A REVIEW OF THE FISHES OF THE FA^IILIES LOBOTID^ AND LUTIANID^, FOUND IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN. By David Starr Jordan and William Fraxcis Thompson, Of Stanford University, California. In the present paper an account is given of the Japanese species of percoid fishes constituting the family of LobotidaB, or triple-tails, and the family of Lutianidse, or snappers. It is based on material obtained in Japan in 1900, by Professors Jordan and Snyder, and now divided between the United States National Museum and the Museum of Stanford University. The drawings for figures 2, 3, and 4 were made by Mr. Sekko Shimada. Family EOBOTIDiE. The TRIPLE-TAILS. Bass-hke fishes, with an oblong, compressed body, equally developed above and below; a short snout and anterior eyes; edentulous palate; dorsal and anal with the soft portions equal and opposite, the former preceded by a much longer spinous portion, the latter with 3 spines; vertebrse 24, 12 abdominal and 12 caudal, the fifth to eleventh with short but gradually lengthening parapophyses projecting sideways and behind downward, and the twelfth with the parapophyses elongated, converging at their extremities, and fitting into a groove of the first haemal spine, the costiferous pits excavated obliquely in the developed parapophyses, and gradually ascending forward on the vertebrse, and finally on the ncurapophyses ; the skull with its frontal portion broad, expanded forward and outward, and entering into the posterior borders of the orbits, which are advanced far forward; the post-frontals elongated forward and underlying the frontals; ethmoid short, decurved, and expanded sideways (Gillj. This family con-tains but two species, large fishes closely allied to the Serranidai, but lacking vomerine and palatine teeth, and with the fore part of the head very short. Its relations are decidedly with the Serranida? and not with the Hiemulidaj with which group it agrees in the absence of teeth on the palate. Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 39— No. 1792. 435
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