_Color._—Bluish or greenish-black; sides, paler, sometimes coppery, fins smoky, the dorsal and caudal spotted with black, iris bronzed brown. Beneath whitish in young, all the hues darker in the old fish. Some are also spotted on the body posteriorly. In the winter of 1861-2, I caught several in San Diego Bay, which bit freely at the usual baits. I did not hear any peculiar name applied, but they are confounded with “Perch,” which they little resemble. Also found at San Pedro. A larger one, taken in a net at Santa Barbara Island, in May, 1863, has the different characters supposed to indicate an older fish, and is much fatter; its head is also shorter in proportion, but as I find a similar difference in specimens of _Girella nigricans_ Ayres, as well as in the Labroids before mentioned, I must consider these as sexual differences, or in part depending on age and condition. They do not differ more than some specimens of _Embiotoca jacksoni_ from each other, and agree closely in the number of spines and rays of their fins. ORCYNUS, Cuvier, 1819. ORCYNUS PACIFICUS, Cooper, n. sp., State collection, species 1033. [FIG. 19.] [Illustration: FIG. 19.] _Specific characters._—General profile elliptical, height of body nearly one-quarter its length, breadth about half the height. Head laterally compressed, somewhat flattened on top, the nose horizontally rounded, but laterally pointed. Base of tail vertically compressed, one-third broader than it is high. Head half the length of body, its height behind orbit equal to half its length. Diameter of orbit one-sixth the length of head, its form obliquely oval. Jaws equal, gape of mouth one-third the length of head. Pectoral fin, arising at middle of vertical of side, nearly half the total length, its width at base one-eighth of its length, but suddenly narrowing to one-fifteenth, which width it retains nearly to the end, its outer third curving gradually downward, and becoming pointed. First dorsal commencing directly above pectoral, its length nearly one-fourth of total length, and its height in front two-fifths of its length. Spines rapidly decreasing in length from the first to the eighth, the next six about equal, and a third of the first, the last one very short. Second dorsal immediately behind the first and a little higher, triangular, nearly one-third higher than long, its base lengthened posteriorly, and one-third the length of the first dorsal. Finlets eight above and eight below, acutely triangular, those near the middle a little larger. Caudal large, its lobes equal, their length three times their width, and one-third that of the pectoral; posterior outline arcuately concave, with slightly widened lobes near the middle.