Part 57

Or at least as represented in the figure in the Histoire des Poissons, tom. iii. pl. 56.

Footnote 7:

As described by Cuvier and Valenciennes to be the case in the P. Brasilianus.

Footnote 8:

Cuvier in his description, says, of the seventh ray, “fort petit,” but it is very obvious in this specimen, and scarcely smaller than the sixth, as above stated.

Footnote 9:

Probably these teeth are liable to be lost or broken off, so as seldom to occur in exactly the same number and mode of arrangement in two individuals.

Footnote 10:

As stated by Cuvier and Valenciennes.

Footnote 11:

In the A. cataphractus, the body is hexagonal from the gills to a little beyond the vent; octagonal from this last point to the termination of the dorsal and anal fins; then hexagonal again to the end of the tail.

Footnote 12:

Faun. Bor. Amer. Part Third, p. 49.

Footnote 13:

Is it not possible that this may be found to be also the case with several of the foreign species described by Cuvier, in which the absence of these teeth has been rather presumed than ascertained from actual examination?

Footnote 14:

Cuvier seems to have attached much value to the character of teeth on the palate; but I agree with Dr. Richardson, (Faun. Bor. Am. Part iii. p. 19.) in considering it “of little importance as a generic character in some families of fish.” And the author last mentioned notices an instance (exactly analogous to that of the Aspidophorus Chiloensis) in the Thymallus signifer, which, he says, “resembles the common grayling very closely in its general form, but differs from it in having palatine teeth.”

Footnote 15:

In its general characters it does not depart from the A. cataphractus of the British seas, anything like so much as the A. quadricornis, and A. monopterygius do.

Footnote 16:

Judging from the figure in the “Voyage de l’Astrolobe (Zoologie),” pl. 10. f. 4.

Footnote 17:

Called by mistake in the plate “magnified scales.”

Footnote 18:

This portion of the fin is not quite correctly represented in the plate, being made too low, in consequence of the rays having been broken at their extremities in the specimen figured.

Footnote 19:

Since the above was printed, Mr. Waterhouse has been kind enough to show me in the museum of the Zoological Society the specimen which he believes to be the one procured by Mr. Cuming. Unless the characters are very much altered by age, it is decidedly distinct from the A. hispidus above described. The general form indeed is the same; but the skin is perfectly smooth, marked with vertical striæ; the granulated ridges on the head are less prominent, and the superciliary ridges without spines. The fin-ray formula is not quite as stated by Mr. Bennett, who appears, in his computation, to have mistaken the last dorsal spine for one of the soft rays of that fin, and also to have over-estimated the number of soft rays in the anal. The formula is really 18/12; A. 1/9, &c. I have no doubt of Mr. Cuming’s fish being the true A. Peruvianus; whilst the one here characterized as new is probably the young of a nearly allied species. Mr. Cuming’s specimen is six and a half inches long.

It may be advantageous to science to mention here, though not immediately connected with the present inquiry, that another species of Agriopus in the museum of the Zoological Society, which was seen by M. Valenciennes during his visit to this country, and referred by him in the “Histoire des Poissons” to the A. verrucosus, proves not to be that species, but the A. spinifer of Dr. Smith, recently described by him for the first time in his “Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.”