Chromides and Pharyngognathi 607 
flesh (when eaten raw) made it the most highly valued fish 
at the royal banquets of old Hawaii. It still sells readily at a 
dollar or more per pound. To this type belong also the blue 
patrot-fish, Pseudoscarus ovifrons, of Japan. In the restricted 
genus Scarus proper the teeth are pale. The great blue parrot- 
fish, of the West Indies, Scarus ceruleus, belongs to this 
group. This species, deep blue in color, reaches a large size, 
and the adult has a large fleshy hump on the forehead. 
Lesser parrot-fish with pale teeth and with showy coloration 
are the West Indian species Scarus teniopterus, Scarus vetula, 
Scarus croicensis, etc. 
Very many species of both Scarus and Pseudoscarus, green, 
blue, red-brown, or variegated, abound about the coral reefs 
of Polynesia. About twenty-five species occur in Samoa. 
Fig. 503.—Slippery-dick a Doncella, Halicheres bivittatus (Bloch), a fish of the 
coral reefs, Key West. Family Labride. 
Pseudoscarus latax and P. ultramarinus being large and 
showy species, chiefly blue. Pseudoscarus prasiognathus is 
deep red with the jaws bright blue. 
Fossil species referred to Scarus but belonging rather to Spari- 
soma are found in the later Tertiary. The genera Phyllodus, 
Egertomia, and Paraphyllodus of the Eocene perhaps form a 
transition from Labride to Scaride. In Paraphyllodus medius 
the three median teeth of the lower pharyngeals are greatly 
widened, extending across the surface of the bone. 
