DIBRANCHOPSIS SPONGIOSA. 97 
old, and in which the forehead and rostrum are much depressed and flat- 
tened. Shape and spines similar to those of Dibranchus, but the armature 
less harsh. Orbit large; eye medium. Mouth wide; tongue broad, naked 
anteriorly. Occiput high. Gills two, none on first and fourth arches. 
Illicium small, protractile forward and down; lateral lobes of esca (bait) 
rather small, functioning in position as at rest; median lobe large, broad, 
high, rounded, and with a small sensory papilla on the middle of the upper 
edge, turning downward in function so as to expose the hinder surface. 
The typical species of this genus, D. spongiosa Gilb., 1890, is recklessly 
referred by Jordan and Evermann to the genus Halieuteea. They “might 
just as well have placed it at random under any other genus of a totally 
different fauna.” 
Dibranchopsis spongiosa. 
Halieutea spongiosa Gilbert, 1890, P. U. S. Mus., 124. 
Plate XX. 
Bror.6: DD. 6:7A. 4; Veo: PB. 135.C. 9. 
Head and body depressed, together forming a subquadrangular or sub- 
pentangular disk nearly or quite as broad as long. Disk truncate in front, 
descending from the skull backward and sideways, curved on the margins at 
the sides and converging on those opposed to and behind the gill openings 
backward from the process of the suboperculum. The entire body is soft 
and flabby. There is some resemblance in shape to D. micropus Alc., but 
the disk is broader and hardly so deep, the spines are less developed, the 
dorsal is a little farther from the gill openings, and the caudal section is as 
long as the disk or longer. Body translucent, extending little farther 
backward than the gill openings, thin in the opercular region. Head large, 
one third as deep as long; skull half as long as the distance from snout to 
dorsal, broad and flat behind the orbits, broad, flattened, descending and 
widening forward on the forehead and snout, width at nostrils more than 
length of snout and orbit. Rostrum truncate to indented on large indi- 
viduals, more pointed and prominent on small ones. Snout three times as 
broad across the nostrils as long, as deep as long, subtruncate, margin 
indented above the illicium, which is lodged in a wide but low excavation 
between the nostrils. Nasal sacs prominent; posterior nostril larger, trans- 
verse, anterior with a short bell-shaped tube. TIllicium small, trilobate, pro- 
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