N0.1239. APODAL FISHES OF JAPAN— JORDAN AND SNYDER. 881 



43. GYMNOTHORAX KIDAKO (Schlegel). 

 KIDAKO; KICHIGAIUNAGI; UTSUBO. 



MnrKim kidako Schlegel, Fauna Japonica, Poiss., 1846, \). 266, pi. cxvii, Naga- 

 saki. — Brevoort, Exped. Japan, 1856, p. 283, Shimoda. — Nystrom, K. 

 Svensk. Vet. Akad. Handl., 1887, p. 46, Nagasaki. 



Mtirxna similis Richardsox, Voy. Erebus and Terror, 1847, \>. 83, Ja])aii. — 

 Kaup, Apodes, 1856, p. 63. 



Murxna nuhila Gunther, Cat. Fish., VIII, 1870, p. 117, Japan (not of Richard- 

 son). — IsHiKAWA, Prel. Cat., 1897, p. 5, Saganii. 



Head 2 to 2^ in trunk; 6^ in total length; head and trunk a little 

 shorter than tail. Skin smooth; eleft of mouth large, 2^ in head; 

 mouth closing- completely; teeth rather broad, all in single series, 

 without basal lobes; mandible with about 16 teeth on each side; vomer 

 with one row of depressible teeth; nasal tube rather shorter than eye, 

 which is nearly 2 in snout; snout 5 in head, compressed and some- 

 what produced; e3^e a little nearer tip of snout than angle of mouth; 

 gill opening not so wide as eye. 



Color dark brown or black, everyw^here blotched or spotted Mith 

 white or yellowish, the white or 3^ellowish closely mixed with the 

 dark ground color, both light and dark colors confluent in irregular 

 transverse bands. In some specimens light colors prevail, in others 

 the dark; gill opening dark; angle of mouth black without w^hite spot 

 before it; no white pores on lower jaw; belly colored like sides, but 

 the white markings more conspicuous; dorsal beginning well in front 

 of gill opening, colored like the body with dark brown and white 

 mottlings; no marginal stripe; anal black, with a very distinct white 

 margin, chin and throat with traces of dark streaks. 



Coasts of Japan, general!}' connnon, varying much in shade and 

 degree of mottling from almost gray to almost black. It may l)e, 

 however, always distinguished bj- the white stripe along the black 

 anal. Our specimens, ten in number, are from Tokyo, Misaki, and 

 Wakanoura. This species is placed by Dr. Gunther in the synonymy 

 of Mnrama niihRis^ from the East Indies, but that species has a black 

 margin to the dorsal, as well as the anal. The specimen described 

 above (Misaki) is 24i inches long. 



As Richardson, in his account of the eels of the "Voyage of the 

 Ei'ehns and Terror''^ acknowledges the receipt of Schlegel's account of 

 the eels of the "Fauna Japonica," we must consider that Schlegel's 

 name I' Idaho has priority over Richardson's name similis for the 

 common Japanese Moray. {Kidako, the common Japanese name.) 



Proc. N. M. vol. xxiii 56 



