MALTHOPSIS SPINOSA. 105 
protruding, pointed, turned upward at the end, concave across the top, 
deeply excavated below the rostrum for the illicium. TIllicium large, with 
three lobes, the median of which is largest, less round, vertically ridged, 
and is thin edged around a cavity immediately behind its tip. The organ 
can be protracted to bring the bulbs in front of the mouth, and the median 
bulb can be turned forward and down, a movement accompanied by 
changes of shape, producing the effect of a living and swimming bait, an 
effect probably enhanced by luminosity. A groove on each side separates 
the rostral and post-narial ridges; the latter are most prominent near the 
angle of the mouth. Supraorbital ridges prominent, crown little arched. 
Nasal sacs prominent; posterior nostril large, transverse ; anterior nostril 
small, bell-shaped. Mouth oblique, rather narrow, equal in width to half 
the distance from the snout to the occiput; lower jaws very little longer. 
Teeth in villiform bands on jaws, vomer, palatines and tongue; vomerine 
band wide and short; palatine groups longer, rounded. Orbit large, one 
and two thirds times the length of the snout; eye longer than high. Gills 
two, none on first and fourth arches; gill openings small, placed superiorly 
in the axille; rakers six on each of the first two arches. Branchiostegal 
rays six, slender, outer stronger and joined to the opercular bones. Opercular 
tubercle small, with four spines or sometimes more. 
Dorsal small, behind the middle of the total length; anal small, narrow, 
originating about one length of the eye backward from the base of the 
dorsal; pectorals short, about three fifths of the length of the skull from 
the occiput to the end of the snout, longer than the anal, moderately broad, 
fringed; ventrals small, fringed, length half of that from snout to nape ; 
caudal small, subtruncate, nearly one fourth shorter than the skull in front 
of the vertebral column. 
Scales much smaller and much more numerous than those of J. erinacea, 
commonly simple, single cusped, striate based. A few have two cusps each, 
and those on the top of the snout and about the nasal sacs and on the 
orbital ridges are multispinous, On the larger scales of the sides of the tail 
the cusps are longer, more slender and hooked; those on the ventral surface 
are small. 
Lateral system with deep channels and distinct disks (papilla), and with 
but a feeble development of the fringes between the spines on the lobes 
covering the sensory organs. The arrangement of the papillae resembles 
that obtaining throughout this genus and in allied genera; the second 
