COMMON SEA BREAM 
BREAN. 
Sparus aurafa, 
SpciTe Marseilloist 
Pagellus centroduntus, 
Donovan; pi. 89. 
Eisso. 
OoviER. GuNTiliiR’s Catalogue Br. 
Sparus centrodontus. 
Museum, vol. i., p. 476. 
Yaiuiell’s Br. Fislies, vol. i., p. 123. 
Jentks; Manual, p. 356. 
In regard, to tins "wliicli 'witli us is the most ahiindant 
of its family, an extraordinary amount of confusion has existed; 
which has been produced by mistaking it for some species that 
had been described in a general way by foreign writers, but 
which are of rare occurrence in Britain; so that our native 
writers had not possessed the opportunity of actually comparing 
the one with the other. Willoughby and his hiend John Bay 
ajpear to have led the way in this mistake; and being without 
a*fi<rure, and more intent on observing the fishes of the Medi- 
terrtnean than those of Britain, they appear to have satisfied 
themselves with the belief that this species, which they certainly 
must have been acquainted with, was the same with the Gdt- 
head, or Sparus aurata; which latter again they were scarcely 
able to distinguish from the Pagrus; and accordingly Willoughby 
calls his Pagrus by the English name a Sea Bream; which 
Ray, in his “Synopsis Piscium,” more definitely designates the 
Sea Bream; although the presence of the black spot on the 
side of the one and its absence from the others, should have 
been sufficient to have assured him of the difference between 
them. 
It does not appear that Linnseus was acquainted with the 
present species; and Pennant, to a characteristic likeness of the 
