* Stemoptyx diaphana Herni. 

 Cyclothone elongata (Gfchr. ). 

 Cy clot hone microdon (Gthr.). 



Chauliodus Sloanii Bl. Sclm. (Also in the Mediterranean). 



* Nenscopelus macrolepidotus Johns. 

 Platytroctes apus Gthr. 



* Synaplwbranchus pinnatus Gronov. 

 Uroconger vicinus Vaillant. 



? Leptoderma macrops Vaillant. 



The remaining 20 are Indo-Pacific species. 



Very significant, to my mind, is the occurrence in these seas — it also occurs 

 in Japan, where it was originally found — of Bembrops caudimacula (=Hypsicometes 

 gobioides G. & B.). Hardly less significant is the distribution, having regard to 

 its mode of life, of Ghaunax pictus. 



Bembrops caudimacula, which is undoubtedly the young of Bembrops gobioides, 

 appears to be common off the West Indies and neighbouring coasts of North 

 America at depths of 68 to 324 fathoms, and a good number of specimens have 

 been taken in the Andaman Sea at 107 to 194 fathoms. It is a Trachinoid fish 

 with a large flat head and a big shovel mouth, very much the form of Platy- 

 cephalic, and is undoubtedly — like most of the members of its family — a dweller 

 on or near the bottom. A fish that most commonly lives near the 100-fathom 

 limit cannot be truly called bathybial, nor would anyone who has handled 

 Bembrops be likely to decide that it belonged to the nectic fauna; so that some 

 other explanation must be found for its peculiar geographical distribution. And 

 if this explanation will also serve to throw some light on the distribution of, e.g., 

 Lobotes surinamensis, which is so far from being pelagic or nectic that it enters 

 brackish water ; and if it will also enable us to better understand the curious 

 distribution, e.g., of Symbranchus, of the Chromides, and of the Gyprinodontidx, 

 its probability will be enhanced, 



The hypothesis that appears to offer the most satisfactory explanation is, 

 that a very considerable part of the fish-fauna of the Oriental region originated 

 from, and to a certain extent is a remnant of, the fauna of the Tertiary Mediter- 

 ranean of Professor Suess — of a Mediterranean that extended from the present 

 Gulf of Mexico, through the present Mediterranean basin, far into the Eastern 

 Hemisphere, 



In the Account of the Deep Sea Madreporaria collected by the Investigator, 

 pp. 5-^10, I have discussed some evidence in favour of this hypothesis that is 

 afforded by certain other elements of the marine fauna; and in the Account of 

 the Veep Sea Brady ur u collected by the Investigator, pp. 2, 3, 82, 85, I have added 

 m,i,]o further confirmatory evidence, derived from the present distribution of 



* Species marked with an asterisk have been compared with actual »pociincns. 



