386 EXrLOEATIONS ACROSS THE GEEAT BASIN OP UTAH. 



Subclass TELEOSTEI, Muller. 



Order TE LEOC EPH ALI, Gill. 



Suborder PHYSOCLYSTI, (Bon.) Gill. 



Family PERCOID^, iCvv.) Gill. 

 Subfamily LABEACINiE, Gill. 



There is foiiud in the MecliteiTanean Sea a fish which has, from the earhest times, 

 attracted the attention of the inhabitants of the neig-hboring- coasts from the abundance 

 in whicli it is found and the size to which it attains. By tlie ancients, as at the present 

 day, it was much esteemed as an article of food, and was called by the Greeks Xd^paH^ 

 and by the Romans lupus. Of this fish, Cuvier has said (l)ut scarcely with strict cor- 

 rectness) that its a])peai-ance and almost all the details of its form recall to mind the 

 porli, and that a just idea would be given of it by describing it as a " largey elongated, 

 and silvery perch ". 



From the Perches, however, it differs in several characters, which induced Cuvier 

 to sepai'ate it generically, and for the name of the genus he adopted the Greek desig- 

 nation of the species. The characters by which Cuvier distinguished it from the 

 Perches were the presence of teeth on the tongue and of two spines to the opercuhmi. 

 It differs also from the true Perches in the armatiire of some of its bones and by the 

 shorter spinous dorsal fin, the rays in the European and allied American species being 

 always nine, and still more by modifications of the skeleton and among others the small 

 number of vertebra;, of which there are 11 or 12 abdominal and 13 or 14 caudal. The 

 very distinct type represented hjLahrax Japonicus Cuv. and Val. {zuLateolahraxJapomcus 

 Bleeker) has, however, 16 abdominal and 19 caudal vertebrae. 



Though Cuvier was the first to properly distinguish the genus, its tyj^e had been 

 long previously recorded by Klein as the first of two species, which he placed in a 

 group, for which he used the same name Lahrax. 



That author, in his fifth and last Missal for the Advancement of the Natural His- 

 tory of Fishes,* has devoted his ninth fasciculus to the consideration and description 

 of those fishes provided with two dorsal fins. In this group he includes the Trouts 

 (Triiffa Klein), in which the first dorsal is sustained by branched rays while the 

 second is adipose, as well as Mullus, Ccstrmis Klein, Lahrax Klein, Sphyrmia, Gobio 

 Klein, Asperidus Klein, and Trichidion Klein, in which the first dorsal is spinous and 

 the second has branched rays. Triitta of Klein is synonymous with the extended 

 genus Sahno of Linnasus ; Mullus embraces, like the Linnaean genus, \\\e Midli and 

 the Amias of Gronovius, or Apogons of Laci^pfede ; the Cestrcci are the Mugiles of Lin- 

 najus ; Sphyrccna is limited to the true species of the genus as now accepted ; Gohio 



* Jacobi Theodori Klein Historic Piscium promovendce Missus quintus et ultimus de piscibus per branoliias 

 apertas respirantibiis, Gcdani, Litteris Scbreiberiauis, 1749. 



