108 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ACADEMY OF This species is very nearly allied to the "West Indian Labrosomus p e c t i n i-fer and L. capillatus Sw., hut differs from them in color and some minor details of form. The median tooth of the front of the vomer, which is so large in the Labrosomus pectinifer, is of the same size as the others in the Labrosomus x a n t i. Old and young specimens were obtained by Mr. J. Xantus under rocks on Cerro Blanco. They are numbered 2334, 2335 and 2478 in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. I have dedicated this species to Mr. Xantus as a slight testimony to his worth and abilities : while engaged in his duties on the coast survey, and with many obstacles to contend against, on account of the present condition of af-fairs in Mexico, he has obtained a collection of terrestrial and marine animals, which is rich in new forms, and all the species of which are in the highest state of preservation. 5. Labrosomus Herminieri Gill. Synonymy. Blennins Herminieri Leseur, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pa., vol. iv. p. 361; 1825. Clinus Herminieri Val., Hist. Nat. des Poissons, vol. xi. p. This species appears to be nearly related to the other species of the genus, but is distinguished by the presence of only sixteen spines in the dorsal fin, and by a different pattern of coloration. The dorsal fin anteriorly has an elongate black spot. "The cheeks and head are rufous brown, vermicular with little blackish lines, which form an irregular kind of close net work." The radial formula is as follows : D 16, 11 ; A 20 ; P 16 ; V 3 ; C 14. Specimens were taken at the West Indian Island of St. Bartholomews, in cavities of madreporic rocks, in the month of June, 1816, by C. A. Lesueur. It has not since been re-discovered. Monograph of the Genus LABRAX, of Cuvier. BY THEO. GILL. There is found, in the Mediterranean sea, a fish which has, from the earliest times, attracted the attention of the inhabitants of the neighboring coasts from the abundance in which it is found and the size to which it attains. By the Ancients, as at the present day, it was much esteemed as an article of food, and was called by the Greeks A*/?/>*| and by the Romans, Lupus. Of this fish. Cuvier has said that its appearance and almost all the details of its form recall to mind the perch, and that a just idea would be given of it by describing it as a " large, elongated and silvery perch." From the Perches, however, it differs in several characters, which induced Cuvier to separate it generically, and for the name of the genus, he adopted the Greek designation of the species. The characters by which Cuvier distinguished it from the Perches were the presence of teeth on the tongue and of two spines to the operculum. It differs also from the true Perches in the armature of some of its bones, and by the shorter spinous dorsal fin, whose rays, in the European and allied American species, do not exceed the number of nine. Though Cuvier was the first to properly distinguish the genus, its type bad been long previously placed by Klein as the first of two species which he placed in a group, for which he used the same name of Labrax. In the second and third volumes of the great " Histoire Naturelle des Poissons," Cuvier and Valenciennes have referred to the genus Labrax seven species, six of which are described in the former volume. Of these, the Labrax 1 u p u s is the type of the genus, and is distinguished by [April,
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