SPAROIDS. 95 



{Sparus aurata, &c. Linn.), the laniary type was limited to the anterior 

 teeth, while those which corresponded with the lateral teeth of the 

 Dentex had exchanged their piercing for a crushing form, and the 

 small miliary denticles which are scattered over the inner side of the 

 alveolar border in the Dentex argyrozona, had risen, as it were, from 

 their rudimental condition, begun to assume a functional character, 

 and to be counted as a second and third row of molar teeth. 



In the sub-genus, of which the dentition is now to be described, 

 the transition from the carnivorous to the herbivorous type is effected 

 by simply modifying the form of the large anterior teeth, and con- 

 verting them from piercing to cutting instruments. 



Their crowns, instead of tapering to a point, are widened 

 laterally, com^pressed from before backwards, and truncated at the 

 extremity ; they are flat or slightly convex on the outer surface, and 

 concave on the opposite side, and in the larger species of Sargus 

 closely resemble, in size and shape, the incisors of the human subject. 

 This resemblance has caught the attention of most ichthyologists who 

 have had occasion to describe any of the species of the present genus. 

 Salviani characterises his Sargo or Sargone, among other marks, by 

 the " dentibus latis, humanis similibus ;" Klein and Cuvier extend the 

 same comparison to the ^' Sargues " in general ; and had Scheuchzer 

 founded his supposed discovery of the Homo diluvii testis on a fossil 

 incisor of the present genus, instead of the skeleton of a gigantic sala- 

 mander, the mistake would have been more venial, and might not so 

 soon have been rectified. 



** Tout-a-fait semblables aux incisives de rhomrae,"(l) is, how- 

 ever, a somewhat exaggerated expression of this relation, even in the 

 Sargus Rondeletii. The fang of the fully formed, but unattached tooth, 

 (such as those of which the crowns are figured (2) protruding through 

 the apertures exterior to the base of the incisors in place), grows 

 wider to its free extremity instead of contracting ; while, in the 

 incisors in use, this fang is anchylosed to the alveolar margin of the 

 jaw, as in fishes generally. The antero-posterior diameter of the fang 

 is also greater in proportion to its lateral diameter than in the human 

 incisor. 



(0 Cuv. and Val. Hist. Nat. des Poissons, vi, p. 16. ' (2) PI. 42, fig. 2. 



