* Sternoptyx diaphana Hei'm. 

 CyclotJione ehiigata (Gthr. ). 

 Cyclothone inicrodon (Gthv.). 



Ghauliodtis Sloanii Bl. Schn. (Also in the Mediterranean). 



* Neoscopelus macrolepidotus Jolms. 

 Platytrocies apus Gthr. 



* Synaphobranchus pinnatus Gronov. 

 Uroconger vicinus Vaill.ant. 



? Leptoderma macrops Vaillant. 



The remaining 20 are In do -Pacific species. 



Very significant, to my mind, is tlie occurrence in these seas — it also occurs 

 in Japan, where it was originally found — of Bembrojis caudimacula {=Hy])sicometes 

 gobioides G. & B.). Hardly less significant is the distribution, having regard to 

 its mode of life, of Ghaunax inctus. 



Bembrops caudimacula, which is undoubtedly the young of Bembro;ps gobioides, 

 appears to be common off the West Indies and neighbouring coasts of North 

 America at depths of 68 to 324 fathoms, and a good number of specimens have 

 been taken in the Andaman Sea at 107 to 194 fathoms. It is a Trachinoid fish 

 with a large flat head and a big shovel mouth, very much the form of Platy- 

 cephalus, and is undoubtedly — ^like most of the members of its family — a dweller 

 on or near the bottom. A fish that most commonly lives near the 100-fathom 

 limit cannot be truly called bathybial, nor would anyone who has handled 

 Bembrop^ be likely to decide that it belonged to the nectic fauna ; so that some 

 other explanation must be found for its peculiar geographical distribution. And 

 if this explanation will also serve to throw some light on the distribution of, e.g., 

 Iiohotes surinametisis, which is so far from being pelagic or nectic that it enters 

 brackish water ; and if it will also enable us to better understand the curious 

 distribution, e,g., of Symbranchus, of the Chromides, and of the Gijijrinodontidse, 

 its probability will be enhanced. 



The hypothesis that appears to offer the most satisfactory explanation is, 

 that a very considerable part of the fish-fauna of the Oriental region originated 

 from, and to a certain extent is a remnant of, the fauna of the Tertiary Mediter- 

 ranean of Professor Suess — of a Mediterranean that extended from the present 

 Gulf of Mexico, through the present Mediterranean basin, far into the Eastern 

 Hemisphere. 



In the Account of the Beep Sea Madreporaria collected by the Investigator, 

 pp. 5-10, I have discussed some evidence in favour of this hypothesis that is 

 afforded by certain other elements of the marine fauna ; and in the Account of 

 the Beep Sea Brachyura collected by the Investigator, pp. 2, 3, 82, 85, I have added 

 some further confirmatory evidence, derived from the present distribution of 



* Species marked with au asterisk have been compared with actual speoimeus. 



