120 FISH HARVESTING. 



Mediterranean, and occasionally on the French 

 and Spanish coasts. But a close investigation 

 into the more marked generic and specific charac- 

 ters, apart from their reproducing organs, at 

 once clearly shows they belong neither to the 

 one family nor the other ; they differ much more 

 from the percoids than from the sparoids, but 

 the cycloid scales remove them at once from the 

 sparoids, in which the scales present a very 

 uniform ctenoid type. 



The illustration represents a female Ditrema 

 argenteum, Brit. Mus. Cat., ' Fishes.' 



Amphistichus argenteus, Agass., Am. Journ., 

 1854; Soc. Nat. Hist., 1861, p. 131; Pacif. 

 E. R. Exp., ' Fishes,' p. 201. 



Mytilophagus fasciatus (Gibbons). 



Amphistichus similes (Grd.). 



The middle dorsal spines are either nearly as 

 long as, or somewhat longer, than the posterior; 

 scales 011 the cheek, in five series, somewhat 

 irregularly disposed. The height of the body 

 is rather more than a fourth of the total length 

 (without caudal); jaws equal anteriorly; the 

 maxillary extends to below the centre of the 

 orbit; lips thin, the fold of the lower interrupted 

 in the middle. For description of species, vide 

 Appendix, vol. ii. 



