ACANTHOPTERYGIANS. 167 



forwards, so tliat those of the base are the newest, and in process of time 

 form a row on the edge. Naturalists have erroneously thought that the 

 bone itself was naked. These jaws, during the life of the fish, are covered 

 besides by fleshy lips, but there is no double one adhering to the subor- 

 bital. They have the oblong form of a Labrus, large scales, and an in- 

 terrupted lateral line ; they have three pharyngeal plates, two above and 

 one below, furnished with teeth as in a Labrus ; but these teeth are trans- 

 verse blades, and not like rounded paving-stones. 



A species which assumes a blue or red colour, according to the 

 season, is found in the Archipelago, which is the Scarus creticus, 

 Aldrov. Pise. p. 8 ; and which late researches have convinced me is 

 the Scarus, so highly celebrated among the antients : the same that 

 Elipertius Optatus, commander of a Roman fleet, during the reign of 

 Claudius, went to Greece in search of, for the purpose of distributing 

 it through the sea of Italy. It is an article of food in Greece at the 

 present day*. 



Numerous species are found in the seas of hot climates. The form of 

 their jaws and the splendour of their colours have caused them to receive 

 the vulgar appellation of Parrot-fishes. 



Some of them have a crescent-shaped tail-}-, and of these a few with a 

 singularly gibbous forehead ;{:. 



In others it is truncated §. We separate from Scarus the 



Calliodon, Cuv., 



In which the lateral teeth of the upper jaw are separate and pointed, and 

 in which there is an inner range of much smaller ones on the same |1 ; and 

 the 



Odax, Cuv., 



Which approach a true Labrus in the inflated lips and in the continuous 

 lateral line ; the jaws, composed like those of a Scarus, are however flat 

 and not gibbous, and are covered by the lips ; the pharyngeal teeth are 

 arranged as if paved, as in Labrus ^. 



* N. B. It is not the Sc. cretensis of Bloch, 228. 



f Scarus coccineus, BI., Schn., Parra, XXVIII, 2, which is the Sparus ahildgardii, 

 Bl. 259, and the Spare rougeor, Lacep. Ill, xxxiii, 3; — the Great Scarus with blue 

 jaws, Sc. giiacamaia, Cuv., Parra, XXVI; — the Sc. Catesby, Lacep., Catesb. II, xxix; 

 — the Sc. bride, Lacep, IV, 1, 2; — Sc. chri/sopterus, Bl., Schn. 57; — Sc. capitaneus, 

 Cuv., which is the Sc. enneacanthe, Lacep. IV, p. 6, and his Sc. denticule. Id., p. 12 

 and pi. 1, f. 1, and of which he gives a description annexed to the Sc. chadri. 



X Sc. loro, Bl., Schn., Parra, XXVII, 1 -.—Sc. coeruleus, Bl., Schn., Parra, XXVII, 

 2, and Catesb. II, xiii, which is also the Coryphana ccerulea, Bl. 176, and what is 

 more extraordinary, the Spare holocyanose, Lacep. Ill, xxxiii, 2, and IV, p. 441, de- 

 rives its origin from the same drawing of Plumier as this figure of Bloch, 



§ Sc.retula, Bl., Schn., Parra, XXVIII, 1; — Sc. taniopterus, Desmarest; — Sc. 

 chloris. Parr. XXVIII, 3; — Sc. psittacus, Forsk.; — Sc. viridis, Bl. 



II Scarus spinidens, Quoy and Gaym., Zool. Voy. Freycin., p. 289, and some new 

 species. 



^ Scarus pullus, Forster, Bl., Schn. 288. 



