93. EMBIOTOCID^. 
585 
sal. D.IX,10; A.Iir,7; P.15; V.I,5; C. + 17+. L. lat. 44 ; L. tians. 
■ 1 ^ 0 . The back has a slight tawuy hue, interrupted as it blends with the 
white of the sides bj^ five or six indistinct scollopy incursions of the 
body color, giving the ui^per part of the side of the fish a marbled ap- 
pearance.” {Goode (fi Bean.) West coast of Florida. 
(^Eucinostomus harengidus Goode &, Beau, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1879, 132, 340.) 
Family XCIIL— EMBIOTOCID^. 
{The Stir f- fishes.) 
Viviparous Labroids. Body ovate or oblong, compressed, covered 
with cycloid scales of moderate size. Cheeks, operculum, and interoper- 
culum scaly. Lateral line continuous, running high, without abrupt flex- 
ure; not extending on the caudal flu. Head rather short. Mouth small, 
terminal. Jaws with conical or compressed teeth of motlerate or small 
size, in one or ^wo series. No teeth on vomer or iialatines; no cauines; 
lower iiharyngeals united, without suture, their teeth conical or paved. 
Upper jaw freely protractile. Lips full, the lower either forming a free 
border to the jaw or else attached by a frenum at the symphysis. Max- 
illary short, without supplemental bone, slipping for most or all of its 
length under the preorbital. Opercular bones entire. Branchiostegals 
G (or 5). Gill-rakers usually slender; gill-openings wide, the membranes 
free from the isthmus or very slightly connected; pseudobranchifc 
present; gills 4, a slit behind the fourth. Nostrils round, 2 on each 
side. Dorsal fin single, long, with 8-18 usually slender spines, which 
are depressible in a groove. A sheath of scales along the base of the an- 
terior part of soft <lorsal and posterior part of spinous dorsal ; this sheath 
separated by a furrow from the scales of the body. Anal fin elongate, 
with 3 moderate or small spines and 15-35 slender soft rays, its form 
and structure differing in the two sexes. Ventral fins thoracic, I, 5. 
Pectorals moderate. Caudal forked. Oviduct opening behind the vent, 
the two apertures always distinctly separated. Air-bladder large, sim- 
ple. No pyloric cceca. Vertebrte 13-19 + 19-23. 
Viviparous. The young are hatched within the bo<ly, where they 
remain closely packed in a sac-like enlargement of the oviduct analo- 
gous to the uterus, until born. These foetal fishes bear at first little 
resemblance to the parent, being closely comi)ressed and having the 
vertical fins exceedingly elevated. At birth they are from 1^ to 2^ 
inches in length, and similar to the adult in appearance, but more com- 
pressed, and red in color. Since the announcement of their viviparous 
