MURiENIDJ:. 77 



Nasal marginal teeth, 10 ; pretty tall, compressed, subulate, and 

 acute, with 2 minute ones between each pair. Tliree tall subulate 

 and not compressed teeth stand on the mesial line overtopping the 

 marginal ones. All the larger nasal teeth are attached to the ori- 

 fices of deep holes in the bone. Six short-conical acute teeth form 

 a single short scries on the vomer. Palatine teeth, about 17, close set, 

 and much rejlexed, forming an outer series. They are narrowly lan- 

 ceolate and compressed, with entire, acute edges. Two larger ones 

 stand close within the commencement of the series, viaking a very 

 short interior row. The mandible is armed by from 18 to 21 

 lateral teeth, similar to the palatine ones, and also by 2 or 3 on 

 each limb near the symphysis, stouter and taller than the opposing 

 marginal nasal teeth ; and between each pair there are 1 or 2 

 minute, acute teeth, a little exterior to the centres of the large 

 ones, as in the upper jaw. 



This Muricna is more compressed throughout than many others, 

 and the compression increases as usual towards the tail. The dorsal 

 is not enveloped in so thick a fold of skin as in most, and is there- 

 fore more conspicuous. The posterior rays are longer than the 

 height of the part of the body on which they stand, but, owing to 

 their oblique position, the fin is not so broad. The dorsal at its 

 origin, before the gill-opening, above the fourth vertebra, I'ises in a 

 low curve. The snout is obtuse, but being depressed below the 

 swelling nape seems slender. Posterior nostrils not tubular. Eye 

 moderately large. Lower jaw scarcely perceptibly longer than the 

 upper one. Ten long, slender, or thread-like branchiostegous rays 

 curve round the wafer-like operculum. 



Body, tail, and fins, reticulated by white meshes, enclosing brown 

 disks, which are mostly hexagonal, and number anteriorly five or 

 six in the height of the body and fin, becoming gradually fewer as 

 the fish tapers off in the tail. The Sumatran specimen in the 

 British Museum, which was received from the College of Surgeons, 

 has more regular and continuous meshes than are shown in our 

 figure. The lines are wider at the angles of the meshes, and 

 the brown colour of the areas is produced by microscopical, 

 wavy bars on a paler ground. The belly is whitish, with a slight 

 clouding. 



The skull of this fish has a very slight, acute mesial crest, ex- 

 tending from the hinder point of the nasal bone, to the occipital 

 spine, and nowhere rising above its general level. The margin of 

 the orbit is completed behind by rather stout, tubular, suborbital scale 

 bones ; but under the orbit, and before it, these bones remain mem- 

 branous. The turbinate bones, as in the other Murana, are long, 

 narrow, and thin, flanking the nasal ridge. The nasal disk is per- 

 forated by numerous holes, to the edges of which the teeth are anchy- 

 losed, and it seems as if it had a double floor. There are 50 vertebrae 

 anterior to the beginning of the anal, and about 77 posterior to it, or 

 about 127 in all. Twelve next the cranium have, in addition to the 

 transverse parapophysis, a thin spine descending from the under 



