31 



Preorbital with two divergent spines on its edge : preoperculum with a 

 laro-e and a short spine at its angle and some dentations along its lower edge : 

 operculum with two weak stays hardly projecting as spines. Preopercular stay 

 crenate. Top of head eroded : two eroded and crenate ridges on occiput, one or 

 either postorbital region : upper margin of orbit eroded and crenate. 



Snout about as long as the eye, or rather more than a fourth the length of 

 the head : interorbital space hardly narrower than the eye, traversed by ridges. 



Mouth-cleft oblique, the maxilla reaches almost to the anterior margin of 

 the pupil. A barbel about the middle of the limb of the lower jaw. Villiform 

 teeth in the jaws and palatines. 



Gill-opening wide : the posterior gill-cleft is a small foramen. Gill-rakers 

 short, somewhat club-shaped. 



Integument comparatively thin, without scales : it invests all the fins. The 

 lateral line shows as 17 to 18 tubular papillae. 



All the fin-rays are simple. Dorsal fins continuous, the soft portion being 

 the higher : all the spines are weak and flexible, the 1st being very small and 

 the 2nd and 3rd somewhat isolated. Anal spines hidden, the 1st being visible 

 only on reflecting the skin. Pectoral as long as the head : its free filament 

 reaches to the 3rd anal ray. Ventral two-thirds or more as long as pectoral. 



Colours in fife : — rosy red with white and gray mottlings and minute black 

 dots ; throat and barbels white ; pectoral, ventral, aud anal fins edged with 

 black, the posterior surface of the pectoral with small light spots. 



Two large pyloric caaca : a small air-bladder. 



Largest specimen about 4^ inches long. 



Off Coromandel coast, 133, 70, and 60 fathoms. Off Malabar coast, 68-148 

 and 45 fathoms. 



Regd. Nos. 12444, 12445 : 13219 : 13220-13223 : 13511-13514 : ~Jp. 



This fish, -wherever found — and it has been taken at five widely-distant stations on both coasts of the penin- 

 sula i s always more or less encrusted with the gymnoblastic Hydroid Stylactis minoi. 



In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for September 1S92 I have given reasons for concluding that 

 the relation between the Fish and the Hydroid is a definite commensalism, and not accidental or parasitic. Since 

 that paper was published Minous inermis has twice been taken by the " Investigator," — once off the Madras coast 

 and once off the Konkan coast — and on both occasions Stylactis minoi was found on all the specimens captured. 



For the description and figure of Stylactis minoi see Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Sept. 1892, pp. 212, 213. 



Family Beryciclce. 



When Day's latest volumes on the Fishes of India were published, in the 

 Fauna of British India series, only two Indian genera of this family were 

 known ; I therefore give a synopsis of the genera now known to inhabit these 



seas. 



