CHARACINUS. THE SUB-GENERA. £53 



M. Cuvier places them all in his sub-genus Curi- 

 mata ; but although some, as C. fasciatus (Spix, 

 pi. 36.*), evince a resemblance to Anastomus, by their 

 slender snout, and excessively small mouth, almost ver- 

 tically cleft, it is very questionable whether Prochilodus 

 is also allied to the others : two species are figured 

 by Spix, which, in their small mouth, thick fleshy lips, 

 and absence of teeth, no less than in their body and 

 fins, perfectly agree with the carps ; the only difference 

 being a very small adipose dorsal, placed immediately 

 above the short anal. We see no possible affinity be- 

 tween these singular fishes and the Salmo Thymallus, 

 with which M. Cuvier has compared them : they have 

 not, as in that, the first dorsal fin high, long, and unu- 

 sually developed ; it is, on the contrary, of the same 

 size as the ordinary species of Coregonus ; and we feel 

 by no means sure, whether the majority of the above- 

 named salmon, although natives of South America, 

 should not be placed with the European group. On 

 the other hand, it must still be remembered, that all 

 these tropical salmon differ from ours, in having no 

 teeth on the tongue ; and that the number of rays in 

 their gill membrane is rarely more than four or five : 

 the wide separation, also, of the latitudes they respect- 

 ively inhabit, must not be overlooked ; so that, upon 

 the whole, we may safely conclude them to be the Ame- 

 rican representives of Coregonus, just as Catastomus is, in 

 the New World, of the European and Asiatic Cyprince. 

 Now, with the exception of these fishes, the whole of 

 those now under consideration agree in having the 

 characters already assigned : that is to say, the snout is 

 short, thick, and obtuse; the mouth angulated; and the 

 anal fin more or less lengthened. From all the divi- 

 sions made by Cuvier of Artedi's genus Characinus, we 

 select the following as the most dissimilar to each other, 

 and these we consider as types of form, viz. Characinus 

 Artedi, Serrasalmo Lac, Chalceus Cuv., Gasteropelicus 

 Bloch, and Cynodon Spix and Agassiz. In this selec- 



* Also Anodus latior, pi. 41., and A. elongatus, pi. 40., of the same author. 



