NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 331 



Mouth scarcely protractile, with the cleft scarcely oblique; intermaxillary 

 bones thin, wide, and their plane surface nearly horizontal, their posterior pro- 

 cesses broad and short; supramaxillary extended downwards at angle, but 

 almost entirely behiud the intermaxillary. Dentary rapidly increasing in 

 height towards the angle. 



Lips rather thin, with several folds. 



Teeth on the crest of the jaw conic, curved uniserial, decreasing back- 

 wards, two or three anterior ones of the upper jaw much enlarged, but none 

 behind.- 



Branchial membrane free below. 



Branchiostegal rays six. 



Dorsal fin with no scales at base, entire, commencing; over or behind the 

 biseof pectorals, with nine spines, not produced beyond the membrane, but en- 

 veloped behind in a skinny extension; soft portion nearly even aal subanga- 

 lated behind. 



Anal fin with three spines like those of the dorsal, and with the soft portion 

 rather low. 



Caudal fin subtruncated, covered at the base with small scales. 



Pectoral fins rather narrow, obliquely truncated behind. 



Ventral fin3 beneath or behind the pectoral, angulated at the end of the first 

 ray. 



D. IX. 13. A. III. 13. 

 2 



Scales 27-28 

 12 



The lower pharyngeal bone is transverse and narrow, bow-shaped, and with 

 much compressed narrow anterior process, regularly emarginated behind, in 

 front gibbous on each side of the middle, and with the converging sides nearly 

 straight; the posterior surface is vertical and extended downward, and from 

 that a ridge crosses the bone towards its upper surface; the front is beset with 

 about three rows of conic tseth, of which those of the hinder row are enlarged, 

 and one or two rows are advanced on the front anterior process. 



Oxyjulis is distinguished among all of its tribe by the produced acutely conic 

 head ; it differs from Juhs, besides, in the more compressed body, the form of 

 the jaws, and the presence mrmally of nine dorsal spines ;* from Pseudojulis, 

 it is separable on account of the form of the head, structure of the jaws, the 

 brevity of the dorsal spines and their production in their cotaneous sheaths, as 

 well as by the form of the lower pharyngeal bone. 



Only one species of the genus is known which had formerly been referred by 

 Girard and the author to Julis, and by Giinther to Pseuiojulis. 



OXYJULIS MODESTUS Gill. 



Synonymy. 

 Jolis modestus Girard, Proc. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 



vol. vii. p. 151, 1854. Girard, Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad 



Route, &c, vol. x. Fishes, p. 163. 

 Halichoeres californicus Giinther, Annals and Magaz'ne of Natural History eer. 



iii. vol. viii. p. 386. 

 Julis modestus Gill, Proc. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1862 



p. 142. ' 



Pseudojulis modestus Giinther, Catalogue of the Fishes in the Collection of the 



British Museum, vol. iv. p. 168. 

 Hah. Coast of California. 



* The number eight which was formerly assigned to the type of the genus is abnormal. Misled 

 by its occurrence in the first specimen examined, and by its coincidence with the dentition of the 

 typied Jul' 

 thus retail 



1863.] 



typied Julis, T, too, hastily regarded it as a species of that genus as restricted by Gunther, an J 

 thus retained it in the same genus in which Girard had placed it 



