g PHILIPPINE POMACENTRHXE 



in coral and rock crevices. A coral head brought to the surface 

 will often yield many specimens when broken into fragments. 



The living specimens in the Bureau of Science aquarium have 

 given me excellent opportunities to study their mode of life in 

 captivity; they were taken in bobos, or small bamboo traps, at 

 Calapan, Mindoro, which locality has furnished about twenty- 

 five species. Many of the examples listed in this paper were 

 collected by Dr. Albert W. Herre by the use of dynamite, or by 

 means of the fish poison called tubli. Some of the material has 

 been collected by me, when I have had the opportunity to observe 

 the habits of the living fish in their natural surroundings. 



The pomacentrids, although used as food, are not highly 

 esteemed and are not caught in sufficiently large quantities to 

 be of any economic importance. They are often caught in the 

 muro-ami (a type of trap net recently introduced into the Is- 

 lands by Japanese fishermen) along with chaetodonts, hepatids, 

 siganids, acanthurids, scaroids, labroids, balistids, and others 

 found in the neighborhood of coral reefs. Not infrequently 

 small quantities are obtained by the use of the dip net, the cast 

 net, or the beach seine and, rarely, a few enter the fish corrals 

 along with some of the important food fishes. 



In this paper the scales in longitudinal series are counted to 

 the base of the caudal fin, and the scale on the lateral line is 

 not included in counting those in transverse series. The length 

 of the body is measured from the tip of the snout to the base 

 of the caudal rays. The diameter of the eye is given longi- 

 tudinally in all cases. 



I wish to express my indebtedness to Dr. David Starr Jordan 

 for his reading of the original manuscript, and to Prof. John 

 Otterbein Snyder, of Stanford University, and Dr. Albert W. 

 Herre, chief of the division of fisheries, Philippine Bureau of 

 Science, for assistance in various ways and for supervision over 

 the preparation of this paper. 



POMACENTRIDS 



DAMSEL FISHES 



Local names: Aroro baybay, Ilocano; las-las, tibu, tibuk, or 

 ulan-idan, Tao Sug and Samal ; baro-baro, pa-ata, paiata, palata, 

 idan-ulan, or puyong dagat, Visayan. 



Body compressed, short or elongate, covered with ctenoid 

 scales of varying size. Teeth in the jaws small and feeble, 

 either conical or incisorlike; none present along the roof of 

 mouth. Lateral line ceasing before the posterior end of dorsal 

 fin. Spinous and rayed dorsal continuous, even or notched, 



