290 Animal Life 
be taken to indicate that these fishes have anything to do with 
the common bream of our rivers, which belongs to a very 
different family—that of the carps. Im the sea-breams and their 
allies the teeth, as in the file-fishes, are limited to the jaws and 
the pharyngeal bones, and are remarkable for their variety in 
form, and frequently also for their large size. In the true sea- 
breams of the genus Dentex the jaw-teeth form a single row, 
and are sharp and pointed, the series in some species being 
of equal size throughout, while in others larger tusk-lke teeth 
occur at intervals. 
In the fishes known as Gilt-Heads (Chrysophrys), which 
are members of the same group, the teeth display a some- 
what aberrant type, those in the front of the jaws being adapted 
for seizing and tearimg prey, while those further back are suited 
for crushing the food, this arrangement recalling the one which 
obtains in the Port Jackson shark, as Fig.8. Teeth of a File-Fish, 
described in the preceding article of oe al 
this series. In these fishes there are two or three pairs 
of large tusk-hke teeth in the front of the jaws, behind 
which comes a double or treble series of grinders, varying 
somewhat in form in the different species. A constant suc- 
cession of teeth occurs throughout life, the new teeth in 
many of the species being similar to those they replace. On 
the other hand, in the common gilt-head of our own shores 
some of the hinder and inner crushing-teeth, which are 
hemispherical in the young fish, are replaced in the adult by 
one or occasionally two much larger teeth of an oval form. 
A further modification of the same type of dentition is 
presented by the fishes of the genus Sargus, a well-known 
represenuative of which commonly goes by the name of 
Sheep’s-Head in America. In the true sea-breams, as we 
have seen, the dentition is of a purely carnivorous type; 
in the gilt-heads it assumes a crushing character in the 
rae hinder part of the jaws; while in the sargus it is converted 
Tig. 9. Lower Dentition of the Sargus,  - : Q : " 
‘iaomn fin ‘Rome Graal RROWA Clare, into a purely herbivorous type by the modification of the 
teeth in the front of the jaws into a form recalling the 
incisors of man or the corresponding lower teeth of a sheep. The resemblance of the 
upper teeth to human incisors is indeed so strong that, as Si R. Owen remarks, it 
would have been no matter for surprise had the one been mistaken for the other by 
the older paleontologists. The number of these incisor-like front teeth is lable to a 
certain amount of variation in the different species of sargus. Im one kind, for 
instance, there are four pairs in the upper and three in the lower jaw; in a second 
there are four pairs in each; while in a third the numbers in the two jaws are just 
the reverse of those in the first species. In the common Mediterranean representative 
of the genus the margins of the sides of the jaws 
are paved with hemispherical grinding-teeth arranged in 
three rows; these teeth become larger towards the 
hinder part of the mouth, those of the inner row being 
the largest, and those of the middle row the smallest. 
In the lower jaw there are two rows of similar teeth, 
those of the inner row being the larger. As with the Fig. 10. Pharyngeal Teeth of Wrasse. 
