NEW FISHES 221 



Diagnosis. — Body greatly attenuate, head twelve in length, depth 

 seventeen in length ; vertical fins confluent, low ; dorsal fin beginning 

 much behind the anal ; teeth small, in a single series in each jaw and 

 on the palatines ; vomer with a rounded patch of larger teeth. Color, 

 pinkish, the belly silvery and the tail bluish; belly, snout and body 

 posteriorly spotted with brown. 



Description of the Type. — Head twelve in the length ; depth one 

 and seven tenths in length of head ; eye five and one fourth ; maxillary 

 two ; interorbital five and one half ; snout four and one half. 



Body greatly attenuate, tapering very gradually from behind the 

 head to the slender whip-like tail ; not much compressed. Head 

 long, depth one half the length ; dorsal profile sloping gradually to 

 bluntly rounded snout. Snout short, broad and rounded ; occiput and 

 interorbital regions convex or rounded. Mouth large, slightly oblique 

 with included lower jaw, maxillary extending much behind eye. 

 Teeth small, cardiform, in a single series in both jaws ; palatines 

 armed with a long series of somewhat larger teeth extending past angle 

 of mouth; vomer with a small, rounded patch of teeth slightly larger 

 than palatine series. Opercular bones without spines or free edges, 

 the whole apparatus covered by the skin. 



Gills four, a short slit behind the last, free from isthmus and united 

 below the throat; no pseudobranchite. Gill-rakers short, few. Bran- 

 chiostegal rays six. Gill openings ventral, narrow, the length two and 

 one half in head. 



Body naked; lateral line without evident pores, running high and 

 following outline of back ; beginning above opercle, extending for- 

 ward on head to above eye, and posteriorly to slightly beyond body 

 cavity. Vent situated below posterior border of opercle. 



Vertical fins confluent ; rays not evident ; dorsal fin beginning be- 

 hind snout a distance equal to three times length of head, the fin an- 

 teriorly verj' low, becoming higher posteriorly where equaling one 

 third the eye in height. Anal fin beginning at vent, considerably higher 

 than the dorsal, the height one half diameter of eye. Caudal fin and 

 a few of the last vertebra; missing. Pectoral and ventral fins wanting. 



Coloration in Life. — Head and body dusky-pink ; the belly silver}^, 

 the tail grayish-lavender ; iris greenish-gray. 



Coloratio7i in Alcohol. — Light brownish-yellow, the snout, belly 

 and body, posteriorly finely spotted with dark brown. The spotting 

 perhaps due to the dissolving out of the silvery pigment by the for- 

 malin in which the specimen was preserved, leaving the spots which 

 were beneath it visible. 



Proc. Wash. Acad, Sci., Sept., 1903. 



