410 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Family 



Crevalles 



Genus OLIGOPL.ITES Gill 



Body compressed, oblong or lanceolate; caudal peduncle slen- 

 der, not keeled; head short, compressed, acute, occipital keel 

 sharp; mouth rather large, with small, sharp teeth in bands on 

 jaws, tongue, vomer and palatines, none on the pterygoids; 

 jaws about equal, the upper not protractile, except in the very 

 young, in which it is movable as in other Carangidae; maxillary 

 very narrow, without distinct supplemental bone; gill rakers 

 rather long; scales small, linear, and extremely narrow, em- 

 bedded in the skin at different angles; lateral line unarmed; 

 dorsal spines rather strong, three to five in number, nearly free 

 in the adult; second dorsal very long, its posterior rays penicil- 

 lated and nearly or quite disconnected, forming finlets; anal 

 rather longer than soft dorsal, much longer than the abdomen, 

 its last rays forming similar finlets, anal spines strong; ventral 

 tins depressible in a groove; pectoral fins very short. Species 

 few, in the tropical seas of America. (After Jordan and Ever- 



mann) 



205 Oligoplites saurus (Bloch & Schneider) 



Leather Jacket 



Scomber saurus BLOCK & SCHNEIDER, Syst. Ichth. 321, 1801, Jamaica. 

 CJiorinemus occidentalis GUNTHER, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus. II, 475, 1860; not 



Grasterosteus occidentalis LINNAEUS, Syst. Nat. ed. XII, I, 490. 

 Oligoplites occidentalis GILL, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 166, 1863. 

 Soombr aides occidentalis JORDAN & GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 447, 



1883. 

 Oligoplites saurus JORDAN & GILBEBT, op. cit. 973, 1883; JORDAN & EVER- 



MANN, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat Mus. 898, 1896, pi. GXXXVIII, fig. 378, 



1900; BEAN, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. IX, 360, 1897; SMITH, Bull. 



U. S. F. C. XVII, 97, 1898. 



Body elongate, much compressed, fusiform, its greatest hight 

 contained three and two thirds times in total length without 

 caudal (4 times in total to end of middle caudal rays), its width 

 two sevenths of its hight and two fifths of length of head; least 

 depth of caudal peduncle equals length of eye; head short, one 

 fifth of total without caudal, its width three sevenths of its 

 length; snout moderately pointed, its length about equal to orbit 



