1941 CATALOGUE OF FISHES OF TORTUGAS I2 e 



may be all black. In another the fins may be all light except the caudal, which 

 may show a dark band like that of Haemulon sciurus. In color the two species 

 are somewhat alike, but are distinguishable at a glance because the lines of yellow 

 are much more regular in H. carbonarium . The mouth is pale salmon within 

 and dark at the angles. W. H. L. 



Dr. Longley first reported this species from United States waters (Carnegie 

 Inst. Wash. Year Book No. 21, 1922, p. 171). It has also been taken by Bureau of 

 Fisheries investigators at Key West (unpublished), where it seems to be rare. 

 It ranges from Brazil to Florida and Bermuda. S. F. H. 



Haemulon melanurum (Linnaeus). French Margate fish 



A single specimen on one occasion, 2 on another, a few young on a third, and 

 a larger number of partly grown fish on a fourth, are all that have been seen in 

 a dozen summers. Three times they were found over clean white sand, or bare 

 white coral skeletons about a small or larger group of massive corals. In the 

 fourth instance they were gathered about a ballast heap marking the site of a 

 vanished wreck. 



In its pattern of black and white it sufficiently resembles one or the other of 

 two phases of Haemulon album to justify its common name. But close compari- 

 son of the patterns of the two serves to distinguish them. In each, in one phase a 

 conspicuous black area lies above the line joining the base of the first dorsal spine 

 and the tip of the lower lobe of the caudal fin. But in H. melanurum this black 

 is broadly and sharply white-margined dorsally and posteriorly, whereas in the 

 other it is very narrowly white, if white at all. In addition, stripes appear in H. 

 melanurum at all times in more or less dusky yellow on a pearly gray back- 

 ground. The line through the eye to the base of the caudal is darkest, and both 

 it and the others may be distinctly enhanced in fishes among algae and gor- 

 gonians, as compared with those over bare sand. There is a distinct black spot 

 under the posterior margin of the preopercle, and the roof of the mouth pos- 

 teriorly and the lower jaw laterally are orange-red within. W. H. L. 



This grunt was first recorded from United States waters by Jordan and 

 Thompson (Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 24, 1904 (1905), p. 242). It has been taken 

 also at Key West (unpublished) by Bureau of Fisheries investigators. It ranges 

 from Florida to the West Indies and presumably southward. S. F. H. 



Haemulon sciurus (Shaw). Yellow grunt 

 (Plate 13, figures 1, 2; plate 14, figure 2; plate 15, figures 1, 2; plate 18, figures 1, 2) 



One of the commonest of Tortugas fishes. It feeds by night, and by day is 

 found gathered in small or great groups. The preferred schooling grounds are 

 about the larger coral stacks or in the denser growth of gorgonians. Most of the 

 fish that come into very shallow water are very small. 



At their various schooling places the behavior of the fish varies to a certain 



