FISHES. 223 



agrees with Dr. Dieffenbach's specimen, and no figure was executed 

 of Solander's fish, no mistake can arise from appropriating, as we 

 have done, the specific appellation plebeius to the fish described 

 below. The Pleuronectes scapha (G. Forster, t. 193 ; J. R. Forster 

 apud Schn., p. 163) of Queen Charlotte's Sound has larger scales, 

 the lateral line arched over the pectoral, a rounded caudal-fin, and 

 twice as many rays in the dorsal and anal as plebeius. 



The form of plebeius, excluding the vertical fins, is an oval 

 whose smaller axis rather exceeds half the longitudinal one ; but 

 the entire fish has a somewhat rhomboidal form, owing to the 

 dorsal and anal rays increasing in length towards the middles of 

 the fins. The naked trunk of the tail forms one-ninth of the 

 length of the fish, caudal excluded. This fin is truncated by two 

 lines meeting in an exceedingly obtuse angle at the tip of the 

 central ray. The head forms a sixth of the entire length, candal 

 included. The mouth is rather small, and its sides are but slightly 

 unequal. The right or coloured side is flatter, and rather smaller, 

 and is quite toothless, as in the soles. The other, or under side, 

 is convex, and is armed on both jaws with a band of short, dense, 

 brush-like teeth ; those on the lower jaw being somewhat taller 

 than the intermaxillary ones. There are no teeth on the roof of 

 the mouth. The knob of the vomer and the articular heads of the 

 maxillaries form smooth rounded projections within the mouth. 

 The tips of the maxillaries project, as is usual, under the integu- 

 ments of the snout. The jaws form the apex of the head, the 

 under one ascending when the mouth is shut, but projecting 

 farther than the upper one when it is depressed. The eyes, 

 placed on the right side, are near each other, their orbits being 

 separated merely by a smooth, rounded, narrow, and slightly 

 curved ridge, which may be traced by the finger through in- 

 equalities in the bone over the hind part of the head, nearly to the 

 angle of the gill-opening. The upper eye is about one-third part 

 of the length of its orbit farther back than the under one. The 

 posterior opening of the nostrils is a small hole with thin edges : 

 the anterior one is still more minute, with tubular lips. The nos- 

 trils are smaller and more approximated on the under side than 

 on the upper one. All the parts before the eye, the under jaw, 

 isthmus, gill-membranes, and ridge between the orbits, are scale- 

 less ; there are a few scattered deeply-imbedded scales on the disk 

 of the preoperculum ; the rest of the head is scaly, the scales on 

 the under side being smaller and softer, but distributed as on the 

 coloured side. The disk of the preoperculum alone is more con- 



