2324 Bulletiii 4.7, United States National Museum. 



a. Dorsal and anal fins not joined to the caudal. 



b. Dorsal and anal fins rather short; D. 11-19; A. 18; pectoral fins short, their tips 



reaching to origin of anal. Color brown, marbled with darker; pectoral fins 



and sides of body with some round black spots ; chin and veutrals brownish ; 



belly white. maculosa, 2656. 



66. Dorsal and anal fins longer; D. 11-24; A. 24; pectoral fins longer, their tips 



reaching to sixth anal ray. Color of head, body, and fins brown, with a 



network of yellowish lines; dorsal, anal, caudal, and pectoral fins with 



white margins. reticulata, 2657. 



2656. THALASSOPHBTNE MACULOSA, Gunther. 



D. 11-19 ; A.18 ; V.I, 2. The head is somewhat longer than broad, its length 

 being contained 3J in the total; it is moderately depressed. The snout is 

 short, obtuse, with the cleft of the mouth ascending obliquely upward, and 

 with the chin prominent. The maxillary extends to the vertical from the 

 posterior margin of the orbit. The teeth are obtusely conical, standing in 

 single series, except anteriorly in the lower jaw, where they form 2 series, 

 and in the upper, where they are cardiform, in a narrow band. The eyes 

 are directed upward aud very small, their width being i of that of the 

 bony bridge between the orbits. Gill covers with a single spine; it is 

 long, slender, cylindrical, like one of tLe dorsal spines, and has the opercu- 

 lum for its base. Gill opening not very narrow; it extends from the upper 



made from the first example ; through the kindness of Captain Dow I received 2 otlier 

 specimens, and in the hope of proving the connection of the poison bags with the lateral- 

 liue system, I asked Dr. Pettigrew, of the Koyal College of Surgeon.s, a gentleman whoso 

 great skill has eiiriclied tluit collection with a series of the most admirable anatomical 

 preparations, to lend me his assistance in injecting the canals. The injection of the bags 

 through the opening of the spine was easily accomplished; but we failed to drive the 

 fluid beyond the bag, or to till with it any other part of the system of muciferous chan- 

 nels. This, however, does not disprove the connection of "the poison bags with that 

 system, inasmuch as it became a]iparent that, if there be minvite openings they are so 

 contracted hy the action of the spirit iu which the specimens were preserved, as to be 

 impassable to the fluid of injection. A great part of the lateralline system consists of 

 open canals; however, on some parts of tlie body, these canals are entirely covered by 

 the skin; thus, for instance, the open lateral line ceases apparently in the suprascapular 

 region, being continued in the parietal region. We could not discover any trace of an 

 opening by which the open canal leads to below the skin; yet we could distinctly trace 

 the existence of the continuatimi of the canal by a depressed line, so that it is quite 

 evident that such openings do exist, although they may be passable only in fresh speci- 

 mens. Thus, likewise, the existence of openings in the bags, as I believed to have 

 found in the first specimen dissected, may be proved by examination of fresh examples. 

 The sacs are without an external muscular layer, and situated immediately below the 

 loose, thick skin which envelops their spines to their extremity; the ejection of the 

 poison into a living animal, therefore, can only be effected by the* pressure to which the 

 sac is subjected the moment the spine enters another body. "Nobody will suppose that a 

 complicated apyiaratus like the one described can be intended for coiiveying an innocuous 

 substance; and therefore I have not hesitated to designate it as poisonous; and. Captain 

 Dow informs me in a letter lately received, 'the natives of Panama seemed quite familiar 

 with the existence of the spines and of the emission from them of a poisou which, when 

 introduced into a wound, caused fever, an eflect somewhat similar to that produced by 

 the sting of a scorpion; but iu no case was a wound caused by one of them known to 

 result seriously. The slightest pressure of the finger at the base of the spine caused the 

 poison to jet a foot or more from the opening of the spine.' The greatest importance 

 must be attached to this fact, inasmuch as it assists us in our inquiries into the nature of 

 tlie functions of the muciferous system, the idea of its being a secretory organ having lately 

 been superseded by tlie notion that it serves merely as a stratum for the distribution of 

 peripheric nerves. Also the objection that the Stingrays and many Siluroid fishes are 

 not poisonous, because tlie.y have no poison organ, can not be maintained, although the 

 organs conveying their poison arc neither so well adapted for this purpose nor in such a 

 perfect connection with the secretory mucous system as in T h alas soph ryne. The poison 

 organ serves merely as a weapon of defense. AH the Batrachoids with obtuse teeth on 

 the palate aud in the lower jaw feed on Mollusca aud Crustaceans." (GUuther.) 



