636 ' PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



IlisJia abnormis Richardson, Ichthy. China, 1846, p. 306 (Canton). 



Pellona graj/ana CvviER and Valenciennes, Plist. Nat. Poiss., XX, 1847, p. 315 



(India), after Gray. 

 Pellona vhnhella Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. Poiss., XX, 1847, p. 317 



(Macao). 

 Pellona scJilegeli Bleeker, Verh. Bat. Gen., XXVI, 1854, Japan, p. 118 (Nagasaki). 



Hahitat. — Indian Seas, north to Nagasaki and Wakanoiu-a, scarce in 

 Japan. 



Head 4 in length; depth 3f ; D. 16; A. 51; scales in lateral line about 

 56; diameter of eye 3f in head, equal to snout, and a little more than 

 twice the interorbital space; mandible 2 in head; least depth of caudal 

 peduncle 2f in head. 



Bod}^ compressed, elongate but rather deep; abdomen and throat 

 sharp, edged with pointed scutes; abdominal profile more convex than 

 back; head low, compressed in front of eyes, tip of snout blunt, with 

 bulging sides; eye rather large, the cavity about it very large, par- 

 tially covered with adipose lid; mouth oblique, the upper jaw trun- 

 cate, with perpendicular sides, the lower jaw very strongl}- projecting. 

 Upper and lower jaws beset with stout, strongly recurved but very 

 small teeth; bands of minute teeth on tongue, palatines, and ptery- 

 goids; none on vomer. Maxillary large, broad, reaching nearly to 

 middle of orbit. 



Top of head flattened, with two ridges forming an elongated V; 

 muciferous branching tubules behind ej^e. Gill openings large, mem- 

 branes free from isthmus; gill-rakers of first arch strong, rigid, longer 

 than the gill filaments; gill-rakers of other arches much shorter; 

 pseudobranchite present. 



Scales more or less deciduous, large, cycloid, those on mid line of 

 belly forming strongl}^ serrate scutes; basal portion of caudal scaled; 

 all other fins with basal scaly sheath. An elongated, pointed, fleshy 

 scale in axil of pectoral. 



Dorsal small, weak, its insertion midway between tip of snout and 

 base of caudal. Anal low, very long, a])out 8i in total length; caudal 

 moderate, deeply forked; pectoral medium If in head; ventrals very 

 small, their length about f of diameter of eye. 



Color pale yellowish silvery, the dorsal region dusky. 



This species here described from a large specimen from Hongkong, 

 China, collected by Capt. William Finch. It is a large herring-like 

 fish abundant in the East Indian and Chinese seas, and occasionally 

 taken on the coasts of southern Japan. We obtained one specimen 

 in Nagasaki, from a Chinaman, who said that it came from the coast 

 of China. Another was seen by us at Wakanoura. 



{elongatus, elongate.) 



