PEOCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 473 



12. Limauda Beaiiii, new species. 



Two specimens, Ko. 20102, were obtained — one from station 875, at a 

 depth of 126 fathoms; one from station 876, 120 fathoms — which are pro- 

 visionally referred to the genus Limanda, Gottsche, as understood by 

 American ichthyologists. The species surely belongs to Pleuronectes, as 

 limited by Giinther, the weight of whose opinion regarding the difticul- 

 ties of making generic divisions in this group is fully appreciated. The 

 extreme brevity of the snout and the elongate-elliptical form of the body 

 render its shape very unlike that of Llmanda ferniginea of our own coast 

 and Llmanda ijlatessoides of the Eastern Atlantic. In its general api)ear- 

 ance, except that the ventrals are not both lateral, it resembles consid- 

 erably the species mentioned above. 



Description. — The body is elliptical in form, with angular outlines. 

 Its height is three-eighths (38) of its total length, and slightly more than 

 twice the length of the head, and about three times the greatest height 

 of the anal tin. Its height at the ventrals (25) is one-fourth of its length 

 and less than distance from snout to origin of anal. Its least height, at 

 base of tail (12), is half its height at ventrals. It is thin, its greatest 

 width (7) not exceeding the diameter of the orbit. 



The scales are subcircular, small, strongly i)ectinate on the colored 

 side, cycloid on the blind side, where they are also larger, there beiug 

 about fifty (as nearly as can be counted in the specimens before mc) in 

 the lateral line, behind the curve, while on the colored side there are 

 probably sixty. The lateral line on the colored side makes a very ab- 

 rupt, conspicuous, angular, high curve over the pectoral fin. The chord 

 of this arc is nearly as long as the head of the fish, its height half as 

 great. The scales in the lateral line are highly si)ecialized, particularly 

 along the curve, which appears to contain about twenty-seven of them, 

 while posterior to this, in the straight portion, there are about sixty. 

 The specialized scales of the lateral line extend far out upon the caudal 

 ftn. On the blind side the lateral line is little conspicuous, the scales 

 very slightly specialized, and it becomes obsolete in the region where, 

 upon the colored side, the curve is located. The scales extend far out 

 upon the caudal fin, but are not present upon the other fins. 



The head is very short, its length (18) contained about five times and 

 one-half in the total. The snout is very short (2), one-fiftieth of the 

 total, and the mouth is small, its cleft subvertical, and the maxillary 

 extending very slightly behind the anterior margin of the orbit. The 

 teeth are inconspicuous, apparently in two rows, stronger and more 

 numerous on the blind side, barely discernable in upper jaw, absent 

 elsewhere in the mouth. 



The eyes are large, prominent; their diameters (7) greater than the 

 length of the maxillary (0) and equal to that of the mandible (0). They 

 are very closely set, the interorbital space marked by a knife-like edge 

 of bone. The upper eye, in its outline trenching upon the dorsal outline 

 of the head, is almost directly above its mate. Together they occupy 



