X22 H^MULON CHRYSOPTERON. 



though they are not much thicker ; it has ten soft rays covered with scales, like 

 the dorsal fin. The caudal is very large, bifurcate, and has eighteen rays, more 

 or less covered with minute scales. 



The scales are rather large, and nearly semicircular ; the diameter is in front, 

 and marked with ten radiating stria; ; the circumference is behind, beautifully 

 and finely ciliated. The lateral line runs nearly straight, and not quite concurrent 

 with the back, and at the posterior portion of the dorsal fin it descends to the 

 median plane. 



Colour. The whole animal, when first taken from the water, is bright and 

 silvery ; but it soon becomes of a pale brown, with a slight brazen tint along the 

 back and sides, though the belly remains white ; the upper jaw within is white ; 

 the palate is salmon-colour ; the lower jaw and mouth below are also white in 

 their anterior third ; the posterior two thirds both within and without are red, 

 and the mouth below, tongue, and fauces, are of a similar colour ; the dorsal 

 fin at its anterior part is semi-transparent, the posterior is more dusky ; the 

 pectoral is transparent ; and the ventral yellowish on its anterior, and white on 

 its posterior half. 



Dimensions. The length, from the opercle to the tip of the tail, is equal to two 

 heads and a fourth ; the elevation, to one head and a sixteenth ; total length, 

 twelve inches. 



Splanchnology. The peritoneum is black. The liver is small, and consists of two lobes, with an 

 exceedingly thin transverse portion ; the left lobe is twice as long, and more than twice as thick, as 

 the right, and both are irregularly three-sided. The gall-bladder is sub-pyriform, and attached to 

 the right lobe, though it extends behind it. The stomach is rather small, elongated, sub-conical, 

 pointed behind, and has tolerably thick walls ; the pyloric branch is short, though nearly as broad 

 as the stomach, from which it departs near its middle, and has a very remarkable contraction at the 

 pylorus. The small intestine runs at first about half the length of the abdomen ; it then returns to 

 the pylorus to be reflected and end in the rectum, which is more capacious, but has thinner 

 walls, and a well-developed rectal valve. There are ten delicate, slender ccecal appendages, 



