1 6 MARINE AND FRESHWATER FISHES 



his deeply excavated bridal abode. As will have been antici- 

 pated, the Black Sea-Bream takes its name with reference 

 to the sooty hue it assumes after death, its synonym of the 

 " Old Wife " being a local title by which it is known to 

 south coast fishermen. Among the remaining members 

 of the Sea-Bream family, upon which limited space 

 precludes extension, have to be mentioned the Couches 

 Sea-Bream {Pagrus vulgaris), No. 1 1 ; the Gilt-head 

 {Pagrus auratus), No. 12 ; the common or Red Sea-Bream 

 {Pagellus centrodontus), No. 13 ; the Axillary Sea-Bream 

 {Pagellus Owejiii), No. 1 5 ; and the Acarne {Pagellus acarne), 

 No. 16. The majority of these will be found included 

 among the spirit-preserved series in the Day Collection. 

 None of the Sea-Breams are held in high estimation as food- 

 fish, their flesh being coarse and insipid. A length of from 

 twelve to eighteen inches with a weight of five or six pounds 

 represents the average size attained by the adults of the 

 largest members of the Sea-Bream family, such as Nos. 9 and 

 13, taken on the British coast. The cast of an unusually fine 

 example of the latter form, Pagellus centrodontus, having a 

 length of twenty-two inches, and which weighed, when fresh 

 from the sea, no less than eight pounds, is on view in the 

 Buckland Museum. 



FAMILY IV. — Scorpion Fishes (Scorpcenidcz). 



Body more or less compressed ; the cleft of the mouth 

 lateral or sub-vertical, furnished with feeble villiform teeth ; 

 eyes usually approximated towards the top of the head ; a 

 greater or less number of the head bones, and especially 

 those of the pre-operculum, armed with defensive spines, 

 dorsal fin single, its larger anterior moiety spinous ; branchi- 



