SCOMBEROIDE^E. 77 



tail destitute of scaly plates, teeth like the pile of shorn velvet, and a peculiar struc- 

 ture of the gills. 



The second grand tribe has the spinous rays of the dorsal standing solitarily 

 without a connecting membrane, so that they can move separately. Chorinemus 

 has, in addition to these, spurious finlets behind the dorsal and anal, as in the first 

 tribe. Rynchobdetta and Mastacembelus want the ventrals, and Notacanihus has 

 the anal united to the caudal, and all the rays of the dorsal detached from each 

 other. 



The third tribe has the lateral line armed in part, or for its whole length, but 

 chiefly on the sides of the tail, by keeled or hooked shields, or strong scales. This 

 character, in passing through a succession of genera, becomes gradually less 

 marked, until the armour is reduced to scales so small, that they are remarkable 

 merely when viewed in comparison with the more minute scales of the body. The 

 extensive genus Caranx exhibits this kind of armour in the greatest perfection • 

 while Vomer may be considered as the type of that section in which it becomes 

 less and less conspicuous. 



The fourth tribe is not so easily defined as the preceding ones, for though the 

 genera composing it form, by easy transitions, a natural series, there are few posi- 

 tive characters common to them all ; so that recourse must be had to negative ones 

 for the limitation of the group, such as the want of spurious finlets, or free spines, 

 on the back, and of keeled scales on the sides of the tail. The genera Seriola and 

 Temnodon of this tribe have much affinity with Lichia of the second tribe ; while 

 Stromateus has the exterior form of many of the Chsetodontoidese. Coryphcena 

 seems to differ widely from both in the compression and vertical height of the head ; 

 but Lampugus and Centrolophus are links which connect it on one side to Lichia, 

 and on the other to Stromateus. 



The habits of the Scomberoidese are quite in accordance with their great powers 

 of natation : we find among them many fish that pass their lives remote from the 

 land in the middle districts of the ocean, and the family may be termed pelagic, 

 with as much propriety as some of the preceding ones have been named after the 

 countries where they most abound. The Bonitos and Dolphins, or Coryphsenae 

 especially, roam about within the Tropics, pursuing shoals of various kinds of 

 flying fish. Several of the Scomberoidese (Coryphcena equisetis, C. dolfyn, 

 C. azorica, Lampugus punctulatus, Centrolophus crassus) have been taken in the 

 middle longitudes only of the Atlantic, so that they cannot be said to belong to one 

 continent more than another ; and there is a greater number of species that cross 

 the Atlantic belonging to this family than to any preceding one. Among these 



