ray’s bream. 
131 
inches in length, which is three inches shorter than the one 
described by Ray; the depth eight inches and a half before 
the dorsal fin, where that naturalist’s measurement was ten 
inehes; the shape much compressed. Head small, sloping in 
front; the snout short; angle of the mouth depressed, under 
jaw longest; teeth slender, numerous, sharp, incurved, the inner 
row of the lower jaw longest; tongue fleshy. Eye large, 
round, not far from the angle of the mouth; the iris dark, 
pupil light. Nostrils single. Measuring along the curve, the 
dorsal fin begins seven inches and a half from the snout, 
having the shorter rays Hire blunt spines, each longer than 
the former; the fourth ray longest; the fin then becomes nar- 
rower, and continues slender to within an inch of the tail. 
Anal fin shaped like the dorsal. Pectoral six inches long, 
rather narrow, its direction obliquely upward. Ventrals trian- 
gular, with a wing three fourths of their length. Tail deeply 
forked. Lateral line nearer the back, obscure. The head, 
body, and fins, exeept the pectorals and ventrals, and even the 
mystache, covered with firmly-fixed scales, which are absent in 
a band across the forehead, the colour of which, and also of 
the back, is a very dark blue; copper-coloured brown over 
and before the eye; somewhat silvery on the sides and below. 
The dorsal and anal fins, and a stripe along the root of the 
former, are a sparkling silvery white, tinted with green before 
the dorsal fin; coppery and lake along the upper part of the 
sides. The rays of the dorsal fin number thirty-four, anal 
thirty, pectoral eighteen, ventral five, caudal twenty-four. The 
liveliness of the colours will be accounted for by remembering 
that this example was fresh from the water. In another 
example the tints were wanting. 
From Nilsson’s “Skandenavisk Fauna” I learn that, among 
examples of this genus taken in the Northern Ocean, not far 
from the coast of Norway, was a specimen which was believed 
to offer considerable differences from the others, of a character, 
in the opinion of the naturalist Fries, to vindicate him in 
forming for it a separate genus, to which he appropriated the 
name of Pterycombus (Brama.J The example was mutilated 
and dry when it came into the hands of its describer; but the 
distinguishing characters, as noted by him, are, — a difference from 
the other species in the number of the rays of the fins, and in 
