APOGON REX MULLORUM. 153 



with the lobes very short and broad. Its accessory rays are flexible and weak. 

 The spines of all the other fins are rather strong and glassy. 



Scales very large, and easily coming off with handling : their edges rough and 

 ciliate. They cover the opercle, and cheeks or preopercle, except its border : but 

 the top of the head, the maxillary, muzzle, and lower jaw, like all the fins, are 

 quite naked. 



The lateral line is moderately arched throughout, beginning high on the 

 shoulder and descending gradually to the middle of the body, which it attains 

 at the end of the second dorsal fin : thence running straight and in the middle 

 of the tail to its end. Each of its scales in situ has the appearance of being 

 marked with a raised lance-like point. 



Colour a bright cherry-red, or scarlet washed with delicate carmine or purple, 

 and reflecting the most brilliant golden tints, which, however, soon disappear after 

 capture : inclining to dusky on the back, paler on the belly ; and sprinkled all 

 over, but more especially behind the eyes and about the edges of the opercles, 

 when attentively observed, with minute dusky or blackish dots or pores, as if 

 sanded; otherwise without markings, spots, or bands. The golden lustre on the 

 sides appears in oblique flexuose S-like lines, following the direction of the muscles. 

 The fins are uniform red, like the rest : the second dorsal and the anal being 

 tipped only with black, and the outer rays and tips or angles of the caudal fin 

 also tinged more faintly with the same. The eyes are peculiarly beautiful and 

 brilliant : the iris silvery, tinged with copper-red, and clouded more or less with 

 dusky. The mouth inside and tongue are pale or whitish. 



There is no trace of the black spot on each side at the base of the caudal fin, 

 insisted on by MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes ; but, without specimens of the Me- 

 diterranean fish for comparison, it is impossible to judge whether this difference 

 is of any value. In other points, except the number of the vertebrae, the descrip- 

 tion by the above-named authors sufliciently accords with the Madeiran fish. 



The liver is large : the stomach small or moderate : the caeca four in number, 

 large, definite, distinct. The intestine is large but short, making only one short 

 volution, and then going straight to the vent. Air-bladder large, simple, oval- 

 oblong. Peritoneum beautifully perlaceous-white. 



In the Mediterranean fish the vertebrse are stated by MM. Cuvier and Valen- 

 ciennes to be twenty-five in number, of which nine only are abdominal. In the 

 Madeiran fish the whole number of vertebrse is twenty-four, of which ten are 

 abdominal ; and of these, the five last are furnished with divergent apophyses 

 beneath, whicli unite at the base in the two last into a stalk to their fork. 



The scull is extremely curious, and remarkable in structure ; with large post- 

 orbital cavities, and with the supraorbital margins excessively dilated, broad, and 

 prominent, as if winged. The cerebral cavity is very large, convex, smooth, and 

 even ; without any central keel or crest, but with a pair of little spinules, pointed 

 forwards, above in front, and another pair behind, farther apart from each other, at 

 its broadest part, on the hinder end of the supraorbital wings. 



There is a peculiar sort of glassiness or lightness in the aspect of tliis 

 fisli which is very difficult to express by the pencil, in its combination 

 with high colouring. 



The figure is the size of life. 



