66 FISHES OF THE VICINITY OF NEW YORK 



X. Weakfish, Porgy, etc. 

 (Perciformes, continued) 



We have several families of spiny finned marine perch-like fishes 

 which differ from the true perch and basses in that the maxillary or 

 upper jaw bone slips for most of its length under the preorbital, which 

 forms for it a more or less distinct sheath. The gill-cover proper is also 

 without spines (except in the drums) and the ventral fins have an 

 accessory scale. There are six of these families represented, the Snappers, 

 Grunts, Porgies, Gerrids, Kyphosids and Weakfish or Drums. A single 

 species of the Kyphosids, a herbivorous family, wanders to us occa- 

 sionally in fall from tropical waters where it makes its home. It is the 

 Bermuda Chub, a small compressed fish with small mouth, low fins and 

 a forked tail. The teeth in its jaws are of the incisor type, each tooth 

 with a conspicuous horizontal process or root. Its spiny dorsal fin of 

 eleven stout spines is depressible in a groove of scales. It is black in 

 color. In the Gerrids, the spines of the premaxillary extend backward 

 to the nape so that the mouth is excessively protractile (that is, the 

 upper jaw is capable of a great extension). The outline of the lower 

 jaw is concave. Numerous species of this family, small compressed 

 silvery fishes with deeply forked tails and rather large eyes, occur in 

 tropical waters, and a single one, the Mojarra, is of accidental occurrence 

 near New York in August. The Snappers may be told from the Grunts 

 and Porgies by their larger mouths and stronger teeth. Unlike these 

 latter they have teeth on the vomer or central bone on the roof of the 

 mouth. Snappers are abundant in species and individuals southward, 

 and young of the Red Snapper have been taken here in October, though 

 the species really has no place in our ichthyfauna. The Porgies have 

 teeth of the molar type (broad and blunt) on the sides of the jaws. In 

 the Grunts they are not of this form. The Pigfish is the Grunt which 

 straggles farthest to the north and sometimes is common near New York 

 in late summer and autumn. It is a compressed fish with a rather small 

 mouth placed low. Its tail is moderately forked, the back fin long, 

 composed of spines and soft rays with practically no break in outline 

 between the two. There are twelve or thirteen spines and sixteen soft 

 rays in the back fin, three spines and twelve or thirteen soft rays in the 

 anal fin. The body is covered with numerous small bronze spots some- 

 times confluent into lines. 



The three species of the Porgy family which occur here are readily 

 separable by color. The largest, the Sheepshead, at any age is marked 



