212 
TEAYELS IN OENTEAL AFEICA. 
which^ liowever_, it may be readily distinguished by the number of 
the fin-rays^ and by several other minor characters. The height of 
the body is contained five times and a third in the total lengthy the 
length of the head five times. The snout is broad and depressed,, 
much longer than the eye ; the interorbital space slightly convex, 
its width being two-fifths of the length of the head. The upper lip 
has a series of minute cilise. The angle at the symphysis of the 
mandibles is obtuse^ and the cleft of the mouth is twice and a half 
as broad as it is deep. The prseorbital has no longitudinal ridge^ 
a shallow anterior notch^ the extremity rounded and the margins 
serrated. Eyes with the adipose membrane rudimentary^ just 
touching the iris. Nostrils close together : they are less distant 
from each other than the posterior is from the eye. The space at 
the chilly between the mandibles and the interopercula, is rather 
broad^ elongate;, cuneiform. There are thirty scales between the 
snout and the spinous dorsal. The length of the anterior dorsal 
spine is somewhat more than one-half of the length of the head. 
The origin of the spinous dorsal is half-way between the snout and 
the root of the caudal. The twelfth;, the fifteenth,, and the twenty- 
seventh scales of the lateral line correspond to the extremity of the 
pectoral and to the origins of the two dorsal fins. The soft dorsal 
and anal are scaly at the base^ and the former commences in the 
vertical from the fourth soft ray of the anal fin. The caudal fin 
is deeply forked,, the length of one of its lobes being somewhat less 
than one-fifth of the total. The root of the pectoral is on the 
middle of the depth of the body ; its length equals the distance of 
its base from the eye; it has a pointed scale in its axil;, but it is 
