98 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



[46.] 1. Chirus monopterygius. (Cuvier.) Even-finned Chirus. 



Family, Gobioidese ? Cuvier. Genus, Chirus. Stei.ler. 



Labrax monopterygius. Pallas, Mem. de Ptlersb., ii., p. 391, pi. xxiii., f. 1. 



The indefatigable Steller discovered two species of fish in the sea of Kamt- 

 schatka, and left descriptions of them in manuscript, under the names of Lebius, 

 Chirus vel Labrax, and Hexagrammos. Tilesius also saw two in the same seas, 

 one of which he described and figured as the Hexagrammos Stelleri, in the 

 Memoires de L'Academie des Sciences de St. Petersburg for the year 1808. In 

 the mean time Pallas, receiving specimens of six different species from the same 

 quarter, read an account of them in 1809 to the Society just mentioned, under the 

 generic appellation of Labrax, which was published in the same volume with 

 Tilesius's papers. Cuvier having appropriated the word Labrax to the Basses of 

 the percoid family, distinguishes the present genus, in the Regne Animal, by the 

 name of Chirus, and attaches it to the Gobioideae, expressing an opinion, however, 

 that it may prove to be the type of a distinct family. The characters of the genus 

 are, — A pretty long body clothed with ciliated scales ; a small unarmed head ; a 

 slightly-cleft mouth, furnished with small, conical, unequal teeth ; and the spinous 

 rays of the dorsal, which stretches along the whole back, almost always slender. 

 Several rows of pores, resembling or forming so many lateral lines, give a peculiar 

 character to the fish of this genus. Their intestines are destitute of csecal appen- 

 dages *, and some species have superciliary tufts, resembling, in that respect, cer- 

 tain blennies ; but their ventrals contain five soft rays as usual. 



Pallas says that all the known species live near the craggy shores of Kamt- 

 schatka, on the opposite American coast, and round the Kurile and Aleutian 

 islands ; but in his accounts of particular species he restricts some of them to cer- 

 tain parts of the Kamtschatka Sea. 



Chirus monopterygius was taken off the island of Unalaschka. 



It differs from the other species in its forked tail, and in its perfectly even, unnotched dorsal 

 tin, supported by forty-six rays, which are all simple, setaceous, and flexible, the first twenty 

 being, however, more slender than the rest. The rays of the pectoral and anal are also simple 

 and setaceous. Those of the ventrals and caudal are forked. Gill-membranes conjoined and 

 forming a loose flap under the isthmus. Teeth small, acute, and crowded on the jaws and 



* Steiler describes caeca as we shall mention below. 



