66 



Mouth-cleft rather narrow, horizontal. Villiform teeth in jaws vomer and 

 palatines. 



No dorsal fin whatever (except the rostral tentacle) : anal fin very short. 



Two gills (on the 2nd and 3rd branchial arches). No pseudobranchias. 



No air-bladder : no pyloric appendages. 



45. Halicmetus ruber, Alcock. 



Htilicmetns ruber, Alcock, Ann. Slag. Nat. Hist., Jul^ 1891, p. 27, pi. viii. figs. 1, la-b. Illustrations of the 

 Zoology of the Investigator, Fishes, pl. XIX. fig. 5. (" Halieuteea coccinea," Goode and Bean, Oceanic Ichthyo- 

 logy, fig. 410.) 



B. 6. D. 0. A. 3-4. C. 9. P. 11. V. 1.5. 



Disk not quite as long as the tail (caudal included), its cranial part little 

 elevated. 



The truncated snout is occupied by a bony rugose orbital bridge, beneath 

 which is a cavity lodging a fleshy tentacle which ends in three lobes, the middle 

 (superior) lobe being crested by a pair of papillae or small bifid filament. The 

 eyes are about one-seventh the length of the disk and are about half a diameter 

 apart anteriorly. 



The nostrils are minute papilla? situated on each side of the rostral tentacle, 

 almost within the subrostral cavity. 



Mouth horizontal, with the lower jaw slightly projecting ; its cleft is a little 

 wider than the eye. Villiform teeth in bands in the jaws vomer and on the 

 anterior ends of the palatines. 



Gill-cleft a small foramen, less than half an eye-diameter in width, situated 

 superiorly in the axilla. The sub-operculum ends in a stout multifid spine. 



Surface of the body uniformly invested with minute close-set graniform 

 spines, which also cover the eyes up to the corneal margin. The edge of the 

 cephalic disk bears in addition large finely granular multifid spines in three 

 longitudinal series, and the tail is clad with large granular conical tubercles — 

 of which there are five longitudinal series on each side — in close contact. 

 There are also some smaller tubercles scattered on the dorsal surface of the 

 disk. 



Fins in form and position as in Halieufsea, Malthopsis, &c, but the soft dorsal, 

 as well as the spinous, is entirely wanting, and the anal is almost rudimentary. 

 The pectorals, which are abont a third longer than the ventrals and a little 

 longer than the caudal, are nearly one- fifth the total length. 



Colours in life, uniform light pink. 



Five abdominal and thirteen caudal vertebra?. 



The largest specimen, a gravid female, is nearly 3- inches long. 



