107 



NAUCRATES. 



This is an aberrant genus from the family of true Mackarels. The 

 general form is round, but less slender than in the last-named fishes; 

 and the head more blunt. A keel on the side near the tail, as in the 

 Tunny. Separate spines in front of the single dorsal fin, and also in 

 front of the anal fin. The ventral fins arc thoracic. 



PILOT FISH. 



Gasterosteus Dudor, LinnjEus. 



Naucrates Dudor, Cuvier. Willoughby; Appendix, 



pi. viii, f. 2. 

 " " Jenyns; Manual, p. 365. 



" " Yarrell; Br. Fishes, vol. ii, p. 170. 



" " Gunther; Catalogue Br. Museum, 



vol. ii, p. 374. 

 Centronote Pilote, Lacepede. Risso. 



In remote times a usual method of classifying animals, and 

 especially fishes, was by arranging together such as resembled 

 each other in habits, or that were found to frequent similar 

 situations; but from such a system it often happens that we are 

 involved in confusion and doubt, when we endeavour to ascertain 

 the species to which had been applied a particular and perhaps 

 obscurely discriminating name, or manners which it shared with 

 several others. This remark is especially applicable to the Pilot 

 Fish, which at a remote date attracted notice under the name 

 of Pompilus; but which became confounded with another fish, 

 of a different shape, and that in modern classification stands 

 under the generic name of Centrolophus , or Black Fish, and 

 assumes to itself the specific denomination formerly applied to 

 the Pilot Fish. There is still another species which bore a 

 name of similar meaning, and of which a greater degree of 

 uncertainty exists; to which we shall find further occasion to 

 refer at the conclusion of our history of the present species. 



