272 SHUFELDT. [Vot. II. 
and two-thirds times into its greatest depth. The body is much 
compressed, and quite deep. The very large eye is contained 
two and a third times in the length of the head, and lacks the 
membrana adiposa. 
The branchial apertures are deeply cleft, but I fail to find 
more than four branchiostegal rays, without ‘being able to assert 
that there may be a greater number of them. The snout is 
short. The prefrontal, the turbinal, and the anterior suborbital, 
are extremely hard, and covered with spiny rugosities. The 
preoperculum and interoperculum have rugose borders, while the 
remaining opercular bones are entirely so. The mouth is 
small, subvertically cleft; the premaxilary process is large, 
and is lodged in a fossa of the cranium. The maxillary is com- 
plicated. The teeth are simply a narrow row of minute pric- 
kles ; they do not occur upon the vomer, nor the palatines. 
D. 6-34; A. 2-33; V. 1,6; P. 15; C. 1-13-1. The leading 
spine of the first dorsal series is rugose, as is the first ventral, 
the two post-anals, and the external ones of the tail, which latter 
show the condition equally well in either one. 
The rays of the pectoral, second dorsal, and the anal fins are 
compressed, and do not ramify at their extremities. The pecto- 
rals are very short and rounded. On the other hand, the vertical 
fins, the dorsal, and anal are well developed. 
The tail was injured, and apparently cut; the membrane 
which unites its rays had disappeared; the peduncle which 
supports it is large, and capable of communicating a powerful 
impulse to the act of progression. The thoracic pectorals un- 
questionably possess a rugose spine and six flexible ones that 
are branched. 
Aside from the frontal bones and the suborbitals where the 
skin abruptly terminates, and the nasal portion of the snout, all 
the trunk and the head is covered with scales, including the 
inferior mandible. 
These scales in no way resemble those found among the 
acanthopterygean fishes. Their length greatly exceeds their 
width; they have the appearance of parchment, — transparent, 
brittle when dry, — overlap each other, and are strengthened 
longitudinally by a raised lineal ridge. 
Their contact with each other is so extremely intimate that it 
lends to the skin of either side a very smooth appearance — so 
