112 



SERRAN1D.E. 



Ventrals below base of pectorals, with a scaly basal process. Vertebrae 

 24 (10 + 14). 



Indian and Pacific Oceans ; a few species in fresh waters. One 

 species is to be included in the African fresh- water fauna*. 



1. AMBASSIS COMMERSONII. 

 Centropomus ambassis, Lacep. Hist. Poiss. iv. p. 273 (1802). 

 Ambassis commersonii, Guv. & Val. Hist. Poiss. ii. p. 176, pi. xxv. (1828); Bleek. 



Verh. Batav. Gen. xxii. 1849, p. 30 ; Giinth. Cat. Fish. i. p. 223 (1859) ; 



Peters, Reise Mossamb. iv. p. 10 (1868) ; Day, Fish. In J. p. 52, pi. xv. fig. 3 



(1875) ; Bleek. Atl. Ichthyol. viii. p. 136, pi. Ixxiv. tig. 5 (1877) ; Pfeff. 



Thierw. O.-Afr., Fische, p. 4, fig. (1896). 

 Ambassis macracanthus, Bleek. Verh. Batav. Gen. xxii. 1849, p. 30 ; Giinth. 



t. c. p. 227. 

 Ambassis prvductus, Guichen. Mem. Soc. Sci. Cherbourg, xii. 1866, p. 130. 



Depth of body 2| to 2f times in total length, length of head 3 times. 

 Snout convex, as long as or shorter than eye, which is 2| (young) to 3^ 



Ei<r. 85. 



Ambassis commersonii. 

 Type, after Cuvier and Valenciennes. 



times in length of head; interorbital width 3| to 3^ times in length 

 of head; lower jaw projecting; maxillary extending to below anterior 



* The statement, in Playfair and Giinther's 'Fishes of Zanzibar,' p. 18, that Ambassis 

 urolcenia, Blkr., occurs in fresh water in the Seychelles is probably a mistake, and is not 

 repeated in Playfair's later list of the Eishes of the Seychelles (Proe. Zool. Soc. 1867). 

 The same remark applies also to Apogon hyalosoiiia, Blkr. 



