301 



MAUROLICUS. 



Of the fishes of the family which we have denominated Silver- 

 Spots, there is only known in the British catalogue a species 

 which is arranged by Dr. Gunther in the genus here specified, and of 

 which the character is— the head and body compressed, and covered 

 with a silver pigment, without scales; a row of shining spots along 

 the side of the head and body, on each aide of the lower border, 

 to the tail. Gape wide, opening downward; mystache wide and 

 long, with teeth on the edge, as also in the jaws; dorsal fin behind 

 the middle of the body, but before the line of the anal; tail forked. 



ARGENTINE. 



Sheppy Argentine, FENNiUT. 



Scopelus Pennantii, Cl'VIEK. 



" borealis, Nilsson. YARRELii; Br. Fishes, vol. ii, 



p. 164 and 167. 

 " " Dk. W. B. Clarke; Charlesworth's Mag. 



Nat. Hist., vol. ii, p. 22. 

 Maurolicus lorealis, Gunther; Cat. Br. Museum, vol. v, p. 389. 



There appears to be some ground for the doubt whether 

 all the examples, now become numerous, which have been 

 found on the British coasts are of one species, or even of 

 one genus, as they are now arranged; and this doubt becomes 

 the more warranted when we find that no less than eight of 

 these fishes, not very much unlike each other in size and 

 shape, are said to be natives of the Mediterranean and the 

 neighbouring ocean, or in the north, any one of which might 

 be mistaken for another by a casual observer; and so much 

 the rather since the more distinctive characters are liable to 

 be mutilated or overlooked. Pennant's first account describes 

 this fish by copying froui Willoughby what the latter had 

 written of a different species; and it is so much the more 

 worthless as both these writers were mistaken in what they 



