724 Memoirs of the Indian Museum. [Yol. V, 



Philippines, China, Formosa, Japan and Korea, coast of Queensland and also that of 

 Samoa. 



Family SCIAENIDAE. 



Genus SCÏAENÂ Linnaeus. 



The genus Johnius (including Bola) was restricted to J . carutta by Gill. 1 Bleeker 

 proposed to separate those species which had enlarged teeth in the lower jaw from Sciaena 

 and wanted to group them under a new genus Pseudosciaena, 2 for which he made S. aquila 

 (Lacépède) the type. If Bleeker's arrangement be adopted the generic name of the group 

 should for reasons of priority become Argyrosomus 3 of De La Pylaie, who founded the 

 latter genus in 1832 on the same species. Sciaena is undoubtedly a large genus comprising 

 a great variety of forms which, though differing widely among themselves, form an almost 

 continuous series from one extremity to the other. The inter-relations of these forms have 

 been fully discussed by Jordan and Eigenmann 4 and no useful purpose would be served 

 by upholding the number of these artificial genera. The genus Sciaena is now therefore 

 definitely restricted to Cheilodipterus aquila of Lacépède. 5 This species thus becomes the 

 type of Sciaena which replaces the genera Argyrosomus of De La Pylaie and Pseudosciaena 

 of Bleeker. 6 



Sciaena coifoor (Hamilton Buchanan). 

 1822. Bola coibor, Hamilton Buchanan, Fish. Ganges, pp. 78 and 368. 

 1830. Corvina albida, Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss. V, p. 93. 

 1830. Corvina anei, id, ibid., p. 131. 



1834. Corvina albida, Belanger, Toy. Indes-orientales, p. 355. 

 1860. Johnius anei, Blyth (not Bloch), Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, p. 141. 

 1863. Pseudosciaena albida, Bleeker, Ned. Tijdschr. Dierh. I, p. 145. 

 1865. Corvina albida, Day, Fish. Malabar, p. 54. 

 1865. Corvina neilli, id., ibid., p. 55. 



1876. Sciaena albida, id., Fish. Ind., p. 188, pi. xliv, figs. 4 and 6. 

 1889. Sciaena albida, id., Faun. Brit. Ind. Fish. II, p. 117. 

 1910. Sciaena albida, Jenkins, Rec. Ind. Mus. V, p. 136. 



There is only one specimen in the collection, 462 mm. in length without the caudal fin. 

 It was caught off Barkul Point at the end of November, 1914. Another specimen was re- 

 ported from Gopkuda in August, 1907. In the Barkul specimen the muciferous pore below 

 the symphysis of the lower jaw (the centrally situated one behind the bluntish knob) is semi- 

 lunar in shape with a short hanging fold in front, the two lateral pores are deep and elongated 

 and the outer pores are almost slit-like. The barbel between the right corner of the semilunar 

 pore and the right lateral elongated pore is very slender and thin and is only 5 mm. in length 



1 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sei. Philadelphia, 1862 (published 1863), pp. 16-18. 



2 Ned. Tijdschr. Dierk. I (1863), p. 145., and Arch. Need. Sc. Nat. XI (1876), p. 329. 



3 Compt. Bend. Congr. Sei. France for 1834 (published 1835), p. 534. 



4 Bull. Ü. S. Fish Comm. for 1886 (published 1889), p. 395. 



5 Lacépède, Hist. Nat. Poiss., Nou. Ed., IV, p. 373. 



6 Jordan, The Genera of Fishes, 1917, p. 94. 



