FISHES. 13 



very short. All the rays are slender and flexible. The rays of the second dorsal are all 

 unbranched and finely jointed. The anal is similarly constructed. The membrane of these 

 and of the other fins is extremely delicate and easily torn, and as it has suffered some damage 

 in the specimen, we cannot determine whether the two dorsals were connected by a low 

 membrane or not, or whether the last rays of the dorsal and anal were bound to the tail. 

 There is a deep furrow on the upper surface of the short trunk of the tail and a similar one 

 below, in which the last rays of the dorsal and anal recline. The caudal is truncated at the 

 end with a slight projection of the angles, and the membrane is notched between the tips of 

 the rays, which are forked. The pectoral appears to have been pointed, but its rays being 

 brittle have been mutilated. The ventrals are very small and are attached beneath, or rather 

 behind, the attachment of the pectorals. The first ray is flexible without apparent joints, the 

 other two, which are not separated from each other by membrane, are longer and distinctly 

 jointed. Colour in spirits uniform and brownish. Mr. Adams has noted that the body 

 and fore part of the dorsal are chestnut brown, the throat and belly orange. There are 

 oblong, silvery spots on the sides, one of them extending from the eye to the gill-opening, 

 another being in the axilla of the pectoral, and the third under the end of that fin, just 

 where the lateral fine begins to take a straight course. The eye is orange and golden. 

 Length, 4-| inches. 



Hab. The sea off the Island of Quelpart. 



PODABRUS COTTOIDES, Richardson. 

 Eadii.— B. 6; D. 10|-19; A. 18; C. 11J-; P. 15 ; V. l|2. 



Plate I. Pig. 1-6. 



This fish is much less high and compressed in the body than P. centropomus and has a very 

 different aspect, though it posesses the same generic characters. It has some resemblance to a 

 Coitus or Apistes, but is distinguished from the former by its palatine teeth, and from the latter 

 by its unarmed preorbitar. It is moderately compressed, the height at the shoulder being twice 

 the width ; the dorsal line is continued from the eye to the caudal with a very slight con- 

 vexity, and the descent of the snout is small ; the ventral line is similar, both profiles meeting 

 in the rather slender tail, which has scarcely a third of the height of the body at the pectoral. 

 The belly is tumid. The head forms one third of the length of the fish, excluding the caudal, 

 which is shorter than the head. The eye touches the profile, and its diameter is equal to 

 about one fourth of the length of the head, and scarcely equal to the breadth of the cheek 

 between the orbit and preopercular disk. The space between the eyes is less than the 

 diameter of the orbit, whose upper margin is rather raised, and the interval in the skull is 

 furrowed, but the inequalities are concealed by the integument. The jaws are equal ; very 

 little of the maxillary is concealed by the preorbitar, and its truncated end falls back as far 



E 



