554 DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF BATHYMASTER. 



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DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF BATHYMASTER (B. Jordan 

 FROM PUGET'S SOUND AND ALASKA. 



BY CHARLES H. GILBERT. 



Bathymaster jordani sp. now 26641, 27265, :?2404. 



Bathymaster signatus Jordan and Gilbert, Proe. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1881, pp. 9, 

 52 ; Synopsis Fish. N. A. 623. Not of Cope. 



On making a recomparison of the specimens of Bathymaster i a the 

 U. S. National Museum I have ascertained that those from Puget's 

 Sound, together with a single specimen from Fort Wrangel, Alaska, 

 belong to a species very distinct from the common B. signatus of north- 

 ern Alaska. It may be thus characterized : 



Body more elongate, depth Gi in length (5J in signatus) ; mouth 

 smaller, maxillary reaching vertical from middle of eye, 24 in head (2J 

 in signatus) ; cheeks and upper anterior part of opercles, closely invested 

 with hue scales (in signatus, head entirely naked); lateral line running 

 on a series of enlarged scales, the exposed surfaces of which are fully 

 three times that of other scales of body (scales of lateral line not con- 

 spicuously enlarged in signatus); scales appearing much smaller, about 

 nine in a series upwards and backwards from middle of lateral line to 

 base of dorsal. Fins higher in the male, the longest dorsal ray two- 

 thirds length of head; the membranes from last dorsal and anal rays 

 reach to or almost to base of caudal (the caudal peduncle more largely 

 free in signatus). Colors brilliant (see Synopsis, p. G23); in signatus, 

 color an almost uniform warm brown, the fins somewhat mottled with 

 yellowish. 



In both species of Bathymaster I find the anterior dorsal rays all 

 articulated; in signaius all but the first two or three are distinctly 

 branched, in jordani the anterior half or two thirds of the fin consists 

 of simple rays, the posterior ones only being evidently branched. 



Washington, D. C, August 27, 1889. 



