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26 DEEP SEA FISHES. 
(3%) 
below. Rather than to assign them at random it is here proposed to form a 
group for these and similar unplaced larvee, Atopichthys, in which they may 
remain until such time as by means of larger collections the adult forms and 
their respective generic affinities may be determined. To give a specific 
name to each type of Atopichthys will be likely to introduce synonyms in 
some cases, yet at the moment there appears to be no better way, in which 
to avoid the risk and at the same time to secure facility of reference. 
A most important and recent addition to the knowledge of the Atopich- 
thyes isa publication by Strémman, 1896, in which fourteen new species 
were described and figured. All of these species were placed in Lepto- 
cephalus; such of them as do not belong to the congers will be placed in 
Atopichthys until their development is traced. 
With tolerable nearness, the horizontal distribution of the Atopichthyes 
corresponds with that of the Mursenoids. These forms are pelagic, it is true, 
but it is likely the adults of most of those described below are found at great 
depths, and in view of their life histories to be written in the future they 
are introduced here in the report on the bathybial species. As yet no spe- 
cies of the genus Leptocephalus are known to occur in the eastern Pacific. 
The species of Atopichthys in the collection most resembling LZ. Morrisii 
are probably young of Uroconger or of Congermurena. Other species 
with tubular anterior nostrils, on Plate LXVII., may represent species of 
Ophichthys; another species with a nostril in front of the lower half of 
the eye may belong to a species of Chlopsis, a genus apparently replacing 
Nettastoma in this region; and another with a nostril midway from the 
eye to the end of the snout may prove a Xenomystax. One species of the 
lot, Plate LXV. fig. 2, is closely allied to Hsunculus Costai Kaup, of which 
Giinther, 1870, remarked “this fish is clearly the young of a form belong- 
ing to one of the more highly organized Physostomous families, perhaps 
of Alepocephalus.” Whether the species figured below belongs to Alepo- 
cephalus or to Bathytroctes, as is more likely, or to some other genus of 
the family is not to be decided from the material at hand. The great 
differences in the numbers of the fin rays, as compared with those of 
Fi. Costa’, make it doubtful whether the adults of the two forms belong to 
one genus. Possibly our species is a young Albula. 
n 
