201' FISHES. 



In a second kind, as in the true Herrings, the body is compressed, 

 and the abdomen trenchant and dentated*. The 



Thryssa, Cuv., 



Only differ from the Anchovies with a dentated abdomen, by the extreme 

 prolongation of the mamillaries. The only species known are from the 

 East Indies"]-. 



Megalops, Lacep., 



Have the jaws formed like those of the true Herrings, which they also 

 resemble in their general form, and the disposition of their fins; but their 

 abdomen is not trenchant, nor is their body compressed; their jaws and 

 palatines are furnished with teeth small and crowded like the pile on velvet; 

 their branchial rays are much more numerous (from twenty-two to twenty- 

 four), and the last ray of the dorsal, and frequently of the anal, is length- 

 ened into a filament as in the Chatoessus. 



America produces a species, the Savalle or Apalike, Clupea 

 cyprinoides, Bl. 403, from Plunder; CI. gigantea, Sh.; Camaripu 

 guacti, Marcgr., which attains the length of twelve feet, and has but 

 fifteen rays in the dorsal; there is a filament also on the anal. There 

 is a second in India, the Megalope filamenteux, Lacep. V, xiii, 3, 

 improperly confounded with the first, under the false name of Apalike, 

 Russ. 203. It has seventeen dorsal rays. 



Elops, Lin.. 



The Elops have all the characters of a Melagops, but the dorsal fila- 

 ment is wanting, and their form is somewhat more elongated: as many as 

 twenty rays and upwards are counted in the branchial membrane; the 

 superior and inferior edge of the caudal armed with a flat spine. 

 Species are found in both hemispheres J. 



Butirinus, Commers., 



Have the jaws formed like those of a Herring; the body round and elon- 

 gated, as in Elops and Megalops, and the prominent snout of an Anchovy. 

 The mouth is slightly cleft, small crowded teeth in the jaws, and twelve 

 or thirteen branchial rays; and what constitutes their peculiar character 



* Clupea alherinoides, Bl.; — CI. telara, Buch. II, 72; — CI. phasa, Id., p. 240; — 

 I'oorwa, Russ. 194. 



•j- Clupea setiro.itris, Brousson, Dec. Ichth., copied Encycl. 316; — CI. mystus, or 

 Ptdda poorawah, Russ. 190; — CI. mystax, Bl. Schn. 83; — Poorawah, Russel, 1S9. 



% The Elops of the Indian Ocean is the Argentina machnata of Forskahl, and the 

 Mugil salmoneus of Forster, Bl., Schn., p. 121 ; although he gives it but four branchial 

 rays, I have ascertained this by the figure. It is also the Jinagow, Russ. 170, and 

 the Synode chinois, Lacep. V, x, 1. The American Elops is the Mugil appendicula- 

 tus of Bosc, or the Mugilomore Anne-Caroline, Lacep. V, 398; the Pounder, Sloane, 

 Jam. II, p. 250, f. 1. The Argentina Carolina, L., is also the same fish, although he 

 quotes but a single bad figure, Catesb. II, xxiv; but the Saurus muximus, Sloane, II, 

 pi. 251, 1, usually cited as synonymous with the Elops, is of a totally different genus. 

 It is the Esox synodun, L., Synode fasce, Lacep., or, what is the same thing, one of our 

 Sauri that had lost its adipose fin. 



