718 Bulletin 47, United States National Museum. 



1067. ATHLENNES HIANS (Cuvier & Valenciennes). 



D. 25; A. 26. Scales about 520. Body very strongly compressed, its 

 greatest breadth not half its greatest depth ; caudal peduncle not com- 

 pressed, without keel ; jaws long and very slender, the upper strongly 

 arched upward at base, so that the mouth can not be closed ; snout twice 

 length of rest of head : eye large, 2i in postorbital part of head ; maxil- 

 lary entirely concealed by preorbital; a fold of skin across preopercle; 

 opercle smooth; insertion of ventrals well forward, midway between front 

 of arch of upper jaw and base of caudal; caudal deeply forked; dorsal 

 and anal falcate, the latter beginning farther forward; pectorals long, 

 falcate ; scales minute ; with scales and bones green ; no lateral band ; 

 sides silvery, with round, dark blotches in young; tins with black tips. 

 Length 3 feet. West Indies, ranging from Florida to Brazil; generally 

 common. Also recorded by Steindachner from Acapulco, but the Pacific 

 species of Athlennes (not seen by us) may prove to be different. (Mans, 

 gaping.) 



Belone liians, CUVIER & VALENCIENNES, Hist. Nat. Poiss., xvm, 432, 1846, Havana; Bahia; 



GUNTHER, Cat., vi, 248, I860; COPE, Trans. Am. Philos. Soc., 1871, 481; STEINDACHNER, 



Ichth. Beitr., in, 64, 1875. 



Belone maculala, POEY, Memorias, n, 290, 1861, Havana. 

 Tylosurus Mans, JORDAN & GILBERT, Synopsis, 373, 901, 1883. 



Family XCV. HEMIRAMPHID^E. 

 (THE BALAOS.) 



Body elongate, more or less compressed, covered with large cycloid 

 scales ; upper jaw short, lower jaw various, sometimes much produced, the 

 toothed portion at base fitting against the toothed premaxillaries ; teeth 

 equal, mostly small and tricuspid ; maxillaries anchylosed to premaxil- 

 laries. Gill rakers long. Caudal fin rounded, or forked; if forked, the 

 lower lobe the longer. Anal fin modified in the viviparous species 

 (Zenarchopterus), unmodified in the others and usually similar to the dor- 

 sal ; no finlets ; air bladder large, sometimes cellular. Third upper 

 pharyngeal on each side much enlarged, solidly* united with its fellow to 

 form an oval plate, with slightly convex surface and covered with blunt 

 tricuspid teeth ; this is about as large as the united lower pharyngeals 

 and fits into the concavity of the latter ; fourth upper pharyngeal want- 

 ing or grown fast to the third ; lower pharyngeal large, thick, triangular, 

 with concave surface. Vertebrae about 50. (Characters verified in Hemi- 

 ramphus broivni, Hyporhamphus roberti and Chriodorus atherinoides.) 



Herbivorous fishes of the warm seas ; mostly shore species ; a few pelagic. 

 They feed chiefly on green alge, and, like the related forms, swim at the 

 surface, occasionally leaping into the air. Size rather small, about a foot 

 in length. Genera about 7 ; species about 75. (Scombresocidce, part, Giin- 

 ther, Cat., vi, 259-276, 1866.) 



a. Lower jaw bluntish, not at all produced; teeth rather large; pectorals and ventrals moder- 

 ate; shore fishes. CHEIODORUS, 326. 



* A singular character, first noticed by Mr. Edwin C. Starks. 



