258 GOBIAD.E. 



semi-transparent, unequal in length in the front, almost every 

 other one having had a small piece apparently broken off; 

 the teeth on the sides of the mouth more uniform. The 

 gill-cover ends in two angular points directed backwards, the 

 edge of the membrane being continued under the throat to 

 the gill-cover on the other side. 



The body is compressed, and deepest on the line of the 

 middle of the pectoral fins, from whence it tapers gradually 

 to the end of the fleshy portion of the tail. The lateral line 

 proceeds straight from the centre of the tail as far as the line 

 of the commencement of the anal fin, and then arches high 

 over the pectorals. 



The nape of the neck rises high, upon which the dorsal 

 fin commences on a line with the preoperculum. The first 

 ray is shorter than the second, the next ten nearly equal 

 in length, and about half the height of the body ; the thir- 

 teenth ray shorter, and the fourteenth nearly one-fourth 

 longer than the thirteenth, forming the interruption to the 

 line of the dorsal fin ; the remaining rays are nearer together 

 than those that precede them, each portion of the fin occu- 

 pying about the same space, with thirteen stiff rays in the 

 first portion, and twenty flexible rays in the second ; the 

 membrane beyond the last ray extending to the base of the 

 upper caudal fin-ray. 



The pectoral fins are broad and rounded, the central rays 

 the longest, and equal to the length of the head. The ven- 

 tral fins slender, of two rays each only, about three-fourths 

 of the length of the longest of the pectoral fin-rays. The 

 anal fin is half as long as the head and body of the fish ; it 

 commences on a line rather before the depression in the 

 dorsal fin, and immediately behind the vent : the rays of this 

 fin project beyond the edge of the membrane connecting 

 them, the last ray joined by a membrane to the body of the 

 fish, but does not quite reach the tail fin. . The tail itself is 



