2452 Bulletin ^7, United States National Museum. 



family of fresh- water lishes inhabiting the East Indies, characterized by 

 having the shoulder girdle posteriorly placed and not articulating with the 

 cranium (Order Ojnsthomi, Gill). The necessity for preserving intact the 

 unique type of the species prevented Dr. Beau from making any anatom- 

 ical examination of Ptilichthys, and it was reserved for Dr. Theodore Gill, 

 in the Standard Natural History, iii, 259, 1885, to express his disbelief in 

 the relationships which have been suggested, and to make the fish the 

 type of a peculiar family, the PtUichthyida', to be placed provisionally 

 among the Blennioid series. His adherence to this view is again expressed 

 in his list of 'Families and Subfamilies of Fishes,' appearing as the Sixth 

 Memoir of Volume VI, of the National Academy of Sciences. He has 

 doubtless indicated the proper position of this peculiar fish as nearly as 

 we are now able to determine it. An examination of its shoulder girdle 

 shows it to be entirely normal. The post-temporal is not furcate, but is a 

 very slender bony rod attaching to the epiotic region of the skull, and 

 giving loose attachment posteriorly to the almost equally slender postero- 

 temporal. The latter overlaps the upper end of the clavicle in the usual 

 manner. A postclavicle was not detected. The coracoid portion consists 

 of a roundish, oblong, perforated hypercoraeoid meeting the hypocoracoid 

 directly, without intervening cartilage. The curved line separating the 

 two bones corresponds distally with the interspace between the first (upper) 

 and second actinosts. The hypocoracoid is broad and short; its mesially 

 directed (i. e., inferior) process joins at its tip the clavicle, but is elsewhere 

 separated from the latter by the usual elongate membranaceous interspace. 

 The actinosts are 4 in number, of large size, hourglass-shaped. The jaws 

 are normal, the premaxillary alone occupying the front and sides of upper 

 jaw and bearing the teeth, while the maxillary is a broad bone lying 

 behind it, overlapped proximally by the maxillary process of the palatines. 

 Both vomer and palatines seem to be toothless. The alimentary canal is 

 almost perfectly straight, with the anterior portion entirely enveloped in 

 the long, narrow liver. At the pylorus occurs a short and abriipt U-shaped 

 flexure, scarcely noticeable on account of the closeness with Avhich the 

 sides are joined, and the fact that the width of the flexure is no greater 

 than the cross diameter of the tube. Pyloric cjeca are not evident. Air 

 bladder is entirely wanting. The ovary is single, apparently without via- 

 duct, and contains in our specimen eggs which are comparatively very 

 large." (Gilbert.) (P/iZic/(//(yidrt;, Gill, Standard Nat. Hist., ill, 259, 1885.) 



929. PTILICHTHYS, Bean. 



Ptilichtliys, Bean, Proc. TJ. S. Nat. Mus., iv, 1881, 157 (goodei). 



Characters of the genus included above. {itriXoi', quill; ix^'i^i, fish.) 



2810. PTILICHTHYS GOODEI, Be.in. 



D. XC, 145; A. about 185; P. 12. Eye rather large, as long as snout, 5 

 in head; cheeks and opercles long; pectoral fin I as long as head; soft 

 dorsal and anal deeper th.an body posteriorly, anal a little lower than 

 dorsal. Vent near end of anterior third of body ; distance from vent to 



