2 y6 PAPERS FROM TORTUGAS LABORATORY vol. xxxiv 



The collection contains 17 specimens, 46 to 90 mm. long. The following pro- 

 portions and enumerations are based on a specimen 64 mm. long: Head 4.0; 

 depth 17.2. Eye in head 7.9; snout 3.75. D. 54; A. 36; P. 13. 



West Indies and Florida. S. F. H. 



Family MICRODESMIDAE 



Microdesmus Giinther, 1864 



A change in the family and generic names, as used by Dr. Longley in his 

 manuscript and by others in various published works, has become necessary be- 

 cause of Earl D. Reid's "Revision of the fishes of the family Microdesmidae, with 

 description of a new species" (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 84, 1936, pp. 55-72, figs. 

 9-12 and pi. 2), wherein he has shown that Cerdale is a synonym of Micro- 

 desmus. This discovery necessitated a change in the name of the family from 

 Cerdalidae to Microdesmidae. S. F. H. 



Microdesmus floridanus (Longley) 



Cerdale floridanus Longley, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Year Book No. 33, 1934, p. 258 — Tor- 



tugas, Florida. 

 Microdesmus floridatius Reid, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 84, 1936, p. 60, figs, ga, 10b; 



pl. 2, fig. 2. Longley and Hildebrand, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. 517, 1940, p. 275, fig. 24. 



Family BROTULIDAE 



Brotula barbata (Bloch and Schneider) 



The single specimen taken was secured in 89 to 155 fathoms. 1 

 In amplification of current descriptions it may be noted that the brown color 

 is not quite uniform. It is freckled over the back with inconspicuous darker spots, 

 about 2 mm. in diameter in our specimen of 365 mm. The ventral fin is not a 

 filament of 1 ray, or a single bifid ray, as stated in some current descriptions, but 

 is composed of 3 rays, of which the outermost is small and demonstrable only 

 by dissection. 



The pyloric caeca are short, sometimes as many as 3 present. The air bladder is 

 rather unusual in construction, its wall being thick and ending behind in a 

 cylindrical extension. This median structure has the diameter of a lead pencil in 

 the fish dissected, and is about 15 mm. in length. It is closed at the end by a thin 

 and elastic membrane, very unlike the opaque leathery body of the organ in 

 texture. When the handle of a dissecting needle is thrust from within the bladder 

 into this blind ending, piston-wise, the compressed air pushes the thin end before 

 it to form a rounded vesicle. The device seems to be a safety valve of a sort, to 

 relieve the internal pressure whenever a quick excursion to higher levels would 

 endanger the inelastic walls of the bladder. W. H. L. 



1 Dr. Longley has a note on a second specimen, 325 mm. long, taken south of Tortugas in 

 60 fathoms, which apparently was not saved.— S. F. H. 



