DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF PIPEFISH. (SlPnOS- 

 TOMA SCOVELLI) FROM CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS. 



By Barton W. Everiiann aud William C. Kendall. 



A RE-EXAMINATION of tliG Specimens of pipefish from Corpus Cbristi 

 wbicli we referred, ^Yith Ijesitatiou, in an earlier paper,' to Siphostoma 

 fuscum (Storer), has convinced us that tbey cannot belong to that 

 species, but represent a species hitherto undescribed. 



Tiji)e.—Mi\\e and female, No. 47300, U. S. N. M. 



Locality. — Shamrock Point, Corpus Christi, Texas, where 130 speci- 

 mens were obtained November 29, 1891, by Messrs. Evermann, Scovell 

 and Gurley, of the U. S. Fish Commission. 



Allied to SipJtostoma affiiie (Giinther). 



Description of female. — Head, l^; depth, 11; snout, 2^; D. 34, on 

 4+4 rings; its height 2 in base, which equals head. Rings, 16-|-32. 

 Nape slightly carinated. Color in alcohol, alternately annulated with 

 light olive brown and dirty white; the dark color on joints, the white 

 on the bodies of rings; dark color wider than white on trunk, narrower 

 on caudal portion; white anuulations on trunk between lateral and 

 latero-ventral keels indicated by two narrow white lines with narrow 

 black lines on either side and between, these i)ortions of the whitish 

 rings showing as silver bars in life and fresh alcoholic specimens; upper 

 part of opercles dusky ; a dark bar extending from anterior edge of eye 

 to end of snout; ventral keel, throat, lower part of opercles and snout, 

 plain, whitish; dorsal with dark wavy diagonal bars. Other speci- 

 mens vary in color from somewhat lighter to considerably darker than 

 the above, the darker ones having some white mottling on throat, oper- 

 cles, and beneath snout. Other females differ in the much less depth, 

 lower dorsal fin, and in the color, which ranges from almost plain olive 

 through forms with reddish mottled appearance to brownish; fewer 

 light-colored anuulations and no distinct white or silver bars on sides. 



^The Fishes of Texas and the Rio Graude Basin, considered, chiefly, with reference 

 to their geographic distribution. Bull. U. S. Fish Comiu., XII, 1892 (February 0, 

 1894), 109. 



Proceedings of the United States National ISInseuui, Vol. XVIII— No. 1043. 



Proc. N. M. 95 8 113 



