Cthsoid Acaxtiiopteres.- 



-FISHES.- 



-HOLOCENTKIDS. 



127 



fpotted. The finest were named lanati (woolly), because 

 theii- flesh rivalled wool in softness and whiteness. 

 According to Columella, the cultivated taste of Mareius 

 Pliilippus first taught the Romans to prize the Basse 

 that were taken while exhausting their strength in 



stemming the current of the Tiber ; and Horace satiri- 

 cally asks. Whence is it that your palate can distinguish 

 between the Tiberine Basse, and those taken at sea ? 

 and why do you dislike the older fish of that kind, 

 when you praise insanely an over-grown Sm'mullet? 



Fig. 32. 



m- 





^^^^i^^-^-^, 



Jew-fish (Glaucosoiua hebraicum). 



To this he himself replies, that it is solely because the 

 Basse is naturally of larger growth, and the Surmullet 

 of less, and rarity adds to the value. 



The Basse was supposed by the ancient writers to 

 be very careful of its safety. Aristotle calls it the 

 most cunning of fishes ; and Ovid and ililian say that 

 when inclosed by nets, it will burrow in the sand, and 

 allow them to pass over it. It will strike otf a bait 

 with its tail, or if caught by the book, it will twist 

 about so as to widen the wound, and suffer the barb to 

 Cjme out. It received its ancient name of Lupus, 

 from its cunning, and that o{ Lahrax, from its voracity. 

 The Kcschr {Latcs nilolica) has been supposed to be 

 the fish mentioned by Strabo as forming the object of 

 worship at Latopolis, or Esnfe, in Egypt, but no repre- 

 sentation of it has been found at the temple there ; and 

 it is still doubtful whether modern ichthyologists have 

 fixed the species correctly or not. The Si/al:ouj>, or 

 Cuchiip [Lates nohilis), is a large Indian fish, of whose 

 air-bladder isinglass is made ; but the coats of the vessel 

 are thin, and when dried do not exceed an ounce in 

 weight. The Camuri [Centropoiaus undccimulis) is 

 common on the warmer coasts of South America, 

 where its roe is salted and dried in cakes, so as to 

 form a caviare like that known in Italy and Sardinia 

 by the name of Botarrjo, which is mostly made of the 

 eggs of mullets or of tunnies. 



As the rearing of sea-fish in fresh-water is a project 

 of much utility, could it bo extensively realized, the 

 successful experiment of Mr. R. Poll of New York, 

 described in the following extract from the ninth annual 

 report of the Smithsonian Institution, is well worthy of 

 notice : — " I have succeeded in rearing the Striped 

 Bass {Lahrax lineatus), known in our river as the 

 Croton Bass, thus : Male and female were placed in a 

 small pond, the water of which was salted twice a-week, 

 until the small Iry appeared, when the salting ceased. 

 Sixty days afterwards the old became excessively 

 weak, and in ten days more died. The small fry of 



the Bass, and also of the Shad grew rapidly, and when 

 six weeks old were placed in a larger pond, and their 

 progeny became fresh-water fish " (p. 322). 



Family XI.— nOLOCENTRIDS. 



This is another group of Cuvier's Pcrcoids, which 

 is distinguished from the rest by having more than 

 seven hranchiostegals, and upwards of five articulated 

 rays in the ventrals, in addition to the spine. Its 

 members are recognizable by their general aspect, 

 their large strongly serrated scales, the existence of 

 sharp furrows and streaks on the bones of the skull, 

 face, or gill-covers, the serratures or spines of the 

 opercular bones, and the general stoutness and acute- 

 ness or angularity of the spinous fin-rays. The dorsals 

 are single and even, or deeply notched between the 

 spinous and articulated parts, or there are two con- 

 tiguous dorsals. Several spines are incumbent on 

 the bases of the caudal lobes above and below. The 

 otolites or acoustic bones are large, and the air-bladder 

 is connected with the otocrane or capsule of the in- 

 ternal ear, through an ossicle and the tympanum or 

 drum. The pancreatic CKca are numerous, being 

 from eight to twenty, or more. The giwip displays the 

 more prominent characters of the ctenoid Aeauthopteres. 



It comprises tlie following genena — Bolocentntm ; RJii/nchic- 

 tliys; Mi/jupi'htis; Beiyx ; Auoplof]iister (Giintiicr); Ihterojth- 

 thalmus (Bleelcer); lloplosttthus; Trachichthys; Puli/niixiu 

 (Lowe), with half the usual number of branchiostegals. 



Many of these have brilliant red and blue colours, or 

 golden tints. None enter the British seas ; but they are 

 ornaments of the intertropical seas, and some of them 

 have been named "marine gold-fish," others iiiatejuclo, 

 meaning a soldier armed cap a pie. One [Holoccntrum 

 longipiime) is called the Welshman in Jamaica, the 

 Red-man at St. Thomas', tlio Cardinal at St. 

 Domingo, and the Squirrel in Carolina ; names spring- 

 ing from their red tints of colour. 



