THE FISHES OF NEW JERSEY. 269 
Family STROMATEID. 
The Fiatolas. 
Body compressed and more or less elevated. Profile anteriorly 
blunt and rounded. Mouth small. Premaxillaries not protrac- 
tile. Dentition feeble, none on vomer and palatines. Opercular 
bones smooth, not serrate. Preopercle entire and serrate. Gill- 
membranes free or not. Gills 4, a slit behind fourth.  Gill- 
rakers rather long. Pseudobranchiz present. Pharyngeals little 
developed. Usually no air-vessel. Pyloric ccoeca commonly 
numerous. Vertebre 30 to 36. C*sophagus armed with numer- 
ous horny barbed or hooked teeth. Body covered with small or 
minute cycloid scales. Cheeks scaly. Lateral line well developed. 
Dorsal fin single, long, with spines few or weak, often obsolete. 
Anal fin long, similar to soft dorsal, usually with III small spines 
which are often depressible in a fold of skin. Caudal well forked. 
Ventral I, 5, thoracic in young, but reduced or altogether wanting 
in adult. 
Fishes usually of small size, found in most warm seas, and 
many of them valued as food. 
Key to the genera. 
a. Dorsal and anal well elevated anteriorly, lobes falcate; body suborbicular, 
no pores on side of back above lateral line. SESERINUS 
aa. Dorsal and anal moderately elevated anteriorly, anterior lobes scarcely 
falcate ; body elliptical; a series of large wide-set pores above lateral line. 
PORONOTUS 
Genus SESERINUS Quoy and Gaimard. 
The Harvest Fishes. 
Seserinus paru (Linnzus). 
BVATE 35: 
Rudder Fish. 
Distinguished from the next chiefly by its suborbicular form 
and long falcate dorsal and anal. 
