758 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



This species occurs at moderate depths and is common in southern 

 Japan. Our numerous specimens are from Tokyo, Misaki, Wakanoura, 

 and Nagasaki. At Nag-asaki it is especially abundant, and is by no 

 means a deep-water lish. 



{littherhJs^ beardless.) 



lO. BASSOGIGAS Gill. 

 B(tHMi(iifj(ti<ix\\A., in (T(Kxlean(l Bean, Oceanic Ichthyolosiy, 1S95, p. 829 (c/randls). 



Body elongate, compressed, covered with thick, heavy skin, which 

 obscures all the angles of the skull. Scales small, covering the head 

 completely. Lateral line indistinct behind. Elye moderate. Vertical 

 tins united about the tail; ventral fins well separated, each one a bitid 

 filament. Snout slightly produced, without barbels, the lower jaw 

 slightly included. Villiform teeth on jaws, vomer, and palatines, the 

 vomerine patch V-shaped. Opercle with a long sharp spine; preopercle 

 unarmed. Air bladder present; pseudobranchia^ small. Deep seas, 

 both Atlantic and Pacilic. 



{/3a()(j6g, deep sea; yiyd?;, giant.) 



lo. BASSOGIGAS GRANDIS Giinther. 



Sireitiho graiidis Ctunthek, Ann. Maj;. Nat. Hist.. XX, 1S77, \<. 487; near Yoko- 

 hama in deep water. 



Neohyihites grandis GiJNTHER, Deep Sea Fishes, C'hallenger, p. 100, pi. xxi, tig. A; 

 near Yokohama. 



Head rather short and broad, with ol)tuse snout overlapping the 

 lower jaw; eye small, about t! the length of snout and jV the head; 

 mouth rather wide, the maxillary extending to behind the eye; barbels 

 none; teeth of jaws, vomer, and palatines in villiform bands; vomerine 

 teeth form a triangular patch much broader than long; wddth of pala- 

 tine band exceeds that of intermaxillary; a deep groove in the skin 

 descends from the anterior nostril toward the maxillary and reascends 

 toward the median line of the extremity of the snout, cutting off an 

 anterior lobe as in some scia?noids; several pores leading into the 

 muciferous system are hidden in the groove; a few small open pores 

 near the symphysis of the mandible; nostrils gaping, oval openings, of 

 which the anterior is surrounded l)y a membranous wall; preoperculum 

 crescent shaped, without any armature; operculum with a strong spine 

 above. 



Scales minute; also the entire head, even the s})ace l)etween the nos- 

 trils, covered with minute scales. 



Dorsal, like the anal, enveloped in a thick, scaly skin; it begins with 

 short rays above the middle of the pectoral; pectoral rounded, broad, 

 and remarkably short, about half as long as the head; ventrals inserted 

 Vjelow the angle of the preoperculum: each ventral filament is bitid, 

 the inner part being the longer; distance of vent from root of pectoral 



