142 ■ SCOMBRID.E. 



Val., a Tahitan fish, brought from the Pacific by MM. Garnot and 

 Lesson; G. Prometheus, Cuv. and Val., a fish which, being cap- 

 tured by MM. Quoy and Gaimard its discoverers, near St. Helena, 

 had been previously published by these naturalists under the generic 

 name of Prometheus, in fanciful allusion to the noted captive of the 

 neighbouring rock ; and thirdly, G. Solandri, Cuv. and Val., founded 

 upon the Australian Scomber macrophthalmus, Sol. The first of these 

 appears, indeed, to be a genuine addition to the genus, as originally 

 formed and typified by Cuvier. The second and third have been less 

 happily associated with Gempylas ; and might perhaps have been more 

 advantageously united with Thyrsites, Cuv. 



It is proposed therefore to restrict the genus Gempylus to the two 

 species G. serpens and coluber, Cuv. and Val. ; dismembering it of the 

 heteromorphous G. Prometheus and G. Solandri, Cuv. and Val. Thus 

 remodelled, or rather restored to its strict original Cuvieran form or ac- 

 ceptation, it is well distinguished from either Thyrsites, Cuv., or Pro- 

 metheus, Quoy and Gaimard, by the long, thin, SAvord-like form of body, 

 the unarmed palatines, the total want of ventral fins, and the many-rayed 

 first dorsal fin, continuing far down the bach ; in all these points, ex- 

 cept the second, approaching rather to Lepidopus of Gouan. No species 

 of the genus thus restricted has, however, yet been taken in Madeira : 

 although, as it Avas mentioned, G. serpens {Scomber serpens, Sol.) has 

 occurred near the Canaries. 



The claims, however, to generic distinction of Prometheus, consisting 

 of the eliminated part of Gempylus, and the subject of the present chapter, 

 are less easily adjusted. Its members are undoubtedly improperly asso- 

 ciated wiih Gempylus as originally constituted by Cuvier : disagreeing 

 with the genuine or typical species of that genus in the form of body, 

 which is that of the more ordinary fishes ; in the relative proportion of 

 the first and second dorsal fins ; and in the armed palatines. But from 

 Thyrsites they only differ in the following far less essential points : viz. 

 the rudimentary, or indeed in old or adult fishes, wholly obsolete con- 

 dition of the ventral fins ; in the fewer, scarce developed, spurious fin- 

 lets ; and the unarmed vomer. 



The value of the first of these characters is much affected by the fact 

 of the existence of the ventral fins in at least a partially developed state 

 in young examples of the subject of this chapter:, and that of the second 

 is no less diminished by an evident approximation on the part of certain 

 species of Thyrsites to the same formation, through T. lepidopoides^ 

 Cuv. and Val. 



The fishes comprehended in Prometheus, therefore, — viz. Gempylus 

 Prometheus, and G. Solandri, Cuv. and Val., together with the subject 

 of this chapter, might well have been considered a mere group or section of 



