THE SCARING AND THE MUGILLIDJE. 27 



and style of colouring assimilates them very near to the 

 wrasses (^Ldbrince), but their head is thicker and their 

 colours even more brilliant* The scales are very large, 

 and always possess an unusual degree of hardness ; they 

 are sometimes serrated, and even assume the hexagonal 

 form of the plates upon the Plectognathes, or cheloni- 

 form fishes. All the typical genera are distinguished 

 by a character perfectly unique in this order : the jaws, 

 which are very thick, perform the office of true teeth, being 

 sharpened at their edges in the same manner as the ma- 

 jority of the Plectognathes. This similarity of the jaws to 

 the bill of the PsittaddcB, joined to the vividness of their 

 colouring, have caused these fishes to be named sea- 

 parrots or parrot-fish : the uses for which their powerful 

 jaws are designed is obviously to crush the hard cover-: 

 ings of those marine animals, as shells and crabs, upon 

 which the ScarincB are known to feed ; such, also, are 

 devoured by the cheloniform order, so that the analogy 

 between the two is complete. The passage from these 

 fishes to the LabrincB, by means of Xirichthys, is no less 

 obvious, and we thus return to the point from whence 

 we commenced ; each sub-family of the ChcBtodonidw 

 representing those of the Percidce, and consequently all 

 the other circular groups contained in this class. 



(28.) The two next families, being aberrant, contain 

 little more than generic examples. The first, that of 

 the MuGiLLiD^, or mullets, are lengthened and often 

 cylindrical fishes, with very small mouths placed beneath 

 an advanced and obtuse muzzle : the dorsal fins are 

 very distant from each other, the teeth minute, and the 

 sides of the head covered with compact scales : the 

 crown is naked and bony. The grey mullet of our coasts 

 is a typical example, and most of the foreign species 

 are of the same hue. To these we join the genus 

 Polynemus, or Paradise-fish of the Anglo-Indians, re- 

 markable for numerous long flexible filaments placed 

 near the pectoral fins, completely analogous to those we 

 have already described in the genus Trichosoma : in one 

 species, these appendages are so remarkably developed 



