176 CLASS XIV. 



Umbre-fisJies. Almost all the species of this large family are 

 marine. Some however are captured at the mouth of rivers ; a few 

 live in fresh water (Macquaria Cuv., Scolopsides cancellatus Guv. 

 &c.). There is always a swimming-bladder, usually large, and often 

 furnished with many, very composite appendages. 



Compare CUVIER Hist. not. des Poiss. v. PL 138, 139, and especially on 

 the swimming-bladder of Scicena aquila, Mem. du Mus. I. pp. 18 21, 



PI. I. fig. 2, PI. II. III. 



The remarkable structure of the bones of the head, of which many, 

 especially the frontal bone, the row of sub-orbital bones and the prce- 

 operculum, have in most species projecting lines, with cavities or depressions 

 between them, may be found illustrated in CUVIEB et VALENCIENNES, Poiss. 

 v. PI. 140; see also a figure of Corvina nigra, under the name of Scicena 

 umbra, in ROSENTHAL -Ichthyot. Taf. xvn. fig. i, and of Umbrina vulgaris 

 Cuv., Scicena cirrosa L., in AGASSIZ Poiss. foss. iv. Tab. K. 



In many the ossicles of the auditory sac are very large ; whence a sub- 

 genus has its name (Otolithus). The uneducated multitude, who are so 

 ready to attribute miraculous powers to whatever is strange, thought in 

 the times of BisLON, that the auditory ossicles of Scicena aquila, worn at 

 the neck, were a cure and a preventive of the colic. De Aquatilibus, 

 Parisiis, 1553, p. 118. 



Phalanx I. Dorsal fin single, continuous, or slightly emarginate 

 between the spines and the soft rays. 



Macquaria Cuv. Mouth edentulous. Branchiostegous mem- 

 brane with five rays. 



Sp. Macquaria australasica Cuv. et VAL. Poiss. v. PI. 131. 



Lobotes Cuv. Body high, short. Head in front of eyes short, 

 with snout declivous, sub-concave. Teeth small, crowded, thin. 

 Margin of praeoperculum denticulate. Branchiostegous membrane 

 with six rays. Dorsal and anal fins produced into a rounded apex. 



Sp. Lobotes surinamensis Cuv., Holocentrus surinamensis BLOCH, Icliih. 

 243, along the east coast of America, from New York to Brasil;- 

 erate Cuv., RZgne Ani., 6d. ill., Poiss. PI. 31, fig. i, a species, mi 

 resembling the preceding, from the Indian Ocean, &c. 



Glaucosoma SCHL. Branchiostegous membrane with seven rays 

 Dorsal fin low anteriorly, with fewer pungent rays than in the 

 preceding genus, with which in other respects it has much 

 common. 



Sp. Glaucosoma Burgeri nob., Glaucosoma SCHLEG., Faun. Japon., 

 Tab. 27. 



