20 PERCID.E. 



the object, the first is called " Castanheta amarella ,•" and the third still 

 more frequently " Castanheta baia." The second and fourth are scarcely 

 ever mentioned without their respective adjuncts of " do alto''' or " da 

 moda,'''' and " Ferreira." Occasionally the first and second are also 

 called " Imperador :" and if the two last are named together, which from 

 their obvious affinity they often are, they are always distinguished as 

 Castanheta baia, and Castanheta Ferreira. 



In the Regne Animal, the illustrious Cuvier has subdivided the Serrani 

 into three groups, under distinctive names : viz. " Les SeiTans propres 

 ou Perches de mer," " Les Barbiers (Anthias, Bl. en partie)," and 

 " Les Merous." The more complete reunion of these under a single 

 name Serranus, in the Histoire des Poissons, is surely no improvement ; 

 at least in regard to " Les Barbiers" or " Anthias, Bl. in part :" the 

 principal species of which group, abundant in Madeira, though apparently 

 a rare fish in the Mediterranean sea, is the subject of the accompanying 

 plate. The main reason for tliis later combination, made by MM. Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes, seems to have been the ijradual blending of certain of 

 the characters of Anthias, in supposed defect of others, with those of the 

 true Serrani.* But this is a position which, if carried out into consistent 

 practice, Avould go far to abolish most established genera. For illustration 

 of a sounder rule, I need but quote, from the same volume, Cuvier's own 

 genus, Plectropoma ; which he has separated from Sen-anus, though 

 confessing, " Nous ne les en separons que pour donner plus de facilite a 

 la nomenclature •."•\- whilst a striking case, in abrogation of the former 

 proposition, might be drawn from a very brief comparative examination of 

 his genera Labrns and Crenilabrus. I am acquainted with a fish,:|: which, 

 in its principal character, varies permanently, and not by age, from one of 

 these groups to the other. 



In adopting, however, Bloch's generic name, it is needful to observe 

 that it is confined here to perhaps only a single species of the fishes to 

 which he applied it ;§ answering, with one exception (^Hesperanthias ocu- 

 latus, nob.), to " Les Barbiers" of Cuv. and Val. Hist. iii. 249—270. 

 His error also, derived indeed from Rondelet, is not to be followed in 

 supposing the fish here figured to be the av0iag of Aristotle, Pliny, 

 ^lian, and others, to which such marvellous instincts are ascribed in the 



* See Cuv. and V.al. Hist. ii. pp. 249. 280. 



t Ibid. ii. p. 387. 



^ Crenilabrus caninus, nob. Synopsis in Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. ii. p. 1 86. 



$ " La plupart de nos Merous sont encore des Anthias pour Bloch, raais nous restreignons ce 

 genre aux especes auxquelles notre definition convient. Bloch a ete si pen exact, que son Anthias 

 sacer n'a pas meme le caractere attribue au genre Anthias d'un opercule sans epine.''^ — Cuv. R. An. 

 ed. 2. ii. p. 140, note (1). 



