THE BOGUE. 9 



strongly-projecting middle lobe represented in the His- 

 toire des Poissons ; and if it existed in the younger fish, it 

 has worn down in the older specimen before us. Cuvier 

 enumerates twenty-four teeth in the upper jaw, but the 

 jaws being only half open in the example we are describ- 

 ing, we cannot reckon beyond nine or ten on each pre- 

 maxillary or limb of the mandible. 



The preorbitar is highest anteriorly, and narrows 

 gradually towards its termination under the centre of the 

 pupil, its length being about twice its greatest height; 

 the rest of the suborbitar chain is narrow, the whole form- 

 ing a half circle close beneath the eye, with a silvery 

 lustre and many pores. The mandible has the same kind 

 of porous nacry surface on its under aspect, and all the 

 naked parts of the head seem to be copiously mucigenous. 

 The upper edges of the mandible, as far back as the arti- 

 culation of the jaw, are received under the preorbitars, 

 which also wholly cover the maxillaries and all the late- 

 ral portions of the premaxillaries. A crescentic band of 

 scales, five deep in the centre of the crescent, covers the 

 cheek entirely between the suborbitar chain and the 

 naked preopercular disk, which has a perfectly even 

 hyperbolically-curved edge. 



Four rows of smaller scales cover the interoperculum, 

 which, when the jaws are closed, touches its fellow, and 

 conceals the branchiostegous membrane. The posterior 

 margin of the gill-cover is a small segment of a circle, 

 of which the suboperculum constitutes about two-thirds. 

 A small shallow obtuse notch, with rounded corners, ter- 

 minates the bony edge of the operculum, above the level 

 of the pectoral fin : with the lower corner of the notch 

 the point of the suboperculum coincides exactly so that 

 there is no projection, and neither bone nor notch would 

 be perceptible in a recent specimen. The membranous 



