MALACOPTERYGI1 SUBKACHIATI. '217 



is perfectly unique : it is the total want of symmetry in the head, where both 

 eyes are on one side, which always remains uppermost when the animal is 

 swimming, and which is always deeply coloured, while that on which the eyes 

 are wanting is always whitish. The remainder of the body, although, gene- 

 rally speaking, formed as usual, participates a little in this irregularity. Thus 

 the two sides of the mouth are not equal, and the two pectorals are rarely so. 

 Their body is strongly compressed and vertically elevated ; the dorsal extends 

 along the whole back ; the anal occupies the under part of the body, and almost 

 seems to be continued forwards by the ventrals, which are frequently united 

 with it. There are six rays in the branchiae. They are taken along the 

 coasts of almost all countries, and furnish a wholesome and delicious article 

 of food.' 



Individuals are sometimes captured, whose eyes are placed on the side oppo- 

 site to that in which they are generally seen, they are then said to be -contournes, 

 or reversed ; others again have both sides of the body coloured alike, when they 

 are called doubles or doubled ; it is most generally the brown side which is thus 

 reproduced, though it sometimes happens to the white one. 



The subdivisions of this genus include the Plaice, Flounder, Sole, Turbof, 

 Halibut, &c. 



FAMILY III. 

 DISCOBOLI. 



THESE fishes, so called on account of the disk formed by their ventrals, form 

 two genera. 



LEPADOGASTER, Gouan. 



The small fishes which compose this genus are remarkable for the following 

 characters. Their ample pectorals having reached the 

 inferior surface of the trunk, assumes stouter rays, curve 

 slightly forwards, and unite with each other on the throat 

 by a transverse membrane directed forwards, which is 

 formed by the union of the ventrals. The body is smooth and without scales, 

 the head broad and depressed, the snout salient and protractile; the branchiae, 

 but slightly cleft, are furnished with four or five rays, and they have but a 

 single soft dorsal opposite to a similar anal. 



CYCLOPTERUS, Linnaeus. 



This genus is well marked by the ventrals, whose rays, suspended round the 

 pelvis, and united by a single membrane, form an oval and concave disk, used 

 by the fish as a sucker, to attach itself to rocks. The mouth is wide, and its 

 jaws and pharyngeals furnished with small and pointed teeth ; opercula small; 

 branchiae closed below, and provided with six rays ; pectorals very large, and 

 uniting almost beneath the throat, as if to embrace the disk of the ventrals. 



Cyclopterus lumpus, Lin. (The Lumpsucker.) The first dorsal so enveloped 



