34 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
large, an oblong dorsal fin with the last ray not produced, and the 
anal fin small. Further, the head is slender and pike-like, the mouth 
not very oblique, the lower jaw especially slender and its articulation 
far behind, under the postorbitals, and the suspensorium angular, 
the hyomandibular being inclined backwards. It contains two spe- 
cies, the long known and wide-ranging Elops saurus, and the local- 
ized Elops lacerta of the Congo and western Africa. 
The Elops saurus is common in the open sea along the coast 
of the southern United States and is best known as the ten-pounder, 
though it has received many other names. 
The accepted name was current at least as early as the seven- 
teenth century for Dampier, in his “ Voyages to the Bay of Cam- 
peachy,” for 1676 records (p. 71) “ten-pounders” among the 
fishes (including tarpons, parricootas, etc.) he found in “ the lagunes, 
creeks and rivers.” ‘“ Ten-pounders,” he adds, “are shaped like 
mullets, but are so full of very small stiff bones, intermixt with the 
flesh that you can hardly eat them.” 
The species needs no further attention for the present at least. 
Ill 
Fic. 4—Megalops cyprinoides; hyopalatine arch, opercular bones, and mandible 
of left side, mesial aspect. j, jugular plate, dorsal view. (After Ridewood.) 
The genus Megalops has very large scales (30 or more along the 
lateral line), the head is comparatively large and the lower jaw 
projecting ; there are no pseudobranchiz ; the dorsal fin is inserted 
more or less behind the ventrals and its last ray is produced into an 
elongated “filament.” In contrast also with Elops the head is short 
