i76 ACANTHOPTERYGII. SEA-BREAM FAMILY. 



terioT teeth are more or less fine, like those of a 

 wool-card ; the molars are round, and smaller than 

 in the two preceding. Five species are European, 

 three British. They feed on fish and Crustacea, 

 swim in small shoals, approach the coasts in spring- 

 time, and remain till winter. 



(Sp. 37-) P- erythrinus. The Spanish Sea-Bream, 

 though superabounding in the Mediterranean, and 

 issuing thence, widely, north and south, over the 

 Atlantic, is not common on the British shores. 

 Nevertheless, where Ichthyologists are on the watch, 

 they occasionally detect it. Thus Messrs. Couch, 

 Walcott, and Parnell have observed it on the coasts 

 of Cornwall and Devonshire, off" Teignmouth, and 

 in the Frith of Forth. It bears a close resemblance 

 to the Braize, and has sometimes been mistaken for 

 it ; but is readily distinguished by the dental appa- 

 ratus, this fish being destitute of the elongated 

 conical teeth which surround the card teeth in the 

 other. The largest of those examined by Mr Yar- 

 rell reached the length of fourteen inches. Its 

 colours when first taken from the water are most 

 splendid : it is of a beautiful red carmine colour on 

 the back, passing to rose colour on the sides, acquir- 

 ing a silvery tinting on the abdomen ; the fins are 

 rose-coloured. These lovely hues disappear soon 

 after death, and a sombre yellow prevails, with 

 blackish stripes on the back. It is commonly found 

 at the depth of fifty or sixty fathoms ; and it is here, 

 according to Duhamel, that the female deposits her 



