^^4 !)r. Bancroft on some Animals of Jamaica. 



you will find the curious membranaceous coverings of its upper and lower 

 lip ; as I could detect nothing like teeth in the fish (notwithstanding the 

 " dents menues, serrees en quinconce" assigned by Cuvier to his sub- 

 genus Pastenague) I regard the hard granulations on them as its substitutes 

 for teeth. 



8. A fish (about nine inches long) called here Butter-fish, but not 

 noticed by Brown, nor described by any Ichthyologist, so far as I can 

 discover. It falls under Cuvier's sub-genus Serranus of the Percoid 

 family. I wish it may preserve a portion of its colours, which, particu- 

 larly over the head, opercula, and middle of the body, are of a full 

 bright scarlet, changing into a rose-colour over the abdomen. Its con- 

 trast with the black dots, especially with those of them that are ocellated, 

 give it a very handsome, almost splendid, appearance. 



9. A specimen of Brown's Gar-fish (p. 443.), which both he and 

 other naturalists have chosen to refer to Esox Belone, though it is differ- 

 ent from that species. Its teeth are not black ; its back not black (but 

 dark green) ; the inside of the mouth not purple ; belly not flat ; dor- 

 sal and anal fins very different in form from those represented in Shaw's 

 and Bonnaterre's figures, and the caudal still more so. Eyes also not 

 round, as to iris and pupils, as in these two figures, but ovate ; and there 

 is a peculiarity in the form of the iris, which sends forth a rounded pro- 

 cess covering a part of the upper circle of the pupil, as if this were 

 emarginate. I consider this species therefore as almost a nondescript. 



10. A small specimen of Brown's Piper, Esox Brasiliensis, in which, 

 if it preserve its characters through the voyage, you will perceive two 

 marked features, unnoticed by Brown, first, in the bright flame-colour 

 which tips the apex of its lower jaw ; and secondly, in the full-bodied 

 silver stripe extending horizontally along the middle of the body, from 

 the operculum to the tail, one-tenth of an inch broad. 



11. A specimen of a Sahno that I cannot find described any where, 

 but which has a good deal of relation to the Smelt, in its sub-semitrans- 

 parency, and some of its other characters, and still more to Salmo fas- 

 tens, except that its head is the reverse of " truncated." 



12. A specimen of our White Grunt, Bloch's Anthias formosus. If 

 it keep its colours, you will see how very differently it is striped from the 

 representations in Shaw, Vol. IV. of Gen. Zoology, pi. 64, p. 439, and 

 in other works. 



