354 COTTID^E. 



of the total length of the fish, caudal included. The greatest 

 height of the head is fully one-third less than its breadth; 

 that part of the fish may be described therefore as depressed, 

 and when viewed from above, the outline of the entire head is 

 broadly ovate, while the body tapers regularly to the slender 

 tail (fig. 2). 



In profile, though the premaxillaries appear, from their slen- 

 derness and greater protrusion, more acute than is usual in the 

 Cotti, the face from the eyes forward is obtuse : the curve of 

 the dorsal line however is moderate and regular, its summit 

 being under the first dorsal, and the descent to the orbits 

 gentle. 



Armature of the head. Nasal spines acute, conspicuous. 

 The strongest and most peculiar spine arises from the angle of 

 the preoperculum, where that bone is supported by the un- 

 armed, smooth second suborbitar; it tapers and is subulate, 

 and acute at the tip, which does not quite reach the margin of 

 the gill membrane. Two small, acute snags, rise vertically 

 from its upper side, the distal one being the largest of the two. 

 Three short but conspicuous spinous points, standing at equal 

 distances, belong to the lower limb of the preoperculum, two 

 of them, directed downwards, being acute, and the third, which 

 is concave, and forms the proximal apex of the bone, tending 

 forwards ; two conspicuous pores perforate the upper limb of 

 the preoperculum, as represented in figure 2. The operculum 

 differs from that of the Cotti in wanting both rib and spine, 

 its apex being a thin obtuse plate of bone, covered by and 

 edged in the recent fish with membrane. The suboperculum 

 has however, as in many Cotti, a small spine pointing down- 

 wards from its lower angle, and the distal end of the inter- 

 operculum emits a still smaller spine, directed towards the 

 tail, across the subopercular one. I have not noticed this in- 

 teropercular spine in any of the Cotti. The suprascapular is 

 unarmed, though the blunt angle of the bone may be detected 

 on searching, but the coracoid emits a minute spine from its 

 distal edge above the pectoral fin. No orbital ridges exist, 

 their usual site in the Cotti being filled in this fish by the 



