POMOTIS VULGARIS. 7 



Description. This fish is of an ovoidal form, convex above and below, but 

 straighter and thicker at the belly. The head is large, broad, though not thicker 

 than the rest of the body ; it is smooth between the eyes and snout, which is full 

 and rounded. The eye is large, and is placed with its inferior margin above the 

 median plane of the head, and about one diameter of its orbit from the snout, 

 and two and a half diameters from the extremity of the opercle; the pupil is 

 dusky with a black tint, and the iris is brazen. The nostrils are rather nearer the 

 mesial line than the orbit, and the upper is about the median plane of the eye ; 

 both are round, but the posterior is the larger. 



The mouth is rather small, very protractile ; the lower jaw is slightly the longer, 

 and both have very thin lips. The inter-maxillary is armed with a broad group 

 of small, pointed, thickly set, card-like teeth, with an outer row of conical, point- 

 ed teeth, of much greater size, and nearly all of the same length; the lower jaw 

 has similar teeth ; the anterior superior as well as the posterior pharyngeal bones 

 are small ; the former are armed with a few small, pointed teeth, the latter are 

 covered with minute villiform teeth ; the middle pharyngeals are massive and 

 broad ; they are paved with large teeth, some of which have their grinding sur- 

 faces smooth, others rounded, or slightly depressed ; the inferior pharyngeals are 

 equally large, and have similar teeth, though the grinding surfaces are here mostly 

 flat ; there are a few pointed, conical vomerine teeth. The pre-opercle is rounded 

 and finely serrated at its angle ; its surface is smooth or without scales, though it 

 has a scalloped appearance. The opercle is broad, covered with large scales, sub- 

 triangular, with its apex behind, from which proceeds a loose fleshy appendix. 

 The sub-opercle is long, narrow, rounded below, rather pointed behind, and is cov- 

 ered with large scales. The inter-opercle is quadrilateral, broadest behind, and 

 rounded below. 



The dorsal fln is large ; it begins with the posterior extremity of the opercular 

 appendix, and has ten rather stout spines placed in a groove of scales ; the 

 soft portion of the dorsal is more elevated than the spinous, and has eleven 

 branched rays. The pectoral begins with the termination of the opercle, or 

 rather before it, and extends to the root of the third anal spine ; it is broad, 



