87 



Colour of the specimen in spirits liver-brown, with four 

 rows of rather widely-placed, pale bluish or whitish, round 

 dots, a little radiated on their margins. The upper row is 

 at the base of the dorsal, and is not very conspicuous un- 

 less when the fin is raised, the under one on the belly 

 is regular, and the spots on the sides are very uniform in 

 their sizes and distances. The dorsal and anal ai-e very 

 narrowly fringed with white or pale blue. Length 7'1 

 inches. To anus 33 inches. 



This species differs from hullata in the spots being 

 smaller, more regular aud pale on a dark ground. Their 

 serial arrangement and lesser number distinguish it from 

 punctata. M. tigriita of Ruppell has ocellated dark spots 

 on a pale ground. 



Hab. Madagascar. 



MuR.ENA CANCELLATA. Richardsou. 



Radii:— Br. 10; D. 345 ; A. 236 = 581. Australian Spec. 



Plate XLVI., figs. 1—5. 



Schneider's description of Gymnothora^c favagineus 

 might be applied to this Mui<ena, but his figure accords 

 so ill with it in form, that I have not ventured to consider 

 them to be the same species. McClelland's Therodontis re- 

 ticulata agrees, however, with favaffineus, both in general 

 shape and in the character of the meshes, but it possesses 

 two rows of vomerine teeth, whereas favagineus is ranged 

 by Cuvier with the J\Iur<en(B, having only one row, — but for 

 this circumstance 1 should have been inclined, in the ab- 

 sence of authentic specimens, to have considered them as 

 of the same species. 



The specimen of cancellata which we have figured was 

 procured on the coast of western Australia, by Surgeon 

 Bynoe, of the Royal Navy. The British Museum posses- 

 ses another from Cape Upstart, and also one from Suma- 

 tra. 



Nasal marginal teeth ten, pretty tall, compressed, subu- 

 late and acute, with two minute ones between each pair. 

 Three tall subulate and not compressed teeth stand on the 

 mesial line overtopping the marginal ones. All the larger 

 nasal teeth are attached to the orifices of deep holes in the 

 bone. Six short-conical acute teeth form a single short 

 series on tiie vomer. Palatine teeth about seventeen, 

 close set, and much reflexed forming an outer series. They 

 are narrowly lanceolate and compressed, with entire, acute 

 edges. Two larger ones stand close within the commence- 

 ment of the series, making a very short interior row. The 

 mandible is armed by about twenty or twenty-one lateral 

 teeth, similar to the palatine ones, and also by two or three 

 on each limb near the symphysis, stouter and taller than 

 the opposing marginal nasal teeth ; and between each pair 

 there are one or two minute, acute teeth, a little exterior 

 to the centres of the large ones, as in the upper jaw. 



This Murtena is more compressed throughout than 

 many others, and the compression increases as usual to- 

 wards the tail. Tlie dorsal is not enveloped in so thick a 



fold of skin as in most, and is therefore more conspicuous. 

 The posterior rays are longer than the height of the part 

 of the body on which they stand, but owing to their ob- 

 lique position the fin is not so broad. The dorsal at its 

 origin before the gill-opening, above the fourth vertebra, 

 rises in a low curve. The snout is obtuse, but being de- 

 pressed below the swelling nape seems slender. Poste- 

 rior nostrils not tubular. Eye moderately large. Lower 

 jaw scarcely perceptibly longer than the upper one. Ten 

 long, slender, or thread-like branchiostegous rays curve 

 round the wafer-like operculum. 



Body, tail and fins reticulated by white meshes, enclos- 

 ing brown di.sks, which are mostly hexagonal, and number 

 anteriorly five or six in the height of the body and fin, 

 becoming gradually fewer as the fish tapers off in the tail. 

 The Sumatran specimen in the British Museum, which 

 was received from the College of Surgeons, has more regu- 

 lar and continuous meshes than are shown in our figure. 

 The lines are wider at the angles of the meshes, and the 

 brown colour of the areas is produced by microscopical, 

 wavy bars on a paler ground. The belly is whitish, with 

 a slight clouding. 



The skull of this fish has a very slight, acute mesial 

 crest, extending from the hinder point of the nasal bone 

 to the occipital spine, and nowhere rising above its gene- 

 ral level. The margin of the orbit is completed behind 

 by rather stout, tubular, suborbital bones, but under the 

 orbit and before it these bones remain membranous. The 

 turbinate bones, as in the other Murcence, are long, narrow 

 and thin, flanking the nasal ridge. The nasal disk is per- 

 forated by numerous holes, on which the teeth stand, and 

 seems as if it had a double floor. 



There are fifty vertebrae anterior to the beginning of the 

 anal, and about seventy-seven posterior to it, or about 127 

 in all. Twelve next the cranium have, in addition to the 

 transverse parapophysis, a thin spine descending from the 

 under mesial line of the centrum. This spine or crest is 

 highest at the third or fourth vertebra, and diminishes 

 gradually to the twelfth. Posterior to that the under an- 

 gles of the parapophysis gradually approach each other 

 beneath, forming a deep htemal canal, aud at the termina- 

 tion of the abdominal cavity a central, under-process is 

 formed as it were by the union of the under angles of the 

 parapophyses, while the upper angles retain their horizon- 

 tal direction, and gradually diminish in size as they ap- 

 proach the end of the tail. A long series of ribs reaching 

 from the cranium nearly to the tip of the tail, is attached 

 to the centra of the vertebra; above the parapophysis, 

 through the medium of membrane ; and from the begin- 

 ning of the anal to the end of the tail a similar series is 

 attached to the centra between the lateral and inferior 

 parts of the parapophyses. These ribs are stoutest about 

 the middle of the tail, and have each a forked end next 

 the centrum, the short limb of the fork forming a knob or 

 head. The interneural ]3rocesses correspond in number 

 with the dorsal rays, and the rays of both fins, though fis- 

 sile at their tips, are not jointed. 



Stomach a long, wide, ca;cal tube (measuring in the 

 specimen here described 50 inches from the gullet to the 

 point of the sac), plaited longitudinally within, in about ten 



