THE FISHES OF PORTO RICO. 
81 
Genus 20. ELOPS Linnseus. 
Body elongate, covered with thin, small, silvery scales. Dorsal tin slightly behind ventrals, its 
last lays short, the tin depressible into a sheath of scales; anal fin smaller, similarly depressible; pec- 
torals and ventrals moderate, each with a long accessory scale. Opercular bones thin, with expanded, 
membranaceous borders; a scaly occipital collar. Lateral line straight, its tubes simple. Pseudo- 
branchise present, large. Vertebrse 43 + 29 = 72. 
Large fishes of the open seas, remarkable for the development of scaly sheaths. The young are 
ribbon-shaped and elongate, passing through a series of changes like those seen in Albula. 
25. Elops saurus Linnaeus. 
tr Piojo”; Matajuelo Real; Chiro; Lisa Francesa; Ten-Pounder; John Mariggle; Bony-fish; Big-eyed Herring. 
Head 4.3; depth 5 to 6; eye 5; snout 4.3; maxillary 1.6; mandible 1.5; interorbital 5.6; D. 20; 
A. 13; pectoral 1.8; ventral 2; caudal 0.8; scales 13-110-12. 
Fig. 11. — Elops saurus. 
Body very elongate, moderately compressed, scales small and thin, none on head; head small, 
pointed; mouth very large, the extremely long maxillary reaching far beyond eye, which has a well- 
developed adipose eyelid, sheathing the eye anteriorly and posteriorly; rather blunt, villiform teeth 
on jaws, vomer, and palatines and along lower edge of maxillary; jaws subequal; a pointed gular plate; 
dorsal and anal fins with well-developed basal sheaths of scales, that of dorsal large; ventral with a 
very large and pointed accessory scale; caudal lobes long and slender. Blue above, the sides silvery. 
This species is abundant and widely distributed in the tropical seas. It is common in America 
north to the Carolinas and the Gulf of California. Probably not uncommon about Porto Rico, though 
seen by us only at Arecibo, where a specimen 15 inches long was obtained. 
Elops saurus Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. XII, 518, 1766, Carolina; Jordan & Evermann, 1. e.,410, 1896. 
Argentina Carolina Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. XII, 519, 1766, Carolina. 
Argentina mac.hnata Forskal. Descr. Anim., 68, 1775, Djidda, Arabia. 
Mugilomorus anna-carolina Lacepede, Hist. Nat. Poiss., V, 398,. 1803, South Carolina. 
Elops incrmis Mitchill, Trans. Lit. and Phil. Soc. N. Y., I, 1815, 445, New Y’ork. 
Elops capensis Smith, Zool. South Africa, 1845, pi. 7, Cape of Good Hope. 
Elops purpurascens Richardson, Ichth. China, 311, 1846, China. 
Family XVI. ALBUUDtE. The Lady-fishes. 
Body rather elongate, little compressed, covered with rather small, brilliantly silvery scales; 
head naked. Snout conic, subquadrangular, shaped like the snout of a pig, and overlapping the small, 
inferior, horizontal mouth. Maxillary rather strong, short, with a distinct supplemental bone, slipping 
under the membranaceous edge of the very broad preorbital ; premaxillaries short, not protractile. 
Lateral margin of upper jaw formed by maxillaries; both jaws, vomer, and palatines with bands of 
villiform teeth ; broad patches of coarse, blunt, paved teeth on the tongue behind and on the sphenoid 
and pterygoid bones. Eye large, median in head, with a bony ridge above it, and almost covered 
with an annular adipose eyelid. Opercle moderate, firm ; preopercle with a broad, flat, membranaceous 
edge, which extends backward over the base of opercle. Pseudobranchise present. Gillrakers short, 
tubercle-like. Gill-membranes entirely separate, free from isthmus- branch iostegals about 14 ; a fold 
f. C. B. 1900—6 
