ACANTHOPTERYGII. 217 



rally furnished with a membranous appendage; the jaws are covered 

 with fleshy lips; there are three pharyngeals, two upper ones attached 

 to the cranium, and a large lower one, all three armed with teeth, 

 now resembling a pavement and then pointed or laminiform, but 

 generally stronger than usual. 



LABRUS, Lin. 



A very numerous genus of fishes which strongly resemble each other in 

 their oblong form; their double fleshy lips, from which they derive their 

 name, one adhering immediately to the jaws and the other to the suborbi- 

 tals; their crowded branchiae with five rays; their conical maxillary teeth, 

 the middle and anterior of which are the longest, and their cylindrical and 

 blunt pharyngeal teeth arranged like a pavement, the upper ones on two 

 large plates, the lower on a single one which corresponds to the two others. 

 Our Blackfish or Tautog is a true Labrus. This genus is dividedinto nine 

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

 is the 



EPIBULUS, Cuv. 



Remarkable for the excessive protractiTity 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; Spams insidiator y Pal., of a reddish co- 

 lour. From the Indian Ocean. 



CHROMIS, Cuv. 



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 

 filamentous, 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 

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



SCARUS, Lin. 



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

 premandibular bones), whichare 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 ob- 

 long 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. 

 2 C 



