GREATER WEEVER. 
47 
The general form is long, narrow, and compressed, the 
example described measuring ten inches and three fourths in 
length, with a breadth (where widest) of one inch and five 
eighths. The head short, compressed, flat between the eyes, 
and rough on the summit; eyes on the fore part, high, with 
some short spines above them; nostrils single, near the eye, 
with a firm margin, terminated above and below by a small 
spine, the uppermost directed upward, the lower near the 
mouth, and inclining downward. Angle of the mouth depressed, 
under jaw projecting, numerous teeth in both jaws; tongue 
large. The hindmost gill-cover lengthened posteriorly, and 
furnished with a long and sharp spine, which is directed 
backward. The lateral line rises a little at first, passes along 
nearer the back, and sinks suddenly near the tail: two plates 
with rough edges at its origin. The belly short, the vent 
being less than five inches from the front. Scales on the 
gill-covers and body. Dorsal fins seated in a furrow; first 
dorsal short, beginning rather before the root of the pectoral, 
the second beginning close to the first, and reaching within 
a short distance of the tail. Pectorals low, wide, near the 
vcntrals; the last-named fins close together, under the throat; 
tail a little incurved. Colour yellowish brown on the back, 
light purple below the eye; on the gill-covers yellow, with 
sometimes light blue stripes. The body covered with narrow, 
regular, intermingled brown and yellow lines, which run 
obliquely from the back below, and become lighter before 
they disappear. The fin rays generally extend beyond the 
membrane; the first dorsal black or deep brown, the second 
and the tail sometimes striped or mottled with yellow and 
brown. 
Fin rays— first dorsal six, second dorsal thirty-one, pectoral 
sixteen, ventral five, and caudal thirty-one. A Weever was 
obtained from a trawl, with a remarkable deficiency in the 
second dorsal fin, which failed at about the third posterior 
portion of its length for the space of an inch and a half. 
There was no mark of a fin or its rays at that part, and the 
intermediate bones, which stand between the fin rays and the 
spinous processes of the vertebrsp, were wanting; so that the 
fish in fact possessed three dorsal fins. 
