48 BERYCID^. 



normally to be triangular, or high in front, and solitary ; its fore, or spiny 

 portion, being much reduced either in its extent, or in the number of 

 its rays, proportionally with the hinder soft-rayed part. The outer edges 

 of the large forked caudal fin are furnished at the base with more distinct 

 and stronger spines than visual ; and these, like those belonging to the 

 other fins, are striated or grooved. The scales are very rough or 

 ciliated ; and the colours brilliant, yet not varied. Internally the pylorus 

 is surrounded by a large thick bunch of generally many ceeca. The re- 

 maining characters are properly Percidal ; but it may be Avorth remarking, 

 that, as far as hitherto appears, the focus of their geographic range seems to 

 lie between the twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth degrees of north or south 

 latitude. 



The genera associated thus are, in the first place, Beryx^ Cuv. ; Track- 

 ichthi/s, Shaw {Trachichthys and Hoplostethus, Cuv. and Val.); and Poly- 

 mixia, nob. : of which the first presents most perfectly the typical and 

 normal characters. Other aberrant and more tropical genera are Holoctn- 

 Irum, Cuv.; Myripristis, Cuv.; and Monocentris, Bl. (Lepisacanthe, Lac.) : 

 in which the spiny portion of the dorsal fin reaches the maximum of that 

 developement which it begins to exhibit in Trachichthys ; although the 

 other characters remain purely Berycidal. Or the family may be conceived 

 as resolving itself into two parallel series : in one of which the dorsal fin 

 is single ; in the other double, or at least deeply notched. This division 

 also nearly corresponds with the geographic range of the species ; all the 

 tropical kinds belonging to the latter section, and but few of this claim- 

 ing geographically enumeration in the former. 



The proper and distinctive characters of Berycidae, expressed in techni- 

 cal form and language, will stand thus : 



FAM. BERYCIDJE. 



Corpus abbreviatum, altum. 



Caput magnum, subcavernosum : ossibus prominulis, nudis, scabris vel serrulatis : hiatu branchial!, 

 ore, oculisque magnis : rostro simo, brevissimo, obtuso : intermaxillaribus palatinisque scobinato- 

 dentatis. 



Membranae branchiostegae pinnarumque ventralium radii abnomies. 



Pinna caudalis radiis primordialibus extemis spinosis. 



Spinse pinnarum ssepissime striatae. 



Squamae asperae, ciliatas. 



Caeca pluria, fasciculata. 



Ohs. — Pisces magnitudine mediocri, capite monstroso, carioso ;' coloribus pukliris, srcpissime rubes- 

 centibus ; in marium profundioribus regionum calidiorum extra- vel intra-tropicarum degentes. 



SS. 1. Pinna dorsalis unica, antice alta. 



Gen. Beryoc, TracliicMliys, Polymixia. 



Ohs. — Species extra-tropicae. 



SS. 2. Pinna dorsalis duplex vel emarginata. 



Gen. Ilolocentrum, Mi/ripristis, Mnnocentris, 



Ohs. — Species intra- et extra-tropictE. 



