388 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



and of a strong horizontal spine at the angle of the preoperculum, above which the 

 margin is pectinated. 



The next species in order, Lahrax Japonicus of Ciivier and Valenciennes, is the type 

 of the genus Latcolahrax of Bleeker,* which is widely separated from Lahrax by the 

 absence of any teeth on the tongue, the increased number of its vertebrae, &c. In the 

 plectroid armatui'e of the operculum, it however resembles that genus. 



The last species, Lahrax mucronatu», is also now considered as the type of a new 

 genus, for which the name Morone is accepted. Its generic characters and affinities 

 will be given at length in a subsequent portion of this memoir. 



Of the seven sj^ecies referred by Cuvier and Valenciennes to the genus Lahrax, five 

 are thus seen to belong to different genera. Nor do any of these genera appear to be 

 unnecessary; but, on the contrary, all of them are well distinguished from each other 

 by characters that ichthyologists must admit are of importance: two of the species, 

 indeed, that were referred to the genus by the French naturalists, do not agree with 

 their diagnosis of that genus, and it is doubtfid, indeed, whether they have any near 

 relations with the others. It is not in disparagement of those celebrated and able men 

 that these remarks have been made. The progress of scientific discoveiy and the 

 examination of better materials have enabled their successors to discover the errors 

 of the founders of modern ichthyology. None could have performed the work at that 

 day better than they. 



Having long since, from an examination of the descriptions of various authors, 

 been aware of the confusion and uncertainty in which our American species of the 

 Cu\aerian Lahrax were enveloped, I believed that it might be a usefiil task to attempt 

 the elucidation of the genus. The results of the investigations undertaken therefor 

 have been published, in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natm-al Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia for April, 1860, as a "Monograph of the Genus Lahrax of Cuvier." 



Most of our general remarks are reproduced, with many additional ones, in the 

 present report. The nominal American species admitted by Drs. De Kay and Storer 

 in the genus Lahrax amount to seven, and another specific name has been since added 

 by Filippi, an Italian naturalist. It has been attempted to demonstrate, in our mono- 

 graph of the genus, that all of those nominal species are referable to three tnie ones. 

 Tln-ee of the synonyms apply to one species, and four to another. 



Besides the species that have been attributed to the genus by Richardson, De Kay, 

 and Filippi, several others have been described under that name by modern naturalists. 

 Dr. Charles Grirard has noticed two of these in the "Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia" under the names Lahrax nehulosus and L. cla- 

 thratus. He afterward constructed for them a new genus, which he called Paralahrax, 



* By a misunderstanding, the name Percalabrax lias been taken by some authors as the generic denomination of 

 this type. Cuvier (Hist. Nat. des Poissous, i, 55) has remarked, " Nous avons cru, pour plus de cl^rt^, devoir donner 

 uu uom particulier il chaque sous-genre ; mais ceux qui tiendraieut il conserver la uomenclaturo des grands geures de 

 liinnteus, pourraiont placer ce noni sous-g^u6rique entre deux parentheses, comme Linnajus Fa fait en quelques occa- 

 sions, et dire, par exomple; Pirca {labrax) lupus; Perca {labrax) lineata, etc." Temminck and Schlegel, following this 

 suggestion but omitting the parentheses; called the Perca {lairax) Jajwiiicus, Perca-Lahrax Japonicus, evidently accept- 

 ing the views of Cuvier as to the limits of the subgenus Labrax. Bleeker, quite properly recognizing the generic pecul- 

 iarities of the species, called it Laieolabrax ; but Dr. AUiert Giintber (in the first volume of a Catalogue of the Acantho. 

 pterygiau Fishes in the Collection of the British Museum, 1859, p. 70), mistaking the meaning of Temminck and Schlegel, 

 has called it Percalabrax. 



