632 ON A NEW GENUS AND SPECIES OF LABROID FISH, 



EUPETRICHTHYS ANGUSTIPES, Sp. nOV. 



B. VI. D. 9/12. A. 3/11. V. 1/5. P. 12. C. 14. L 1. 25. 



L. tr. 2/9. 



The length of the head is contained five times in the total lengrth : 

 the greatest height of the body, which is behind the origin of the 

 anal fin, five and a-half times : the height of the head at the nape 

 is five-sevenths of its length ; the greatest breadth one-half of the 

 same. The eye is situated almost entirely above the middle of the 

 side of the head, but does not encroach upon its upper profile ; it 

 is of small size, its diameter being contained four and three-fifths 

 times in the length of the head ; the snout is moderately obtuse and 

 is one-seventh longer than the diameter of the eye ; the interorbital 

 space is four-fifths of the same, and is convex, as also is the upper 

 profile of the head. The jaws are of equal length, and the lips of 

 moderate thickness; the cleft of the mouth, which is almost 

 horizontal, is small, the posterior extremity of the maxillary barely 

 reaching to the eye. The preopercular bones are entire. Teeth. — 

 A pair of strong anterior canines in each jaw, those of the lower 

 being sub-horizontal and received between those of the upper ; on 

 each ramus of the mandible there are ten, and of the maxilla nine 

 conical teeth, the anterior one being the strongest, and the others 

 decreasing in size by regular gradations ; there are no perceptible 

 teeth behind these ; posterior canine present.* Fins — the dorsal 

 fin commences slightly in front of the lobe of the opercle ; its 

 spines are weak, and considerably lower than the rays, the last of 

 which is nearly double the length of the last and longest spine, 

 which is itself two-fifths of the length of the head. The anal 

 fin commences beneath the anterior dorsal ray ; its spines are 

 rather stronger but not so long as those of the dorsal, and the third 

 and longest is only three-sevenths of the posterior ray, which 

 exceeds in length the corresponding ray of the dorsal fin ; the last 

 ray in both these fins is divided to the very base. The ventral fin 



* In our specimen there are two posterior canmes on one side, and only 

 one, as is usual, on the other, but, as the same discrepancy not unfre- 

 quently occurs in the allied genus Labrichthys, no stress need be laid upon 

 its occurrence in this case. 



