FAMILY XI. PCECILIID^;. 121 



Head 3^; depth 3; D. 13 or 14; A. 15 or 16; scales 15-35. Body 

 elongate, somewhat compressed; head broad, usually a slight angle at 

 the nape; mouth small, lower jaw projecting; chin prominent; snout 

 3^ m head; teeth fixed, outer series bicuspid; eye 3^2 in head; origin 

 of dorsal fin midway between base of caudal and middle of opercle 

 (?) or posterior margin of eye (6), slightly in advance of origin of 

 anal ; pectoral fin i y 2 in head ; ventral fin 2 ]/$ ; caudal fin emarginate ; 

 least depth of caudal peduncle 2 in head. 



Color light brownish, the male with a more or less prominent dark 

 lateral band usually broken into blotches ; dorsal and caudal fins black 

 with a light yellow border ; scales of upper part of body with dark cen- 

 ters forming lateral stripes along the rows of scales; color of female 

 more variegated ; sides with spots and blotches ; a row of black spots 

 on the lower half of the caudal peduncle ; fins all pale ; young specimens 

 spotted and much resembling the young of Zoogoneticus robustus 

 (Bean), but with larger spots. Length about 3^ inches. 



The most abundant and the best known species in the genus. 

 The young are born the last of May. The alimentary canal in some 

 specimens is scarcely the length of the fish, in others about 1% times 

 its length. One female 2,20 inches in length contained n young, each 

 .55 inch in length; a second one 2.50 inches in length contained 23 

 young, each .46 inch in length; a third 2.70 inches in length contained 

 37 young, each .40 inch in length. 



109. Characodon lateralis Gunther. 



Characodon iaterali S, Gunther, Cat., vi, 308, 1866; Central America: 



Gunther, Fishes of Cent. Amer., 480, pi. 82, fig. 2, 1869: Jordan 



& Evermann, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., 1896, 668: Pellegrin, 



Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, 1901, 205; Estado de Jalisco. 



Lowland streams from Central America north to the State of Jalisco. 



Head 3^; depth 3; D. 10 or n; A. 13 (?) to 15 or 16 (<$), scales 



12-35. Body elevated, the neck somewhat arched; head thick and 



broad, the snout obtuse, as long as the eye; about 20 teeth in each jaw, 



their tips indistinctly notched ; eye 4 in head ; origin of the dorsal fin 



a little nearer end of caudal than of occiput, a little behind anal; 



caudal fin small, truncate or slightly convex. 



Color brownish olive with a darker band running from eye to the 

 root of the caudal ; this band sometimes broken up into a more or less 

 regular series of brownish spots. (Gunther.) 



110. Characodon garmani Jordan & Evermann. 



Characodon lateralis Garman, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., xix, 1895, 36, 

 pi. i, fig. 9 (not Characodon lateralis Gunther) ; Parras, Coahuila, 

 Mexico. 



