A REVIEW OF THE SERRANID^ OR SEA BASS OF JAPAN. By David Starr Jordan and Robert Eari. Richardson, OJ Stanford University, California. In this paper is given an account of the species of Serranidse, the sea bass and related forms, found in the waters of Japan. The material examined was obtained in Japan by Messrs. Jordan and Snyder in 1900, and belongs to Stanford University and to the U. S. National Museum. The drawings, with one exception, were made by Mr. William S. Atkinson. Family SERRANIDyE. THE SEA BASS. Body oblong, more or less compressed, covered with adherent scales of moderate or small size, which are usually ctenoid ; dorsal and ventral outlines not perfectly corresponding. Mouth moderate or large, not very oblique, the premaxillary protractile and the broad maxillary usually not slipping for its whole length into a sheath formed by the preorbital, which is usually narrow. Supplemental maxillary present or absent. Teeth all conical or pointed, in bands, present on jaws, vomer, and palatines. Gill rakers long or short, usually stiff, armed with teeth. Gills 4, a long slit behind the fourth. Pseudobranchise present, large. Lower pharjmgeals rather narrow, with pointed teeth, separate (united in Centrogenys) . Gill membranes separate, free from the isthmus. Branchiostegals normally 7 (occasionally 6). Cheeks and opercles always scaly; preopercle with its margin more less serrate, rarely entire; the opercles usually ending in one or two flat spine-hke points. Nostrils double; Lateral line single, not extending on the caudal fin. Skull without cranial spines and usu-ally without well-developed cavernous structure. No suborbital sta}-. Post-temporal normal. Second suborbital with an internal lamina supporting the globe of the eye; entopterygoid present; all or most of the ribs inserted on the transverse processes when these are devel-oped; anterior vertebrae without transverse processes. Dorsal spines usually stiff, 2 to 15 in number; soft dorsal with 10 to 30 rays; anal fin rather short, its soft rays 7 to 12, its spines, if present, always 3, in certain genera (Grammistinse, Ryjyticinse) altogether Proceedings U.S. National Museum, Vol. 37— No. 1714. 421
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