112 SOME CHINESE VERTEBRATES. 



SERRANIDAE. 



SINIPERCA CHUA-TSI (Basilewsky) Gill. 



A number of specimens of the Chinese perch that would usually be placed 

 under S. chua-tsi separate readily into two groups : one, the species proper, char- 

 acterized by an eye about one sixth of the length of the head, or one and one 

 half times the interorbital width, and on which the maxillary reaches beyond 

 a vertical from the hind edge of the eye, and another in which the eye is nearly 

 one fourth of the length of the head, or about twice the interorbital width and 

 in which there is a considerable distance behind the end of the maxillary in 



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front of a vertical at the hind border of the orbit. In the numbers of fin-rays 

 or in markings the two groups show little difference, but the scales on the speci- 

 mens with the small eyes appear to be smaller. The presence of the two forms 

 in the same locality may be ascribed to individual variation in a single 

 species, or may be credited to an intermixture of two quite distinct species at 

 some time or in some parts of their respective ranges. The two figures pub- 

 lished by Basilewsky, 1855, represent the small-eyed form. Kner, 1867, under 

 the same name, figured a specimen, in which the eye is much larger and the 

 maxillary approaches a vertical from the hind edge of the orbit, which might 

 better be placed in the group with large eyes, though the type of the latter 

 described below has a still larger eye and an orbit extending farther backward 

 than the end of the maxillary. As the theory of a mixing of two forms originally 

 distinct is favored here, the large-eyed one is described as Siniperca knerii 

 and certain characters of the specimen chosen for a type are noted. 

 Ichang. 



SINIPERCA KNERII, sp. nov. 



D. 12 + 14, A. 3 + 9, V. 6, P. 2 + 14; LI. 125$ ca. 



Similar to S. chua-tsi, but differing in a much larger eye. Diameter of 

 orbit five sixths of its distance from the extreme end of the snout, nearly twice 

 the width of the interorbital space, or twice the greatest width of the maxillary, 

 or equal to the distance from the orbit to the front of the intermaxillary. Maxil- 

 lary subtending the anterior three fourths of the eye. Dorsal origin above 

 that of the pectoral; spinous portion twice as long as the soft; spines increasing 

 in length to the fifth, which is about one third of the length of the head, a little 

 shorter than the soft rays, or than the second anal spine which last is the 

 longest and most robust on the body. First and third anal spines shorter and 



