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.
The jaws, the uneven lobate disk of the preoperculum and the branchiostegous membrane are naked, the rest of them being scaly. The scales of the cheek are disposed in six concentric curves, the same arrangement extending to the gill-cover, but less conspicuously. A small flat spinous point projects beyond the scales of the operculum, which has a very narrow membranous edging. The scales are ciliated. The caudal is slightly notched at the end, its basal half is scaly, as is also the base of the pectorals; the rest of the fins are scaleless. The dorsal is nearly even, its height being, however, rather greatest at the fourth or fifth spine. Its end is rounded.
A dark stripe, commencing at the top of the snout, runs through the eye straight to the tail, and a fainter one occupies the summit of the back to the end of the dorsal. The curve of the lateral line rises above the lower stripe anteriorly, but coincides with it beyond the posterior end of the dorsal. The rest of the fish is silvery, and the fins are not marked. These colours are described from a specimen preserved in spirits. Length, 5 inches.
HABITAT. King George's Sound. (Bynoe).
Chelmon marginalis. RICHARDSON.
Chelmon marginalis, Richardson, Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. 10, page 28, September 1842.
RADII. D.9 : 31; A. 3-2l; C. 17 3/3; P. 16; V. 1 : 5.
FISHES. PLATE 4.