DOBULE. 53 



body lengthened, narrow, the hack round; head blunt, roundish, 

 broad above; nostrils above the line of the eyes; eyes large. 

 Jaws with seven teeth in a double row; lower jaw a little the 

 shortest. Lateral line curved downward, dotted with yellow 

 points; (which may answer to what Willoughby says, that this 

 line is "citrine," or faint yellow; but he adds that above it is 

 a black stripe which passes from the eye to the tail, which is 

 also represented in his figure.) Colour on the top of the head 

 dark ash; eyes yellow, and in the young white or silvery, with 

 a green spot above; the body above darkish green or yellow; 

 below white, with a tint of blue. Scales of moderate size, 

 spotted on their borders with black. Eye yellow, and in the 

 younger examples, which are the C. Grislagine of Linnaeus, this 

 and the fins are white; in the older, or true Dobula, the dorsal 

 is greenish, with eleven rays; the anal with eleven rays, and 

 ventral with nine rays, both red; pectoral yellow, fifteen rays; 

 caudal bluish, eighteen rays; the vertebrae forty. 



Mr. YarrelFs example was only six inches and a half long, 

 and, he says, being a young male fish, was slender in proportion 

 to its length. The general colour dusky blue on the back, 

 becoming brighter on the sides, silvery white beneath. The 

 lateral line descending from the upper angle of the operculum 

 takes a course along the side parallel to the curve of the belly; 

 scales of moderate size; dorsal and caudal fins dusky brown; 

 pectoral, ventral, and anal fins pale orange red; head rounded 

 and blunt; upper jaw the longest, the under jaw shutting within 

 it; nostrils pierced on the upper side of the head, rather nearer 

 the eye than the upper lip; irides orange; cheeks and operculum 

 silvery white; first ray of the dorsal fin rising half way between 

 the anterior edge of the orbit of the eye and the end of the 

 fleshy portion of the tail, the first ray short, the second the 

 longest, the last ray double; of the anal fin also the first ray 

 short and the last ray double. Number of fin rays — the dorsal 

 nine, pectoral sixteen, ventral nine, anal ten, caudal twenty. 



My own notes are, that the air-bladder is large, and of its 

 two divisions the last fills a large portion of the cavity; bent 

 forward and fastened near the vent; a small thread passes up 

 to the base of the skull from this second division; so small that 

 if not sought for it might have escaped observation. 



