188 SMEAR DAB. 



The Smear Dab in comparison witli tlie Common Dab is a 

 larger and tbicker fi.sb. Tbe example selected measured in 

 length seventeen inches, which is scarcely the utmost to which 

 it sometimes attains; and, including the fins, the same fish was 

 nine inches in breadth, but without the fins the breadth is 

 two parts and a fourth of the whole length. The head small, 

 the gape remarkably so, with tumid lijis; teeth closely set, 

 flat, fifteen or sixteen in number, in regular order. Eyes 

 moderately large, near each other, the lowest in advance and 

 pressing on the corner of the mouth; anterior nasal orifice 

 tubulous and projecting. Body and cheek clothed with smooth 

 scales; lateral line slightly arched above the pectoral fin, and 

 in one instance the arch interrupted with a de^^ression. The 

 dorsal fin begins over the upper eye and ends opposite the 

 termination of the anal, not far from the tail, the latter round. 

 Pectoral of rather moderate size; ventral midway between the 

 anal and the throat. Colour reddish or yellowish brown with 

 variegations of a deeper colour; under lip red. 



In one instance an example, of which a plate is given, was 

 caught with a line, the whole appearance of which was so 

 different from that of the Smear Dab as commonly met with, 

 that I have felt some doubt whether it should be assigned to 

 that species; and my only reason for concluding it to be so is, 

 that it still less resembled any other of the known fishes of 

 this genus. The length was fourteen inches, and the breadth, 

 including the fins, eight inches and a fourth; the head small, 

 the distance from the lips to the borders of the gill-covers two 

 inches and a half; lips tumid, gape small, teeth in an even 

 row, with broad edges. Eyes large, protuberant, the lower- 

 most in advance near the corner of the mouth, the two 

 separated by a high ridge, and in front a high triangular space 

 which comes over the snout, and is bent across the ridge to 

 the other or lower side. The body remarkably thick anteriorly, 

 humped on the najje; thinner towards the tail. Lateral line 

 gently arched over the pectoral fins, and irregular as it approaches 

 the tail; nostrils on the coloured side not sunk, the two i:)airs 

 symmetrical — covered with minuter scales heaped together, slight 

 scales on the fins and tail. The dorsal fin begins over the 

 upper eye; first rays of the anal embraced by the ventral fins, 

 which i» not the case with the usual examples of the Smear 



