0. DORYICHTHYS. 187 



sliagreened and is keeled on its extremity. There are also sundry 

 short prominent lines near the operculum. • The operculum itself is 

 divided into very unequal parts by a keel, the upper part being the 

 smallest. With the median keel of the operculum three or four 

 prominent lines are connected. Near the pectoral fin there is a keel 

 on the breast-ring ; and the fin, which is unusually large, contains 

 twenty rays. The back is narrow ; and there is a furrow above the 

 breast-ring, in which there lies a short keel that issues from the 

 occipital one and ends above the gill-opening. The colour is brown- 

 ish yellow, with a blackish-brown streak along the side of the snout, 

 through the eye and along the back ; the lateral line and the tail are 

 all blackish brown ; while the yellowish caudal is spotted with black. 

 A smaller and younger female specimen is heptangular, with a black 

 belly, and the spines of the back and snout are not so fully deve- 

 loped. (Kaup.) 



Red Sea. Two and a half inches long. 



20. Doryichthys valencieunii. 



Chceroichthys valencienni, Kaup, Loplwhr. p. 55, taf. 3. fig. 6. 

 D. 22. Osseous rings 15-|-18. 



Back concave, with toothed edges. The slender snout measured 

 from the nostrils equals the head in length, and is furnished with a 

 crest. A prominent line runs from the hind head over the eyes to 

 the end of the snout ; another descends from the nostrils dowTi to 

 the under border of the orbit, and goes on also to tlie end of the 

 snout ; and there are a third and a fourth on the under borders of 

 the snout. Occiput rough and, like the nuchal shield and dorsal 

 surface of the breast-ring, keeled. A keel divides the operculum 

 into two dissimilar parts. In che upper portion there is an oblique 

 prominent line, and in the under portion there are seven rough 

 cross lines. The dorsal stands on four body-rings and one caudal 

 ring. The ventral aspect of the breast-ring is keeled, and near the 

 pectoral fin there are two elevated lines. Colour smutty dark brown, 

 with a black caudal having a light border, and rays yellow and 

 speckled. There are traces of cross bars on the tail. The length 

 of the specimen is 1'85 inch, of the head 0-39 inch, of the snout 

 0-20 inch, of the dorsal fin 0-20 inch, of the tail 0-69 inch, and of 

 the caudal fin 0-04 inch. The height of the body is 0-20 iiich, and 

 its breadth on the lateral lines is 0-14 inch. {Kaup.) 



Eourbon. 



I insert here the description of a fish known from a single female 

 in the Paris Museum, which I have not seen : — 



Leptoichthys fistularius. 

 Kaup, Lophobr. p. 51. 

 Snout very long, thin, and much compressed, extended in the 

 same plane with the finely shagreened head. Body unusually elon- 

 gated, hexagonal, with flat back and belly without intermediate 



