FAMILY PERCID®. 39 
GENUS SPHYRANA. Cuvier. 
Body elongated, with two distant dorsals. Lower jaw longest ; both with long teeth. Ven- 
trals post-pectoral, or placed towards the middle of the body. 
Oss. The fishes included under this genus have long been arranged under the family 
Esocide, and indeed their general form and habits would lead one to associate them with the 
Pikes. They are, however, true Acanthopterygians, or fishes with bony rays; have two 
dorsal fins, and the intermaxillaries extend over the entire edge of the upper jaw. 'They 
have also numerous cecal appendages, and their ventral fins are abdominal. Cuvier, in his 
last great work, places them at the end of the Percide, from which, however, they must be 
separated, as he observes, together with Paralepis and Polynemus, by a considerable interval. 
These three genera will, in all probability, form a distinct family. Most of the species of 
the genus Sphyrena, at certain seasons, are very poisonous; producing, when taken as food, 
vomiting and convulsions, and sometimes terminating in death. 
THE NORTHERN BARRACUTA. 
SPHRENA BOREALIS. 
PLATE LX. FIG. 196.— (STATE COLLECTION.) 
Characteristics. Small. Greenish above ; lateral line yellow. Opercle with a single point. 
Length eight inches. 
Description. Body elongated, subcylindrical. Depth one-eighth of the total length. Scales 
very small, adherent, orbicular, with minute concentric strie ; and under a strong lens, radiat- 
ing striae may be observed: they extend over the opercular bones. 'The course of the lateral 
line is very slightly sinuous, but nearly straight, and is manifested by a series of rather large 
scales, under the posterior edges of which are short tubes. Head produced, flattened, smooth, 
channelled above, rather more than one-fourth of the total length. Opercle large, emarginate, 
opposite to the base of the pectorals, pointed above and rounded beneath. yes large, oval, 
0°4 in diameter, and about a diameter apart. Lower jaw longest, and furnished at the tip 
with a fleshy process. Teeth acute, pellucid, conspicuous on both jaws. In the lower jaw 
they are large, distant behind, and becoming smaller and more crowded towards the front, 
where two very large teeth are placed, and received into a cavity in the upper jaw. There 
are also two large incurved teeth in the upper jaw on each side, and numerous minute teeth 
along the edges of the intermaxillaries. Three long and slender teeth on the palatines of each 
side, and beyond them numerous minute teeth. On the tongue, also, are numerous recurved 
teeth. 
The first dorsal fin commences at a point equidistant between the tip of the pectorals and 
the base of the ventrals: it is obscurely triangular, its height equal to its base, and composed 
