2 LABRID.E. 



The Labricl tribe, or family, forms a conspicuous and well-marked 

 group of fishes. The points which constitute their family resemblance 

 are a generally oblong, not deep, form of body, furnished with rather large, 

 but smooth and slimy scales; thick fleshy lips; teeth generally conical, 

 projecting, tusk-like ; small, unarmed head ; and a single, long and even, 

 dorsal and anal fin, the spines of which are generally tipped with a fleshy 

 filament. Internally, the pylorus is usually unfurnished with caeca, or 

 has only two very small ones ; and the air-bladder, although large, is 

 simple. To these distinctions may be added a brilliancy and variety of 

 colouring almost unrivalled. 



The species of this family, indeed, might not be inaptly styled, the Hum- 

 ming-Birds of ocean. A general uniformity of habit, form, and structure, 

 is compensated by an endless diversity and brilliancy of colour; vying in 

 richness, harmony, and brightness with those "jewels of the air,'"" as the 

 members of the feathered tribe just mentioned have been poetically called; 

 and combining the dazzling brilliancy of the sapphire or turquoise, ruby or 

 coral, topaz, amethyst and emerald, with the pure harmony and blending 

 softness of the rainbow. 



These remote analogies between collective tribes, or individual species 

 of one department of the organized creation and another, are highly 

 curious and interesting. They are not mere flights of fancy or imagina- 

 tion ; but, like those mysterious harmonic sympathies in music or acous- 

 tics, which engage the soul whilst they enchant the sense, hint to us, as it 

 were, from every side, the master-chord of one Great Centre of creative 

 influence, which stirs, and sways, and rules, like consentaneous vibrations 

 through the whole range of nature ; and speak, as from one part of the 

 creation to another, of Him who worketh all in all. 



The present species, striking as it is in beauty, seems to have been unknown to 

 all the older ichthyologists : though it may possibly be alluded to collectively 

 with others, in the following line, taken from the elegant little fragment usually 

 attributed to Ovid, 



" Turn viridis squamis parvo Saxatilis ore." 



Halieut. 109. 



It is, indeed, a native generally of the Mediten-anean in one or other of its 

 forms ; though Risso is the only modern writer who has given a distinct original 

 description of the precise variety here figured, from individuals inhabiting the sea 

 of Nice. In this its normal state it is, however, in Madeira only less common 

 than a very similar and cognate species, liable to be confounded with it (/. uni- 

 maculata, nob.*) which absolutely swamis in shoals, close off the rocky shores 



* J. unimaculaia, nob. 



J. subgrdcilis, elliptica, utrinque subattenuata : corporc fulvo-castanco, virescente, lituris rufis cre- 

 bt'iTimis peipendiciilate seiiatis, fasciaque loiigitudiiiali media diffusa obscura ab ocubs utrinque ducta ; 

 (U)rso ad mediaui liasin pinuiu dorsabs uniniaiulato : tapitc lateritio, fasciis cocruleis rividosis ana- 

 htimiosaiitibus picto : piiinis pi-etoralibuis apite nigiitantilius ; dorsali aiian(iin' piirpiircn-l'asiiatis, basi 



