208 PISCES. 



Our Blackfish or Tautog is a true iMbrus. This genus is divided into nine 

 subgenera, differing in the teeth, mouth, &c. &c. The most remarkable is the 



EPIBULUS, Cuvier. 



Remarkable for the excessive protractility of their mouth, which by a 

 see-saw motion of their maxillaries, and the sliding forwards of their inter- 

 maxillaries, instantly becomes a kind of tube. They employ this artifice to 

 capture the small fry which pass within reach of this singular instrument. 



But a single species is known, Sparus insidiator, Pal., of a reddish colour. 

 From the Indian Ocean. 



CHROMIS, Cuvier. 



The lips, protractile intermaxillaries, pharyngeals, dorsal filaments, and port 

 of a labrus ; but the teeth of the pharynx and jaws resemble those of a card, 

 and there is a range of conical ones in front. The vertical fins are filament- 

 ous, those of the belly being even frequently extended into long threads ; the 

 lateral line is interrupted. 



C. vulgaris, The common or black Coracinus of the ancients. A small 

 chestnut-brown fish, taken by thousands in the Mediterranean. 



SCARUS, Linnaeus. 



A genus of fishes with remarkable jaws (that is, their intermaxillary and 

 premandibular bones), which are convex, rounded, and furnished with teeth, 

 arranged like scales upon their edge, and upon their anterior surface ; these 

 teeth succeed each other from behind forwards, so that those of the base are 

 the newest, and in time form a row on the edge. They have the oblong form 

 of a labrus, large scales, and an interrupted lateral line; they have three 

 pharyngeal plates, two above and one below, furnished with teeth as in a 

 labrus ; but these teeth are transverse blades, and not like rounded paving 

 stones. 



A species blue or red, according to the season, is found in the Archipelago, 

 which is the Scarus creticus, Aldrov., and which late researches have con- 

 vinced me is the Scarus, so highly celebrated among the ancients ; 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-Jiihes. 



i FAMILY XV. 



FISTULARID/E. 



THE fishes of this family are characterised by a long tube, in the fore-part 

 of the cranium, formed by the prolongation of the ethmoid, vomer, preoper- 



