43 



Family Cciranf/idw. 



Bathtseeiola, Alcock. 



Bathyseriola, Alcock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Sept. 1890, p. 202. 



Body fusiform but much compressed; edge of the belly sharp, grooved 

 along the middle line. Scales small, deciduous, cycloid : lateral line unarmed. 

 One dorsal fin with the spinous portion rather feeble : the soft portion, and the 

 anal, long. No finlets. Anal spines forming an integral part of the anal fin. 

 Ventral with a continuous membranous attachment to the belly. 



Snout conical, cleft of mouth narrow : villiform teeth in the jaws onlv. 

 Preopercular border entire : seven branchiostegals : pseudobranchige present. 

 No air-bladder. Pyloric appendages numerous. Vertebrte 10+14. 



25. Bathyseriola cyanea, Alcock. 



BaihyserMa cyanea, Alcock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. Sept. 1890, p. 202: Illustrations of the Zoology of irk 

 Investigatob, Fishes, pl. XVIII. fio. I. 



B. 7. D. VIII-IX. 24-25. A. III. 22. P. 22. V. I. 5. 



Body oblong and compressed ; its height about 3- in the total and one- 

 ninth less than the length of the head. 



Head compressed and thin in its lower, broad and heavy in its upper half ; 

 its muciferous cavities well developed. Snout rounded, a little inflated at the 

 tip, the jaws equal in front ; its length, which is hardly equal to its greatest 

 breadth, is equal to the diameter of the eye. Eyes circular, their diameter not 

 quite one-fourth of the length of the head ; they are encircled by a sharp-edged 

 adipose fold, widest fore and aft ; interorbital space wider than the eye, convex 

 from side to side. Nostrils large, situated almost superiorly at the tip of the 

 snout. 



Cleft of mouth narrow, the maxillary hardly reaching the vertical through 

 the middle of the eye ; jaw-bones weak, with a trenchant edge, which bears a 

 narrow band of villiform teeth; tongue large and fleshy; buccal folds very 

 broad. Gill-cleft wide ; gill-membranes united only quite anteriorly ; gill-covers 

 with thin, almost membranous, bones, the operculum with two diverging weak 

 stays above, the preoperculum bulging backwards as a large, striated, entire 

 lobe ; gill-lamin?e broad, gill-rakers on the first arch long, close-set, acute ; 

 pseudobranchise fleshy. The mucosa of the whole pharynx black. 



Scales extremely deciduous ; the few that still adhere are small and mem- 

 branous, and those of the lateral line, which are rr inch in their major diameter, 

 have each a salient membranous tube. 



The dorsal and anal fins have thick gelatinous bases ; the dorsal spines are 

 short and rather weak, and their interconnecting membrane is dehcate ; the anal 



