34 LABRID.E. 



Mr. Jenyns'' description of a specimen, four inches in 

 length, is as follows : — " Distinguished by its small size. 

 Back but little elevated, sloping very gradually towards the 

 snout ; ventral line more convex than the dorsal ; sides com- 

 pressed : depth contained about three times and three quar- 

 ters in the entire length ; thickness half the depth, or barely 

 so much ; head one-fourth of the entire length : snout rather 

 sharp ; jaws equal : teeth of moderate size, conical, regular, 

 about sixteen or eighteen in each jaw : eyes rather high in 

 the cheeks, situate half-way between the upper angle of the 

 preopercle and the margin of the first upper lip ; the space 

 between about equal to their diameter, marked with a de- 

 pression ; a row of elevated pores above each orbit : preoper- 

 cle with the ascending margin very oblique ; the basal angle, 

 which falls a little anterior to a vertical line from the poste- 

 rior part of the orbit, very obtuse, and remarkably charac- 

 terised by a few minute denticulations, which further on be- 

 come obsolete, and in some specimens are scarcely anywhere 

 obvious : lateral line a little below one-fourth of the depth ; 

 nearly straight till opposite the end of the dorsal, then bend- 

 ing rather suddenly downwards, and again passing off straight 

 to the caudal ; number of scales on the lateral line about 

 forty-five : dorsal commencing at one-third of the length, 

 excluding caudal ; spinous portion nearly three-fourths of the 

 whole fin, the spines very slightly increasing in length from 

 the first to the last, which last is not quite one-third of the 

 depth of the body ; soft portion a little higher than the spi- 

 nous, of a somewhat rounded form, the middle rays equalling 

 nearly half the depth : anal commencing a little anterior to 

 the soft portion of the dorsal, and terminating a little before 

 it ; the first three rays spinous, the third being the longest, 

 but the second the stoutest spine ; soft rays resembling those 

 of the dorsal : caudal nearly even, with rows of scales be- 

 tween the rays for nearly half their length: pectorals rounded. 



