236 DEEP SEA FISHES. 
spine below the humeral symphysis is forked, while that in frent of the ven- 
trals is simple, though possibly abnormal on this specimen. 
A narrow streak along the back and the edgings of the lanterns are deep 
black ; the flanks and the faces of the lanterns are silvery. 
The peculiar serration of dorsal and abdominal crests and the fin formu- 
le serve to distinguish this species from A. /ychnus. 'The specimen de- 
scribed was “Found floating on a log in the Indian Ocean off Port Louis 
Harbor.” 
Wood-Mason and Alcock, 1891, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 
VIIL., p. 126, mention an “ Argyropelecus, sp. prox. hemigymnus, Cocco,” 
saying of it “A small specimen was taken at Station 118, in 1803 fathoms ; 
it agrees very closely with Argyropelecus hemigymnus Cocco from which it 
differs most conspicuously in having the luminous spots in a continuous 
unbroken series from the head almost to the base of the caudal; the tail also 
is not so abruptly constricted off from the abdomen.” “This, so far as I 
know, is the first record of Argyropelecus from the Indo-Pacific.” 
In his latest list Alcock, 1896, refers the specimen to A. hemigymnus with- 
out comment. The description quoted does not apply to the young of the 
Mediterranean species; the author must have had something in hand that 
is not yet named. Neither A. hemigymnus, A. lychnus, nor A. caninus have the 
luminous spots in a continuous unbroken series from the head almost to the 
base of the caudal, and the smaller the specimens of either the greater 
the comparative lengths of the spaces separating the groups of the lanterns. 
Evidently the species indicated from the Indo-Pacific is more closely allied 
to that from the Atlantic to which the name A. afinis is here applied, identi- 
fied by Goode and Bean with A. hemigymnus, the most remote of the present 
contents of the genus, and probably worthy of subgeneric distinction. 
A. caninus is closely allied to A. aculeatus C. V. from the Azores, but has 
not the slender tail. Sauvage, 1891, in his Fishes of Madagascar, figures a 
specimen, Plate XLVIIL., fig. 5, from Isle Réunion under the name A. aculea- 
tus, which differs somewhat in shape from A. canimus and has sixteen rays in 
the anal fin. 
