118 BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



anterior border of that bone is as wide and prominent as the 

 limb of the preoperculum to which it adjoins ; the forehead, 

 snout, infraorbital bones, and margins of the orbits, mandibles, 

 labials, branchiostegous membranes and edges of the different 

 opercular bones, are covered with a smooth skin ; the rest of 

 the head, including the temples and the top of the cranium as 

 far as the " linea rostri basalis," are clothed with tiled scales; 

 the bones lining the posterior edge of the gill openings are like- 

 wise scaleless, and their edges, though undulated, are destitute 

 of spines or serratures; the nape is supported by a median ridge 

 of the cranium and a thin lateral one on each side equally high ; 

 there are also several interspinous bones anterior to the first 

 dorsal; the branchiostegous membrane contains 6 curved rays, 

 the anterior ones cylindrical, the posterior ones becoming more 

 and more flat and wider. Br. 6; D. 6-2, 8 ?: P. 15 ; V. 1, 5; 

 A. 3, 11 ; C. 17f 



" The pectorals consist of fiften rays, the first of which is short 

 and its articulations very obscure, being visible only at the tip 

 and with a lens; the ventrals are attached directly under the 

 pectorals and contain 6 rays, of which the first is spinous and 

 one-third shorter than the succeeding ones ; the first dorsal con- 

 sists of 6 acute spinous rays, having the connecting membrane 

 notched between them ; the first ray is one-third shorter than the 

 third, which is the longest and stands about an inch behind the 

 insertion of the pectorals and ventrals, the fourth and fifth are 

 nearly as long as the third ; the second dorsal is one-third higher 

 than the first, and commences nearly an inch behind the posterior 

 insertion of the membrane of the latter, the 2 anterior rays 

 are spinous and separated by membrane — the first of them equal 

 in height to the corresponding ray of the first dorsal, the first 

 ray is simple but articulated ; the succeeding ones are branched 

 at the tips, and nearly equal to each otter, the seventh being, 

 however, rather the highest; the fifth ray is opposite the anus, 

 and the tenth .... is opposite to the fifth of the anal; 



