ray's bream. 131 



inches in length, which is three inches shorter than the one 

 described by Ray; the depth eight inches and a half before 

 the dorsal fin, where that naturalist's measurement was ten 

 inches; the shape much compressed. Head small, sloping in 

 front; the snout short; angle of the mouth depressed, under 

 jaw longest; teeth slender, numerous, sharp, incurved, the inner 

 row of the lower jaw longest; tongue fleshy. Eye large, 

 round, not far from the angle of the mouth; the iris dark, 

 pupil light. Nostrils single. Measuring along the curve, the 

 dorsal fin begins seven inches and a half from the snout, 

 having the shorter rays like blunt spines, each longer than 

 the former; the fourth ray longest; the fin then becomes nar- 

 rower, and continues slender to within an inch of the tail. 

 Anal fin shaped like the dorsal. Pectoral six inches long, 

 rather narrow, its direction obliquely upward. Ventrals trian- 

 gular, with a wing three fourths of their length. Tail deeply 

 forked. Lateral line nearer the back, obscure. The head, 

 body, and fins, except the pectorals and ventrals, and even the 

 mystache, covered with firmly-fixed scales, which are absent in 

 a band across the forehead, the colour of which, and also of 

 the back, is a very dark blue; copper-coloured brown over 

 and before the eye; somewhat silvery on the sides and below. 

 The dorsal and anal fins, and a stripe along the root of the 

 former, are a sparkling silvery white, tinted with green before 

 the dorsal fin; coppery and lake along the upper part of the 

 sides. The rays of the dortal fin number thirty -four, anal 

 thirty, pectoral eighteen, ventral five, caudal twenty-four. The 

 liveliness of the colours will be accounted for by remembering 

 that this example was fresh from the water. In another 

 example the tints were wanting. 



From Nilsson's "Skandenavisk Fauna" I learn that, among 

 examples of this genus taken in the Northern Ocean, not far 

 from the coast of Norway, was a specimen which was believed 

 to offer considerable differences from the others, of a character, 

 in the opinion of the naturalist Fries, to vindicate him in 

 forming for it a separate genus, to which he appropriated the 

 name of Pterycombus (Brama.J The example was mutilated 

 and dry when it came into the hands of its describer; but the 

 distinguishing characters, as noted by him, are, — a difference from 

 the other species in the number of the rays of the fins, and in 



