SORTATION. 



Gill covers smooth or serrated, but without spines ; 



lips thick 



Notch between dorsal spines and rays 

 Ctenolabrus. 



No notch between dorsal spines and rays 



Lateral line with less than 40 scales Creni- 

 labrus. 



Lateral line with more than 40 scales Labrus. 



Anal with more than three spines 

 Lateral line with over 40 scales 



Scales on spines and rays Acantholabrus. 

 Lateral line with less than 40 scales 



No scales on spines and rays Centrolabrus. 



To tbem, and to none that preceded them, does our specimen fish 

 belong. Never was there a fish with a single dorsal in which the 

 ventrals could be more distinctly abdominal. Back, then, to our 

 barbules, which will give us four main divisions, that run 6, 4, 2, 

 and none, to guide us through this crowd of everyday acquaintances. 

 First, then, come the loaches, with six barbules, Cobitis, the spiny 

 loach (C. tcenia), distinguished from Nemachilus, the common loach 

 (N. barbatula), by the erectile, double-pointed spine below the eye. 

 Next, with 4 barbules, Cyprinus, the carp(C. carpio), and Barbus, the 

 barbel (B. vulgaris), the latter named from the conspicuous barbels 

 we have thought better to spell in the older way to save confusion 

 between the fish and its appendages. The carp has a long dorsal 

 with 22 rays, the barbel has a short one with half the number ; the 



scales are larger, there are never 

 more than 40 in the lateral line, 

 while there may be 70 in that of the 

 barbel; and the carp is deeper in 

 build and more coppery in colour. 



Next are the genera with two 

 barbules, another party of two, each 

 represented by a single well-known 

 species Goblo, the gudgeon (G. 

 fluviatilis), and Tinea, the tench (T. 

 vulgaris), Gobio having 8 rays in both 

 anal and ventrals, Tinea having 9 

 rays in the anal and 10 in the ven- 

 trals; the gudgeon slender and 

 graceful, clean and silvery, the tench 

 deep and hump-backed, and slimy 

 and dull, generally blackish, and 

 occasionally yellow two very differ- 

 ent fishes, never likely to be mistaken 

 for one another. That clears away 

 six genera in these groups of two, leaving us with seven we 

 can group in a similar way when we have disposed of the most un- 

 mistakable of our fresh-water fishes, the pike. 



Like the rest of this division the pike (Esox lucius) has no bar- 

 bules, like two of them its abdomen is rounded all along, and has no 



Fig. 20. 

 UPPER JAW OF PIKE. 



