142 DEEP SEA FISHES. 
in the breeding season. Of nine parcels of specimens eight were caught on 
the soft mud and one on the sand. 
The genus Lepophidium includes several species from the Atlantic coasts 
of the United States to the Caribbean Sea and Brazil, and as many, rather 
more closely allied, from the Eastern Pacific. 
OPHIDIID i. 
Lepophidium emmelas. 
Leptophidium emmelas Gilb., 1890, Pr. U. S. Mus., 110. 
Plate LXXIIT. fig. 3, Lat. Syst. 
Br. r. 7; D. 105-109; A. 83-91; V.2; P. 25-27; C. 10; Ll. 130-188 ; 
Ceca 5, rudimentary. 
Total length of specimen described seven and one half inches; head one 
and seven eighths. Body compressed, tapering to an acute point, greatest 
depth four fifths of the length of the head, or less than one fifth of the 
total. Head moderately large, near one fourth of the length without the 
caudal, somewhat thick, as wide as high, depressed anteriorly, nearly straight 
from snout to nape, where the outline rises a little higher. Snout broad, 
short, two thirds as long as the eye, blunt, prominent in a forward directed 
rostral spine, behind which a short distance another spine is directed 
upward. Mouth wide, lower jaws included; maxillary widened at the end, 
which reaches little farther backward than the eye, not in contact with the 
cleft. Teeth small, in villiform bands of one to several series each, on jaws, 
palatines and vomer. Vomerine band forming an angle with apex forward, 
or arched with sides slightly curved near the outer ends. Eye large, one 
and one half times as long as the snout, one fourth as long as the head, 
wider than the interorbital space. A short, inconspicuous spine at the 
hinder edge of each posterior nostril; anterior nostrils semitubular. One 
specimen has two upright spines behind the rostral. Gill rakers slender, 
longest half as long as the eye, one upper and nine lower developed, besides 
several rudiments. Vertical fins continuous, anal little deeper than dorsal, 
caudal acute; dorsal origin above axil of pectoral; anal origin about two 
lengths of the head from the snout. Pectorals short, rather broad, half as 
long as the head. Ventrals below the forward end of the hyoid, inner ray 
longer, half the length of the head. The ventrals appear to be in advance 
of the humeral symphysis, but really are included by two long processes 
