mouth narrow, but rather large, the supramaxil'ars extending behind the 

 anterior half of the eye, and truncated. Jaws nearly even ; the upper not pro- 

 tractile and separated at the symphysis ; the lower low in front, received with- 

 in the upper and with a tubercle below its symphysis. 



Teeth villiform on the jaws, vomer and palatine bones ; a wide naked in- 

 terval at the symphysis of the upper jaw is toothless. 



Dorsal fin with its spinous part convex above, depressed towards its soft por- 

 tion, and with twelve (XI.-f-I.) spines, the penultimate of which is smaller than 

 the last. Anal fin short and deep and with its second spine longest. Caudal 

 subtruncated. 



Pectoral fins with rather slender and generally entire articulated rays. 

 Ventral inserted nearly below the pectoral and angulated externally. 



Type. Sebastoplns kuhlii. 



Syn. Sebastes kuhlii Lowe = Scorprena kuhlii Bawd. 



The genus is most nearly allied to Sebastodes and Sebastichthys, but is readily 

 distinguished by the serrated infraorbital crest, the form of the lower jaw and 

 the unarmed interval at the symphysis of the upper, as well as by the arma- 

 ture of the preoperculum and the simplicity of the pectoral rays. 



Besides the type, the Sebastes filifer of Valenciennes is the onl\- species 

 which is known to me to be certainly referrible to the genus. The lattt-r 

 species appears to be very closely related to S. Kuhlii, and it is not perhaps 

 impossible that it may even be the same, although Valenciennes expressly says, 

 that the "scales have smooth borders."* It is very difficult to believe that 

 there should be such a difference between two so evidently nearly related 

 species, although Johnson, in his remarks on Setarches Giintherii,] admits the 

 species without hesitation, and refers to the cycloid scales; but he had pro- 

 bably never seen the species. 



Sebastoplus Kuhlii Gill. 



Scorpaena kuhlii Bowd., Exc. in Mad., p. 123. 



Sebastes kuhlii Lowe, Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. ii. p. 176 ; Fishes of Madeira, p. 115, 

 Giinther, Acanth. Fishes, ii. p. 102. 



Sebastoplus filifer Gi'tl. 



Sebastes filifer. Val., Webb, et Berthelot, Hist. Nat. des lies Canaries, Ichthy- 

 ologie. 

 The figure (1) named Sebastes kuhlii on the plate illustrating also the S. 



* Les eeailles a bord lisse snnt de moyenne grandeur. 

 f Johnson, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1862. 



[Aug. 



