232 BlENKIID^. 



dorsal, the lower along the middle of the body. (During life white, 

 with the spots of a green colour.) ( Val.) 

 Bombay. Coast of Australia. 



? a. From the Haslar Collection. 



b, c. Half-grown. Australia. Purchased of Mr. Stevens. 



7. Petroscirtes dispar. 



A collection of fishes made by Mr. Swinhoe in the Chinese island 

 of Amoy, and procured for the British Museum, contains, besides 

 other interesting species, two specimens of a Petroscirtes, one of which 

 is nearly twice the size of the other. Although the smaller one is a 

 little more compressed and elevated, and furnished ivith an occijntal 

 crest (the only instance known, at present, in this genus), I con- 

 sider both as belongiug to the same species ; they have the same 

 coloration, and nearly the same form and number of tlie fin-rays. 

 The examination of the sexual organs was not accompanied by a 

 decisive restdt : a single elongate empty sac, which I took for the 

 ovarium, was foimd in the larger specimen, whilst I could not detect 

 any sexual organs whatever in the smaller one. Thus it is merely 

 from analogy with Salarias that I describe them as sexual forms of 

 one and the same species. 



Description of the larger (female) specimen : — 



D. 35. A. 2d. V. 2. 



The height of the body is contained six times and a fourth in the 

 total length, the length of the head seven times. Snout short, some- 

 what longer than the diameter of the eye, truncated anteriorly. The 

 canine teeth of the lower jaw are very large, three times the size of 

 those of the upper. No tentacle or crest ; interorbital space very 

 narrow. The dorsal fin commences above the root of the pectoral, 

 and the membrane by which the last ray is fixed to the back of the 

 taU extends on to the root of the caudal : the first twelve rays are 

 about half the height of the body, and not separated by a notch from 

 the following rays ; but the thirteenth ray is conspicuously longer 

 than the twelfth, and the middle of the fin is rather higher than the 

 body underneath. Caudal rounded. The anal fin is nearly equal in 

 height to the anterior portion of the dorsal. The inner ventral ray 

 is the longest, rather more than two-thirds the length of the head. 

 Brownish-grey (in spirits) : base of the dorsal and caudal fins yellow ; 

 the outer half of the dorsal and caudal and the entire anal grey. 

 Cheek with an indistinct ovate brownish spot. 



lilies. 



Total length 50 



Height of the bod)^ 8 



Length of the head 7 



of the ventral fin 4 



The smaller (male ?) specimen diff'crs from the other in the follow- 

 ing points : — 



