﻿76 GANGETic FISHES. Order IV. 



The general colour is silver, with a greenish brown, changing 

 to purple and gold on the back. The fins of the back and 

 vent are dotted and edged with black. On each side behind 

 the pectoral fin there is an irregular brown spot. The sides 

 are indistinctly marked with narrow dotted lines, ascending 

 upward behind. 



The head is of a moderate size. The mouth, which is large, 

 descends in a curve. The under jaw is the shorter. The up- 

 per lip is double with the outer divided into five. There are 

 many small teeth crowded among the row of large ones in each 

 jaw. The palate is smooth, and near the throat has two bones 

 covered with teeth. The hinder openings of the nostrils are 

 oblong, and near the eyes ; the fore ones are at some distance, 

 and are round. The eyes are rather large and plain, with their 

 longest axis horizontal, while that of the pupil is vertical. In 

 the gill-covers on each side are four bones ; the foremost of 

 which is indented with short blunt teeth, the intermediate ones 

 are very small, and the hinder one ends in a sinus bounded by 

 two sharp points. The bones of the gills have on the inside a 

 row of tubercles covered with little teeth. 



The lateral lines are smooth, and may be traced to the end 

 of the tail fin. The scales of the head are entire on the edge. 



The first prickle of the foremost back Jin is very short, and 

 joined to the second, which is the longest, without any inter- 

 mediate membrane. The fourteen or fifteen rays next the 

 prickle, in the hinder back fin, are bifid at the top, and those 

 remaining are branched, the last being divided to the root in- 

 to two. The pectoral fins, each having seventeen rays, are 

 covered at the root with scales, and are rather blunt, but the 

 upper rays are longer than the lower. The ventral fins are 

 small, and near each other. Their prickle is short and slen- 

 der, and the bristle-like division of their second ray is recurved 



