Botany and Zoology. 135 
arising from a base 4 of an inch, nearly opposite, though a little for- 
ward of the anal. 
The teeth are advanced, nearly ranging with the lips, being very nu- 
merous, close and small, though scarcely discernible without a magni- 
fying glass. Lips thin, the under one slightly projecting ; angles of the 
mouth not depressed ; eyes medium size ; head flattened at the frontal 
inner rows inclining to the central, having also, one, perhaps more rows 
behind, which are shorter. 
he predominant hue of this fish is a tawny or fawn color; the 
opercula silvery; head metallic gray; muzzle blackish, slightly pro- 
There are six rows of rather quadrangular black spots, more particu- 
larly marked in, the posterior half of the body, averaging twenty-five 
spots for each row. ese black spots, resting ona tawny ground, 
leaving intervals something larger than themselves, give a picturesque 
appearance, forming stripes of alternating hues, the three upper of 
which slightly curve corresponding to the arching back; but each be- 
_comes straighter, the fourth and fifth being nearly straight; the sixth 
or lower row follows the abdominal curve, and disappears at the anal 
fin; the other five rows gradually converge without coalescing at the 
origin of the caudal fin. At the origin of this fin the spots are displaced 
out of a line. By this arrangement the six rows of alternating black 
and tawny leave in the longitudinal direction six other continuous tawny 
stripes, all of which except the two interrupted ones, lost at the anal fin, 
Converge without mingling in the tail, all being about equal in length. 
The colors fade somewhat into a greyish yellow around the thoracic fins, 
which are nearly central between the dorsum and abdomen, being on 
a level with the eyes, and about one line from the opercula. 
here are six or seven rows of scales. The spinous rays of the fins 
are about twenty-five caudal, twelve anal, fifteen dorsal, ten thoracic. 
The fcetuses are half an inch long, all alike, exactly resembling the 
These fetal fishes were probably sufficiently developed at the time 
of the parent’s death to live independent of the mother. 
appears from the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences 
of Philadelphia, for 1854, that Dr. Gibbons, of the Academy of Natu- 
| Sciences of San Francisco, “claims priority of description of vivip- 
arous fish,” in behalf of the gold-shimmering waters of California, and 
