THE FISHES OF NEW JERSEY. 313 



This account from the only example I have seen. It is evi- 

 dently a rare straggler to our coasts by means of the Gulf Stream. 



Priacanthus alius Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila, 1870, 

 p. 121. 



Family LOBOTID^. 



The Triple Tails. 



Body oblong, compressed, equally developed above and below. 

 Snout short. Eye anterior. Palate edentulous. Vertebr;^ 24,. 

 12 abdominal and 12 caudal, fifth to eleventh with short but 

 gradually lengthening parapophyses projecting sideways and 

 behind downw^ard, and twelfth with elongated parapophyses 

 elongated converging at their extremities and fitting intO' a 

 groove of first haemal spine, costiferous pits excavated obliquely 

 in developed parapophyses and gradually ascending forward on 

 vertebrae and finally on neurapophyses. Skull w4th frontal por- 

 tion broad, expanded forward and outward, and entering into 

 posterior borders of orbits which are advanced far forward. 

 Postfrontals elongated forward and underlying frontals. Eth- 

 moid short, decurved, and expanded sideways. No vomerine and 

 palatine teeth. Fore part of head very short. Preopercle strongly 

 serrate. Branchiostegals 6. Air-vessel present. P3doric coeca 3. 

 Dorsal fin continuous with XII spines which may be depressed in 

 a shallow grove. Soft rays of dorsal and anal elevated. Anal 

 spines graduated. Bases of soft dorsal and anal thickened and 

 scaly. Caudal rounded. 



A single species, a large fish closely related to the Serranidce. 



Genus Lobotes Cuvier. 



The Triple Tails. 

 Lobotes surinamensis (Bloch). 



Plate S3. 

 Triple Tailed Perch. Triple Tail. Black Perch. Black Grunt. 



Head about 3^^ ; depth about 2}i ; D. XI, I, 17, according to 

 figure, 27 according to description; A. Ill, it, according to figure 



