Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/72

58 more or less deep in the outline. They have for the most part a larger acute tooth on each side of the mouth, resembling the canines of. Their colours are generally beautiful, and frequently arranged in bands and spots, extending upon the fin-membranes. They are all marine, and nearly all tropical, but some are found in the Mediterranean, and two species have been met with on the coast of Cornwall.

The third Sub-family, named Holocentrina, or the Mailed Perches, are still more beautiful than the preceding. They are usually of small size, but of great brilliancy of colouring, the prevailing hues being various shades of red, ranging from the richest crimson to a gorgeous orange or golden hue. They are all clothed with bony, generally toothed, scales, which in some of the genera form a close impenetrable coat of mail. Not a single British example of this group is known, they being almost confined to the tropical seas.

In the Jugular Perches (Percophina) the ventrals are placed beneath the throat, considerably in advance of the line of the pectorals. The head is pointed, and the lips generally thickened, as in the Wrasses (Labridæ); the body is remarkably lengthened. To this group belong some common British Fishes known as Weevers (Trachinus, .), remarkable for the enormous length of the second dorsal and the anal, and for the formidable spines with which they are armed. These spines are the rays of the first dorsal, which are very sharp and strong, and a long lance-like spine on the gill-flap; wounds inflicted with which are believed to be poisoned. Whether