48 DEEP SEA FISHES. 
tine teeth; tongue smooth. Eyes large, lateral. Edge of preopercle ser- 
rate; a large spine at the angle. Opercle with three spines. Gills four; 
gill openings wide; membranes not united, free from the isthmus; rakers 
numerous, slender. <A vertically elongate suprabranchial gland. Seven 
branchiostegal rays. A strong sharp antrorse spine on the middle of the 
lower edge of the urohyal. Scales small, ctenoid, covering cheeks and 
interorbital space, absent from bases of dorsal and anal and from snout. 
Lateral line complete, nearly parallel with the vertebral outline. Dorsal 
with ten spines and about fourteen soft rays. Anal with three spines and 
eight soft rays. Ventrals inserted below the bases of the pectorals, close 
together, each with a moderately strong spine and five soft rays. Pyloric 
ceca few. Vertebra twenty-six. 
Centristhmus signifer sp. n. 
Plate LXIX. fig. 5, urohyal. 
Br. vr. 7s D. X, 13=14; A. MS >: Vu, (5; aoe tal. UO scales 62 
pores; Ltr. 7 + 28; Vert. 26. 
In its outlines this species bears some resemblance to Anthias multifas- 
ciatus, but the snout is larger, the lower jaw is more prominent, the head 
is less completely covered by scales, the preopercular spine is larger, and 
the scales are much smaller. Body much compressed, greatest depth nearly 
one fourth of the entire length, two thirds as deep and two fifths as wide as 
long, nearly straight from end of snout to nape or slightly concave above 
the eyes, little arched across the crown, vertical on the sides, hardly swollen 
on the narial region. Mouth medium, oblique; maxillary reaching a verti- 
cal from the middle of the eye, truncate at the end, which is half as wide as 
the eye. Teeth on the jaws in villiform bands, with a larger outer series, 
with one or two small hooked canines near the symphysis in front and one 
or two smaller ones close at each side of the symphysis a little backward of 
the first in the upper bands, and with one or two similar canines in front on 
each lower jaw and behind these near the middle of the cleft a smaller one 
or more; teeth on the vomer ina narrow V-shaped band, of which the tooth 
at the apex resembles the canines; palatine teeth in narrow bands, of one or 
two series. Tongue paliform, narrow, pointed, toothless. Nostrils superior, 
small, close together; anterior very small, with a short tubular valve; 
posterior near the upper half of the eye. Eye large, prominent, as long as 
