574 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 



VOL. 83 



in small fish of about 50 mm long but few and short; very small 

 tablike processes or minute pimples rather profuse and usually per- 

 sistent in largest specimens, sometimes short filaments present on 

 back (not on tubercles) of large specimens. Color pattern char- 

 acteristic; covered more 

 or less thickly with small 

 brown spots against a 

 lighter background, the 

 spots often differmg in 

 size, somewhat larger 

 and more prominent 

 spots interspersed with 

 smaller ones, ground 

 color sprinkled profusely 

 with minute, almost 

 microscopic whitish dots 

 (color evident only in the 

 larger specimens, the 

 a vailable smaller ones 

 nearly uniformly colored 

 without any definite color 

 pattern, possibly faded). 

 Dorsal hyaline with 

 a submarginal brown 

 streak and sprinkled at 

 the base with small brown 

 dots. (See tables 1 and 

 3 for counts and measure- 

 ments.) 



Distinctive characters 

 and relationships. — H. 

 reidi agrees most nearly 

 with hippocampus from 

 the Mediterranean in its 

 obsolescent tubercles and 

 number of caudal seg- 

 ments and dorsal rays, as 

 well as in its color pat- 

 tern, but differs sharply 

 in having a conspicuously 

 slenderer trunk and long- 

 er snout, while the fre- 

 quency distribution of the pectoral rays is quite different, although the 

 two species overlap in that respect. 



The similarity in the structure of the tubercles, the number of 

 caudal segments and dorsal rays, and the color pattern of reidi and 



FiGUEE 66.— Hippocampus reidi, drawn from a female 127 mm 

 loDg taken with the type. Length of specimen as drawn, 

 89 mm. 



