PHILIPPINE MACROUROID FISHES GILBERT AND HUBBS. 383 



The pyloric caeca were counted in three paratypes. In one there 

 were 21, longer than the orbit, but shorter than the interorbital ; in 

 another, 16, about as long as the orbit; in a third specimen, 17, only 

 two-thirds as long as the orbit. 



The color is very dark, the head, belly, and fins being blackish. 

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

 and abdominal cavities wholly black. The wall of the stomach and 

 the mesenteries are black, while the intestines and pyloric caeca are 

 without pigment. 



B. spongiceps differs widely from B. filamentosux, B. microrn maf 

 B. nipponicus, 2 B. entomelas, B. furvescens, B. melanobranchits, 3 

 B. gam^etti* B. siclcatus, and B. macrops, 5 in the much wider and 

 more cavernous head, correlated with a smaller size of eye, and other 

 characters. It may readily be distinguished from B. antrodes 6 by 

 the lack of filamentous rays, by the different form of the interoper- 

 cular margin, and by the decidedly blacker coloration. From B. 

 favosus 7 of the western Atlantic, it differs in the coarser dentition, 

 in the more advanced position of the ventral fins, and in the very 

 much darker color. It seems to differ from B. cottoidesf described 

 by Giinther from near New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands (a 

 species insufficiently described) in the more numerous gill-rakers 

 (5 or 6+19 to 22, instead of 6+17), and in the larger eye, the length 

 of which is constantly somewhat more than half the length of the 

 snout or the width of the interorbital space. B. spongiceps is closely 

 related also to B. boiversi, 9 an Hawaiian species, from which it 

 differs in the lesser width of the interorbital space, which is contained 

 more, instead of less, than three times in the head; in the lower 

 position of the scapular foramen, and in dentition, the inner shagreen- 

 like portion of the premaxillary band not being expanded poste- 

 riorly, but forming throughout only a narrow margin to the main 

 outer portion of the band. 



1 Gilbert, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1903 (1905), sec. 2, p. 661, fig. 258. 



2 Jordan and Gilbert, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1902 (1904), p. 605, text fig. 

 3 Vaillant, Exp. Sci. Trav. Talisman, 18SS, p. 206, pi. 18, fig. 1; Collett, Poissons de 



L'Hirondelle, 1896, p. 88. 



1 Gilbert and Hubbs, Proe. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 51, 1916, p. 151, pi. 8, fig. 1. 



5 Goode and Bean, Oceanic Ichthyology, 1S95, p. 42.'). 



6 Jordan and Gilbert, Bull. TJ. S. Fish Comm., 1902 (1904), p. 606, pi. 4, fig. 1 ; Gilbert 

 and Hubbs, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 51, 1916, p. 149. 



7 Goode and Bean, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 12, pt. 5, 18S6, p. 160 ; Oceanic Ichthy- 

 ology, 1895, p. 420, fig. 352. 



8 Giinther, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. 2, 1878. p. 23 ; Challenger Reports, vol. 22, 18S7, 

 p. 154. 



9 Gilbert, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1903 (1905), sec. 2, p. 659, fig. 257. 



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