54 DEEP SEA FISHES. 
species of Sebastes; compared with Sebastes diploproa the depth is greater, 
and is maintained farther backward under the soft dorsal, thus giving 
the back a higher and longer arch and making the caudal portion appear 
shorter. Body much compressed, depth about one third of the total 
length, and greatest width about two fifths of the depth; caudal peduncle 
small, its greatest depth less than one fourth of that of the body; lower 
outline of the body much less arched than the upper. Head short, hardly 
one third of the entire length, two thirds as wide as deep; crown broad, 
convex transversely, descending rapidly in a nearly straight line from the 
nape to the intermaxillary prominence on the snout; sides nearly vertical. 
Excepting those of the preopercle the spines of the head are rather small 
and feeble; there is a short spine at each side of the nape above the occi- 
put, another above each preopercle, and two smaller ones above each 
suprascapular; the spines above the eye or on the internarial area are 
hardly perceptible; at the anterior extremity of the suborbital ridge there 
is a short antrorse spine, backward from this one there are two rather close 
together directed down and back, below the orbit there is another, and 
above the end of the maxillary there are two more; there are five short 
preopercular spines, the third or middle one of which is the largest; and 
there are two opercular spines, the upper of which is the longer and more 
slender, the lower the stronger, both of them at the ends of a couple 
of ridges across the operculum. The excavations in the skull for the ves- 
sels of the lateral system are broad and shallow. There is a concave, dish- 
like depression above the eyes on the middle of the crown behind which 
the parietal region is higher and quite flat. Snout large, twice as wide as 
the eye, nearly as long as broad, blunt, most prominent in the symphyseal 
angle of the lower jaws. Nostrils superior, nearly midway from eye to end 
of snout ; anterior smaller and provided with a short tube and flap. Mouth 
very large, cleft rising forward a little above the horizontal; maxillary 
more than half as long as the head, reaching backward of the orbit, with 
a longitudinal keel along its middle, subtruncate and as wide as the eye 
at the end. Teeth in villiform bands on jaws, vomer, and palatines, Plate 
IX., fig. 2. Eye small, hardly one sixth as long as the head, nearly two 
fifths as wide as the interorbital space. Gill covers with thin margins 
and weak spines. Gills four; lafnelle short; rakers three plus eleven 
(with several rudiments), slender, blade-like, acuminate, striate on the 
sides, denticulate on the inner edges, not as long as the eye. Pseudo- 
