Twenty-three species, distributed like Platyglossus; two reach the south coast of England, Coris julis and C. giofredi, said to be male and female of the same species. Some belong to the most gorgeously coloured kinds of the whole class of fishes.
Genera allied to the preceding Labroids are—Choerops, Xiphochilus, Semicossyphus, Trochocopus, Decodon, Pteragogus, Clepticus, Labrichthys, Labroides, Duymæria, Cirrhilabrus, Doratonotus, Pseudochilinus, Hemigymnus, Gomphosus, Cheilio, and Cymolutes.
Pseudodax.—Scales of moderate size; lateral line continuous; cheeks and opercles scaly. Each jaw armed with two pairs of broad incisors, and with a cutting lateral edge; teeth of the lower pharyngeal confluent, pavement-like. Dorsal spines eleven.
One species (P. moluccensis) from the East Indian Archipelago.
Scarus.—Jaws forming a sharp beak, the teeth being soldered together. The lower jaw projecting beyond the upper. A single series of scales on the cheek; dorsal spines stiff, pungent; the upper lip double in its whole circuit. The dentigerous plate of the lower pharyngeal is broader than long.
The fishes of this genus, and the three succeeding, are known by the name of “Parrot-wrasses.” Of Scarus one species (S. cretensis) occurs in the Mediterranean, and nine others in the tropical Atlantic. The first was held in high repute by the ancients, and Aristotle has several passages respecting its rumination. It was most plentiful and of the best quality in the Carpathian Sea, between Crete and Asia Minor, but was not unknown even in early times on the Italian coasts, though Columella says that it seldom passed beyond Sicily in his day. But in the reign of Claudius, according to Pliny, Optatus Elipentius brought it from the Troad, and introduced it into the sea between Ostium and Campagna. For five years all that were caught in the nets were thrown into the sea again, and from that time it was an abundant fish in that locality. In the time of Pliny it was considered to be the first of fishes (Nunc Scaro datur principatus); and the expense incurred by Elipentius was justified, in the opinion of the Roman gourmands, by the extreme delicacy of the fish. It was a fish, said the poets, whose very excrements the gods themselves were unwilling to reject. Its flesh was tender, agreeable, sweet, easy of digestion, and quickly assimilated; yet if it happened to have eaten an Aplysia, it produced violent diarrhœa. In short, there is no fish of which so much has been said by ancient writers. In the present day the Scarus of the Archipelago is considered to be a fish of exquisite flavour; and the Greeks still name it Scaro, and eat it with a sauce made of its liver and intestines. It feeds on fucus; and Valenciennes thinks that the necessity for masticating its vegetable diet thoroughly, and the working of it with that intent backwards and forwards in the mouth, may have given rise to the notion of its being a ruminant; and it is certain that its aliment is very finely divided when it reaches the stomach.
Fig. 242.—Scarichthys auritus.
Scarichthys.—Differing from Scarus only in having flexible dorsal spines.
Two species from the Indo-Pacific.