964 Bulletin 47, United States National Museum. 



1362. PALINURICHTHTS PERCIFORM1S (Mitchill). 



(BUDDEB-FISH; Loo FISH; SNIP-NOSE MULLET.) 



Head 3; depth 2. D. VIII, 20 ; A. Ill, 16; lateral line 75; eye rather 

 large, nearly equal to snout, 4 in head. Body ovate. Maxillary reach- 

 ing to opposite front of pupil ; eye with adipose eyelid. Top of head 

 scaleless, covered with small mucous pores. Pectorals nearly as long as 

 head. Blackish green, everywhere dark, the belly scarcely paler and not 

 silvery. Length 1 foot. Atlantic Coast of North America, from Cape Hat- 

 teras to Maine; rather common northward, especially about Cape Cod; 

 one specimen once taken in a live box off Cornwall, having drifted across 

 from America. (Perca, perch; /orma, shape.) 



Coryphena perciformis, MITCHILL, Amer. Monthly Mag., n, 244, 1818, New York Harbor. 

 Pimeleptenis cornubiensis, COBNISH, Zoologist, ix, 1874, 4255, Penzance, in Cornwall. (Coll. T. 



Cornish.) 



Palinnrus perciformis, DE KAY, New York Fauna: Fishes, 118, pi. 24, fig. 25, 1842. 

 Palinurichthys perciformis, GILL, Proc. Ac* Nat. Sci. Phila., 20, 1860. 

 Pammelas iwciformis, GUNTHER, Cat., n, 485, 1860. 

 Lirw perciformis, JORDAN & GILBERT, Synopsis, 452, 1883; FORDICE, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 316, 



1884. 



Family CXXXV. STROMATEID.E.* 



(THE FlATOLAS.) 



Body compressed and more or less elevated, covered with small or 

 minute cycloid scales. Profile anteriorly blunt aud rounded. Mouth 

 small. Premaxillaries not protractile. Dentition feeble ; no teeth on 

 vomer or palatines ; pharyngeals little developed; oesophagus armed with 

 numerous horny, barbed, or hooked teeth. Opercular bones smooth, not 

 serrate. Gills 4, a slit behind the fourth. Gill membranes either separ- 

 ate and free from (Stromateince) or broadly joined to the isthmus (Stroma- 

 teoidince), restricting the gill openings to the sides as in Chcctodipterus. Gill 

 rakers rather long. Pseudobranchise present. Cheeks scaly. Preopercle 

 entire or serrate. Lateral line well developed. Dorsal fin single, long, with 

 the spines few or weak, often obsolete ; anal fin long, similar to soft dorsal, 

 usually with 3 small spines, which are often depressible in a fold of skin ; 

 ventrals thoracic, I, 5, in the young, but reduced or altogether wanting 

 in the adult ; caudal fin well forked. Usually no air bladder. Pyloric 

 cceca commonly numerous. Vertebrae 30 to 36 (Rhombus 30 or 31; Strom- 

 ateus 36). Genera 3, species about 30. Fishes usually of small size, 

 found in most warm seas, many of them valued as food. We here remove 

 the Centrolophidce, a group usually associated with the Stromateidw, but 

 differing in appearance and in the smaller number of vertebrae, although 

 agreeing in the possession of teeth in the oesophagus. (Scombridw, part, 

 Giinther, Cat., n, 397, 1860, genus Stromateus.) 



a Pelvic f bone projecting from the skin as an evident spine ; no trace of ventrals. 



RHOMBUS, 441. 



* For a review of the American species of Stromateidse. see paper by Fordice in Proc. Ac. Nat. 

 Sci. Phila., 1884, 311-317. 



fThe pelvic bone is not externally visible in Stromateus. 



