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TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



peculiar type, high and loaf-shaped, with a very short cauda. In aged examples, however, 

 the otolith becomes elongated and the cauda lengthened; in other words, it approaches more 

 normal percoid types. 



Scianids. — In Micropogon (Fig. 125), typical of the Sciaenidae, the temporal region, 

 frontals, preopercular, etc., are deeply pitted for muciferous glands of the lateral line system. 

 The opercular has two spikes and the preopercular has a serrate angle as in many other 



G.oli'sthostomus 



Fig. 126. Gems lineatus. 



percolds. In Pogonias of this family the lower pharyngeals are united and bear stout, 

 pebble-like crushing teeth which parallel those in the jaws of sparids. According to Tate 

 Regan (1913a, p. 122), this family is closely related to the Lutianidae. "The mouth is 

 formed as in the Lutianidae, the maxillary without a supramaxillary, either concealed or at 

 least slipping under the prseorbital and first suborbital for the entire length of its upper 

 edge; the teeth in the jaws are usually villiform, sometimes lanceolate; the palate is tooth- 

 less. Muciferous channels are well developed on the upper surface of the head; the sub- 

 ocular shelf, when present, is a small and usually slender process of the second suborbital." 



