51 



Cleft of mouth oblique, extremely wide, the maxilla which is a very slender 

 bone, reaches almost to the angle of the preoperculum. Depressible hinged 

 fangs in two rows — those of the inner row being much the larger — in both jaws : 

 a row of distant, fixed, recurved teeth in each palatine. The front tooth on each 

 side of both jaws is also fixed. Tongue free, thin, almost spathulate. 



Gill-openings wide ; gill-covers thin and flexible, the preoperculum with a 

 very oblique edge, a small, stout, obliquely decurrent spine at its angle, and a 

 thick muscular covering ; gill- membranes attached only quite anteriorly ; four 

 gills, the last gill-cleft a small foramen, branchial arches extremely weak and 

 flexible ; no gill-rakers ; pseudobranckias well developed. 



Skin entirely scaleless, thin, covered with a uniformly thick adherent layer 

 of mucus ; a single lateral line of pores, which follows the dorsal profile from 

 occiput to base of caudal. 



Two dorsal fins, separated by an interval equal to two-thirds the length of 

 the snout : the first, which begins slightly in advance of the vertical through 

 the base of the pectoral, consists of ten slender but well-ossified spines, of which 

 the longest (third) is barely as long as the snout and eye combined ; the second 

 contains twenty-nine slender articulated rays, branched at the tip and decreasing 

 regularly in length from before backwards, the longest (second) being about 

 half the length of the head. Anal equal, opposite and similar to the second 

 dorsal. Caudal symmetrically forked. Pectorals slender, as long as the post- 

 orbital portion of the head, all the rays branched. Ventrals thoracic, equal in 

 length to the eye and snout combined. 



The abdomen is a great elastic sac, which extends behind the normally 

 situated vent into the tail ; it contains a vast collapsed stomach, but no pyloric 

 caaca. There is an air-bladder similar to that of Ghampsodon. 



There are 14 abdominal and 24 caudal vertebras. 



Colours in life : blotchy violet-black to black. 



In the Indian Museum is a single specimen, just over six inches long, from 

 the Bay of Bengal, off the Godavari coast, 920 to 690 fathoms. 



Regd. No. 12836. 



Distribution : West Indies, North and Mid Atlantic, Madeira, Bay of Bengal. 

 Dr. Giinther places Chiasmodus among the Gadidse, but I feel pretty sure 

 that its place in the system is close to Ghampsodon. 



Family JPecliculati. 



When the second volume of the Fishes, in the Fauna of British India, was 

 published in 1889, only two genera of Pediculates were known to occur in 

 Indian Seas, namely, Antennarius and Ealieutsea. 



