572 DESCmPTIYE CATALOGUE OF AUSTRALIAN FISHES, 



425. Stigmatonotus austealis, Peters, 

 M.B. Ak. BerL, 1876, p. 838.— Zool. Eeg. 1876, p. 20, Pisces. 

 D. 11/17. A. 3/8. L. lat. 46. 

 Dick Hartog Island, West Australia in three fathoms. 



Family XXHI. BATEACHIDiE. 



Habit cottoid ; skin naked or with small scales, mucif erous 

 channels of head well developed. Teeth conical, small or of 

 moderate size. The spinous dorsal fin very short, the soft and 

 the anal long. Ventrals jugular, with two soft rays ; pectorals 

 not pediculated. Gill opening a more or less vertical slit before 

 the pectoral, rather narrow. G-ills three, pseudobranchise absent ; 

 an air-bladder. 



G-enus Batrachus, B1. 



Head broad, depressed ; body subcylindrical anteriorly and 

 compressed posteriorly ; skin naked, or covered with very small 

 scales. No canine teeth. Gill covers with several spines. The 

 spinous dorsal fin consists of three stout spines. Gill opening 

 narrow. Gills three ; pseudobranchiae none ; branchiostegals six; 

 air-bladder divided, pyloric appendages none. Vertebrge 1 2/17-27. 



, Nearly all Coasts. 



426. Bateachus dubius, White. 



Eichards., Voy. Erebus and Terror, p. 16, pi. 10. — Gunth., Cat. 

 Pishes III., p. 169. 



D. 3/18. A. 15. V. 1/2. 



The length of the head is three times and a-haK in the length 

 of the body ; the width of the bony bridge between the orbits is 

 one-seventh of the length of the head and equals the diameter of 

 the eye, which is shorter than the snout. Gill covers with three 

 spines "directed backwards, two belonging to the operculum and 

 one or the prseoperculum. Vomer and palatine bones with a 



