ON THE EAST COAST OF FLORIDA. 257 



"Family XXXIV— ALBULID^E." 



"(The Lady-fishes.)" 

 Page 258. No Illustrations. 



"Body rather elongate, little compressed, covered with rather 

 small, brilliantly silvery scales. Head naked. Snout conic, sub- 

 quadrangular, shaped like the snout of a pig, and overlapping the 

 small, inferior, horizontal mouth. Maxillary rather strong, short, 

 with a distinct supplemental bone, slipping under the membranous 

 edge of the very broad preorbital. Premaxillaries short, not pro- 

 tractile. Lateral margin of upper jaw formed by the maxillaries. Eye 

 large, medium in head, with a bony ridge above it, and almost covered 

 by an annular adipose eyelid. Opercle moderate, firm. Preopercle 

 with a broad, fiat membranaceous edge, which extends backward over 

 the base of the opercle. Pseudobranchiae present. Gill rakers short, 

 tubercle-like. Gill membranes entirely separate, free from isthmus. 

 Branchiostegals about 14. A fold of skin across gill membranes 

 anteriorly, its posterior free edge crenate. No gular plate. Both 

 jaws, vomer and palatines with bands of villiform teeth. Broad 

 patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on the tongue behind and on the 

 sphenoid and pterygoid bones. Lateral line present. Belly not 

 carinate, flattish, covered with ordinary scales. Dorsal fin moderate, 

 in front of ventrals, its membranes scaly. No adipose fin. Anal 

 very small. Caudal widely forked. Pyloric coeca numerous. A 

 single species known, found in all warm seas." 



( ClupeidcE group, Allntlina. Gunther, VII, 468, 469. ) 



" n6— ALBULA Gronovius." 



Same work, page 258. 



("Gronovius; Bloch & Schneider, Syst. Ichth., 1801, 432: 

 type, Albula conorhynchas. Bloch & Schneider — Esox vulpes, L.") 



" Characters of the genus included above. (Latin albus, white. ) 



"431. A. vulpes (L.). Goode. — Lady-fish; Bonefish. 



' ' Brilliantly silvery ; olivaceous above ; back and sides with faint 

 streaks along the rows of scales ; fins plain ; axiles dusky. Upper 

 lobe of caudal the longer. A band of peculiar, elongate, membra- 

 naceous scales along middle line of back ; accessory ventral scale 

 large. Head, 3^; depth, 4. D. 15; A. 8; scales, 9-71-7; L. 18 

 inches. Cape Cod to Southern California and East Indies ; 



