358 SCOMBRID^. 



e. Adult : stuffed : bad state. Thames. 



/. Adult female: skin. South Devon, From Mr. YarrcU's Collection. 

 (/, h. Adult : skins. English coast. 

 i. Adult: stuffed. Frith of Forth. 



]c. Adult. <ton, U. S. Presented by B. Winstone, Esq. 



7. Adult. Boston, U/ S. Presented by B. Winstone. Esq. 

 m, n. Adult: skins. 



0, p. Adult : skins. From Mr. Yarrell's Collection. 

 q. Young. 



/•. Half-grown : skin. From Mr. Yarrell's Collection. — The pos- 

 terior spurious dorsal and anal fins divided into two. 

 s. Half-gi'own : skin. From Gronow's Collection. 

 t, u. Adult : skeletons. 



Skeleton. — The upper surface of the head is rather flat anteriorly 

 and between the orbits, whilst five ridges run along its posterior 

 portion. The middle of these ridges is obtuse, and formed by the 

 suture of the frontal bones ; it is continued over the occipital, but 

 very feeble. The bones situated on the side of this crest are very 

 thin, but not pierced as in the Tunny. The vomer and the palatine 

 bones are rather broad, and the former is slightly concave along its 

 medial line. The jaw-bones are thin : the maxillary is broadest in 

 the middle, without supplementaiy bone ; the intermaxillary tapers 

 from its base towards its extremity, and has the posterior processes 

 very short. There is a wide open space between the articular and 

 the dentary bones of the mandibula ; muciferous channel none. The 

 proBoperculnm is very broad, the space between its margin and in- 

 terior ridge being unusually wide. The operculum is irregularly 

 shaped ; it has an upper rounded margin, a slight posterior notch, and 

 an acute inferior angle. The suboperculum has a nearly vertical 

 situation, and the interoperculum a horizontal one, so that their 

 margins form nearly a right angle. The prseorbital is elongate, 

 subclliptical, semitransparent. 



The suprascapula is bifurcate, and much longer than the scapiila ; 

 the radius has a small ovate opening; a wide free space between 

 idna and humerus. The coracoid is broad, tapering inferiorly. 

 Each of the pubic bones is formed by three feeble lamella) ; they 

 diverge anteriorly, because they are not fixed to the symphysis of 

 the humeral bones, but to each of them separately. 



There arc fourteen abdominal and seventeen caudal vertehrce, both 

 portions being of nearly equal length. The vertebra) are rather 

 elongate, and there is no keel visible on the posterior of the caudal 

 portion ; the neural and haemal spines are frail, and the interneurals 

 and interha)nials very short and feeble. The ribs are well developed, 

 and provided with epipleurals ; the eleventh to the fourteenth ver- 

 tebra) have tlie ha)mal canal completely closed, the ribs being sus- 

 pended at its abdominal side, close together, wliilst the epipleurals 

 are fixed at the centre of the vertebra). This arrangement is still 

 more developed in Thi/nnns fhi/nnus ; and Ciivier says that the latter 

 fish has two scries of ribs on each side. The first iuterhiemal is 

 suspended at the fifteenth vertebra. 



