500 GOBIESOCIDiE. 



y-h. One inch long. St. Domingo. From M. Salle's Collection. 



i. Half -grown. Voyage of H. M.S. Herald. 



Tc. Adult male : skeleton. From the Collection of the Zoological 



Society. 

 I. Preparation of the internal parts. 



The head and the anterior part of the body are very broad and 

 much depressed ; the skin is tough, naked, and smooth. The head 

 is nearly as broad as long, with its profile semi-elliptical, the snout 

 being very obtuse and rounded. The upper surface of the head is 

 quite flat, gently sloping downwards in a straight line from the nape 

 to the snout. The greatest width of the interorbital space is one- 

 half of that of the head, or four times the diameter of the eye. The 

 cleft of the mouth is horizontal, curved, wide, extending to below 

 the centre of the eye ; the lips arc thick, the lower being divided 

 into five portions by four vertical grooves, the central portion being 

 the smallest, the lateral ones the largest and hanging downwards. 

 The upper jaw is slightly protractile, and there is a broad velum 

 behind the teeth in both jaws. The eye is small, situated immedi- 

 ately below the upper profile of the head. Two nostrils, close to- 

 gether, opposite the upper angle of the orbit, their margins being 

 slightly raised. The lower angle of the opercular apparatus termi- 

 nates posteriorly in an obtuse moveable point enveloped in skin 

 and directed backwards. The gill-openings are somewhat narrow in 

 consequence of the small degree of expansibility of the gill-covers ; 

 but the giU-membranes have the margin quite free, being united 

 together under the tlu'oat, and not attached to the isthmus. There 

 are only tkree gills ; the pseudobranchiaj are (piite rudimentary, in- 

 dicated by two or three short lamella). 



The distance of the origin of the dorsal fin from the caudal is 

 nearly one-third of its distance from the snout ; its first ray is 

 much shorter than the others, and apparently without articulations. 

 The caudal rounded and of moderate length ; the anal is only half 

 as long as the dorsal, commencing below its middle and termi- 

 nating in the same vertical. The pectoral is broad and short, its 

 lower half being longer than the upper ; it is slightly connected with 

 the ventral. 



The adhesive apparatus is the same as in Sinjases sanguineus ; it 

 is as broad as long, its length being contained three times and a half 

 in the total. The vent and the porus urogenitalis are close together, 

 situated midway between the margin of the ventral disk and the 

 anal. The anal papilla is small. 



The colour is broA\ai (in spirits), whitish inferiorly. The species 

 attains to a length of seven inches. 



The internal parts are better preserved than I have found them in 

 Sicyases sanguineus, and show some very remarkable peculiarities. 

 The whole of the intestinal tract is very short and nearly straight ; 

 this deficiency in extent of the surface for absorption, however, is 

 made up by the broad and numerous folds of the mucosa. The 

 single divisions of tlie intestinal tract arc indicated externally by 



