FISH. 



71 



these, however, appear likewise different from the one here described, at the same 

 time that their different geographic range renders their identity a priori im- 

 probable. The present one was taken by Mr. Darwin at Tahiti. 



3. Caranx Georgianus. Cuv. et Vol. 



Caranx Georgianus, Cuv. et Val. Hist, des Poiss. torn. ix. p. 64. 

 Form.— Of an oval compressed form, with the back elevated. Greatest depth one-third of the 

 entire length, caudal excluded : thickness not half the depth : head one-fourth of the entire 

 length, caudal included. Profile ascending obliquely, and in nearly a straight line, to meet the 

 dorsal curve. Upper jaw a little the longer. The maxillary, which is truncated and cut nearly 

 square at its posterior extremity, not quite reaches to beneath the anterior margin of the orbit. 

 In each jaw a row of about thirty-five teeth, which are small, somewhat cylindrical, set regu- 

 larly, nearly equal, and rather blunt at the point ; very little trace of any secondary row, simply 

 four or six smaller ones behind those in the middle of the upper jaw, and perhaps in the lower 

 also, but they are not very obvious. A triangular patch of velutine teeth on the vomer, and a 

 narrow band of the same on each palatine ; also on the tongue : these last, however, very closely 

 shorn. Eyes a little above the middle of the cheek, but exactly half-way between the end of 

 the snout and the posterior margin of the opercle ; their diameter one-fourth the length of the 

 head. Preopercle rounded at the angle; its limb separated from the cheek by a slight but not 

 very salient ridge. Opercle with the notch at the upper part not very deep ; the obliquely 

 descending margin straight. 



The lateral line follows the curvature of the back until it arrives beneath the middle of the 

 second dorsal, at which point it becomes straight, and the scales gradually pass into carinated 

 spinous laminee. These laminee, however, are very little developed anteriorly to the last quarter 

 of that fin ; and even beneath the end of it, where they are largest, they do not extend over 

 more than half the breadth of the tail, nor does their own breadth exceed one-seventeenth of the 

 greatest depth of the body. The number of them is from twenty to twenty-five, according to the 

 point at which the reckoning commences, the transition from the scales to the lamina? being very 

 gradual. The pectorals are falcate and sharp-pointed, and one-fourth of the entire length, 

 caudal included. The height of the anterior part of the dorsal is contained two and a half times 

 in the depth. The lobes of the caudal are contained four times and three-quarters in the entire 

 length. 



D. 8—1/27; A. 2—1/24; C. 17, &c. ; P. 20; V. 1/5. 



Length 7 inches 6 lines. 



Colour. — Not noticed in the recent state. The colour of the back and upper part of the sides 

 appears to have been bluish grey, with steel and other reflections, and was probably very bril- 

 liant in the living fish : belly silvery. No markings, except a conspicuous black spot on the 

 upper part of the opercle. 



A second specimen. — Differs in no respect from the above, excepting in having one ray less in the 

 second dorsal and anal fins. 



Habitat, King George's Sound, New Holland. 



I entertain not the least doubt of this species being the C. Georgianus of 



