301 
MAUEOLTCUS. 
Of the fishes of the family which we have denominated Silver- 
Spots, there is only known in the British catalogue a species 
which is arranged by Dr. Gunther in the genus here specified, and of 
which the character is — the head and body compressed, and covered 
with a silver pigment, without scales; a row of shining spots along 
the side of the head and body, on each side of the loAver border, 
to the tail. Gape wide, opening downward; mystaehe wide and 
long, with teeth on the edge, as also in the jaws; dorsal fin behind 
the middle of the body, but before the line of the anal; tail forked. 
AEGENTINE. 
Shepfiy Argeniine, 
Scojielus Fennantii, 
“ lorcalis, 
MauroUciis horaalis, 
Pennakt. 
Cuvier. 
Nilsson. Tarrell; Br. Pishes, vol. ii, 
p. 164 and 167. 
Dr. W. B. Clarke ; Charlesworth’s Mag. 
Nat. Hist., vol. ii, p. 22. 
Gunther; Oat. Br. Museum, vol. v, p. 389. 
There appears to be some ground for the doubt whether 
all the examples, now become numerous, which have been 
found on the British coasts are of one species, or even of 
one genus, as they are now arranged; and this doubt becomes 
the more warranted when we find that no less than eight of 
these fishes, not very much unlike each other in size and 
shape, are said to be natives of the Mediterranean and the 
neighbouring ocean, or in the north, any one of which might 
be mistaken for another by a casual observer; and so much 
the rather since the move distinctive characters are liable to 
be mutilated or overlooked. Pennant’s fii’st account describes 
this fish by copying from Willoughby what the latter had 
wi’itten of a different species; and it is so much the more 
worthless as both these writers were mistaken in what they 
