THE FISHES OF NEW JERSEY. 26 
N 
Family RACHYCENTRIDZ. 
The Sergeant Fishes. 
Body elongate, fusiform, subcylindrical. Peduncle moderate. 
Head rather broad, low, pike-like, bones above appearing through 
thin skin. Mouth rather wide, nearly horizontal. Maxillary 
reaching about to front of eye. Both jaws, vomer, palatines and 
tongue with bands of short sharp teeth. Lower jaw longer. 
Premaxillaries not protractile. Preopercle unarmed. Gill-rakers 
rather short, stout. Branchiostegals 7. No air-vessel. Pyloric 
coeca branched. Vertebre 12 -+13=—=25. Body covered with 
small smooth adherent scales. First dorsal of 8 low stout equal 
free spines, each depressible in a groove. Soft dorsal long, rather 
low, somewhat falcate, similar to a nearly opposite anal. Latter 
with II weak spines, I free from skin. Caudal forked and strong. 
No keel and no finlets. Pectoral moderate, placed low. Ventral 
I, 5, thoracic. 
A single species on our coast. A large, strong, voracious 
shore-fish in all warm seas. 
Genus RACHYCENTRON Kaup. 
The Sergeant Fishes. 
Rachycentron canadus (Linnzus). 
Crab Eater. 
Read labour 37 depths 8; (De VET. Bamarr27 scSAtevi. 205 
mandible 2% in head; first branched dorsal ray 2%; first 
branched anal ray 2%4; pectoral 144; ventral 11%4; least depth 
of caudal peduncle 374; snout 214 in head measured from its 
own tip; eye 544; maxillary 27/;. Body very long, slender, tail 
long and tapering but gradually. Head long, pointed, upper pro- 
file nearly straight. Snout long and slender. Eye small, rounded 
and about median in side of head. Mouth long, curved a little, 
and mandible projecting. Maxillary reaching front rim of pupil. 
