There is a short fringed superciliary cirrhus, and some slender filaments from other parts of the head, as shown in the figure, also lax skinny tips on the inferior points of the preorbitar and preoperculum, but the condition of the specimen does not admit of other cirrhi being properly made out if such actually existed.  In the axilla of the pectoral there are four or five pale round spots.  The figure, which is of the natural size, represents the markings which remain after long maceration in weak spirit.  If there be a black mark in the first dorsal, as in the militaris, it is effaced in our specimen.  Length, 2.4 inches.

HABITAT.  The coasts of Australia.

...

Smaris porosus.  RICHARDSON.

CH.  SPEC.  Smaris rostro porosissimo; fascia obscura e rostro per oculum recte ad caudam tracta; fascia altera in summo dorso.

RADII.  B. 6; D. 10 :  9; A. 3 :  7; C. 15 5/5; V. 1 :  5.

FISHES.  PLATE 3.

This Smaris has fewer dorsal rays than any species described in the Histoire des Poissons, and a shorter body than the Mediterranean vulgaris.  Its shape is fusiform, the greatest height, which is at the ventrals, and which exceeds twice the thickness, being contained exactly four times in the total length, caudal included.  The thickness at the gill cover is greater than that of the body, which lessens very gradually to the end of the tail.  The snout is transversely obtuse, but is rather acute in profile.  A cross section of the body at the ventrals is ovate, approaching to an oval, the obtuse end being upwards.  In profile the curve of the belly is rather greater than that of the back, and the face slopes downwards to the mouth, nearly in a straight line.

The head forms rather less than a quarter of the whole length.  The eye is large, and approaches near the profile without trenching on it.  The mouth is scarcely cleft so far back as the nostrils.  The intermaxillaries are moderately protractile, and curve a little downwards.

The teeth are disposed on the jaws in rather broad villiform bands, the individual teeth being setaceous and erect.  They become a little taller nearer the outside, and the outer terminal cross row, composed of three on each side of the symphysis, may be termed small canines.  On the lower jaw the villiform teeth in front are more uniformly small, and there is an acute row of subulate teeth, which are tallest in the middle of the limbs of the jaw, beyond which, towards the corners of the mouth, there is an even row of very small teeth.  At the end of the jaw there is a small canine on each side exterior to all the others.

The fore edge of the preorbitar is slightly curved in form of the italic f, the lower corner curving forward abruptly, so as to produce a notch, which is filled up by the extremity of the retracted maxillary.  The whole end of the snout, back to the eyes, including the disk of the preorbitar, is minutely porous, and a row of large pores borders the upper half of the orbit.