PHILIPPINE MACKOUROID FISHES — GILBERT AND HUBBS. 387 



teeth; the premaxillary band as usual consists of two portions — an 

 outer one, with rather small teeth, which become decidedly smaller 

 posteriorly ; and an inner, shagreen-like portion, which extends along 

 the entire inner length of the band, becoming widest below the front 

 half of the eye, where its width. is 0.03 of the length to the anus; the 

 band narrows abruptly on its posterior third. No trace can be de- 

 tected of a mandibular barbel. The pseudobranchiae, which form a 

 series one-fourth as long as the orbit, are located beside the usual 

 conic pit. The slit behind the fourth gill-arch is only half as long as 

 the orbit, Branchiostegals, 7; gill-rakers, 5+20 (left), or 5+21 

 (right), denticulate on their inner margins; the longest gill-raker is 

 half as long as the orbit. The branchial aperture is continued for- 

 ward ventrally to a vertical crossing the orbit before the pupil. The 

 scapular foramen lies wholly within the hypercoracoid, but is in con- 

 tact with the suture between that bone and the hypocoracoid. 



The scales are in eight series from the origin of the second dorsal 

 to but not including the lateral line series; the scales are thin and 

 cycloid; they are in two series on the mandible. The shoulder 

 girdle is covered by a naked membrane beneath the opercles. 



Fin-rays — first dorsal, II, 8; ventrals, 10; pectorals, 17 and 18. 

 The first dorsal spine is slender and concealed; neither the second 

 dorsal spine nor any of the pectoral rays are strengthened or pro- 

 duced. The outer ventral ray probably failed to reach the anus. 

 The base of the ventral is but little anterior to the origin of the 

 dorsal and the insertion of the pectoral. 



Pyloric caeca, thirty-five, shorter than the orbit. 



The color in alcohol is light brown, becoming blackish on the 

 belly and on the jaws and the gular and branchiostegal mem- 

 branes, The ventral fins are blackish; all the other fins are dusky. 

 The lining of the buccal cavity is blackish; that of the branchial 

 and abdominal cavities wholly black; the walls of the stomach are 

 black, but the intestines and the pyloric caeca are pale. 



The relationships of this species are indicated in the preceding 

 key. It is apparently related, though not very closely, to the 

 two Japanese species of this subgenus — B. nipponicus and B. gar- 

 retti. It differs from the Atlantic B. melanobranchus in the more 

 numerous ventral rays, smaller eye, and other characters. It is 

 closely related also to B. furvescens, but differs from that species 

 in numerous details: the ventral rays are more numerous (10. in- 

 stead of 8 or 9) ; 8 instead of 7 series of scales separate the front 

 of the second dorsal from the lateral line ; the color is much lighter, 

 especially on the fins ; the walls of the intestines are not pigmented ; 

 the body is less strongly compressed, the width of the pectoral bases 

 being contained less than, instead of more than, twice in the depth ; 



