OCR Text |
Show 252 DK. J. MURIE ON T H E [Mar. 26, In No. I, which I shall further describe in detail, the greatest depth of the body is perpendicular to the front of the dorsal fin ; it is somewhat less than a fourth of the length of the body (not including the head and tail). The snout is rather blunt and of about equal diameter with the eye. This last occupies one-fourth of the distance between the tip of the snout and the posterior edge of the operculum. A vertical line dropped from the middle of the eye would meet the hinder margin of the maxillary bone; the eye is 0*4 inch in diameter. The angular bend of the hinder margin of the operculum and suboperculum is gently rounded; the praeoperculum is still less angular in fact. The interorbital space is slightly convex transversely and antero-posteriorly; it is as broad as the diameter of the eve. The occiput is rather prominent, and between it and the interorbital region laterally there is a slight depression. There is complete dentition. The vomerine teeth incline to the right and left sides, and are also slightly alternate in position, although apparently only one series. The palatine teeth are more linear in their arrangement, and do not on either side extend so far back as the vomerine. The dorsal fin has fourteen rays, the anterior two being shorter than the third. The posterior margin of the dorsal fin is nearer the adipose fin than its anterior edge is to the occiput. The adipose fin is dark-coloured, and not red as in the Trout. It is 0*8 of an inch apart from the first caudal ray. The caudal fin is posteriorly incised; the lower fork appears a little larger than the upper. Tail-rays thirty-six in number, the upper and lower or anterior ones being very short. The anal fin possesses twelve rays ; its length is greater than its basal attachment; the third, fourth, and fifth rays are the longest. During life the lower corner of this fin is more rounded than our illustration depicts. Each ventral fin is about the same length as the anal (to its furthermost point) ; but the ventral is considerably shorter than the pectoral. Its attached root is rather in advance of a vertical line from the posterior end of the base of the dorsal fin ; its rays number nine. The pectorals are attached to the thoracic walls immediately beneath the opercular angle ; they have thirteen rays apiece. With respect to the number of scales, taken in linear series longitudinally and transversely to the axis of the body, to which some ichthyologists attach considerable value as a specific test among the Salmonoids, I regret that circumstances prevented me from counting them with such rigid accuracy as could have been desired. Eager to get as correct a sketch of the natural colours as possible, 1 left over their numeration until the artist had finished, and found that in consequence the body had got somewhat rubbed. It is merely an approximation to the truth, theu, when I state there are 120 or 122 scales along, but above, the median lateral line. An oblique series from the lateral line up to the dorsal fin numbered nineteen. No measurements of No. 2 have yet been taken; the subjoined are those of the male, No. 1. The better to compare this fish with well-authenticated specimens of young Salmon and of hybrids of |