171 



arranged muscular fibres. Inside tliis is a layer, averaging about half a milli- 

 metre in thickness, of dense, circularly-arranged, muscular fibres. Internal to 

 this is a submucous layer thrown into numerous wide longitudinal folds, and 

 invested by a single row of long columnar epithelium, with numerous large 

 goblet-cells. The submucous coat in all the sections made is everywhere infil- 

 trated with round or oval, deeply-pigmented, highly granular corpuscles, which 



measure from -^^ to ;^ of an inch in diameter ; in shape they resemble large 



leucocytes, but they are so granular that no nucleus can in any instance be 

 detected. 



The thick muscular coat, the dense infiltration of the submucosa with these 

 pigmented granular corpuscles, and the large and numerous goblet-cells of the 

 mucosa characterize this part of the intestine. 



137. Alepocephalus Blanfordl, Alcock. 



AUpocephalm BJanfordi, Alcock, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Nov. 1892, p. 357: Illustrations of the Zoology of 

 THE Investigator, Fishes, pl. IX. fig. 1. {reduced.) 



B. 6. D. 16. A. 17. P. 11. V. 6-7. L. lat. circ. 70. 



Length of head one-third, height of body two-elevenths, of the total 

 without the caudal. 



The length of the obtusely-pointed depressed snout is barely greater than 

 the diameter of the huge orbit, or two-sevenths of the length of the head. 



The eyes are hardly half a diameter apart, with the large nostrils placed 

 close together in front of their angle. 



The mouth-cleft is almost horizontal, and the upper jaw, which reaches just 

 beyond and rests upon the anterior border of the orbit, completely encloses the 

 mandible on all sides; a row of fine teeth in each jaw and on each prominent 

 palatine. 



Gill-openings very wide, the gill-membranes entirely separate and only 

 slightly overlapping; the branchiostegal rays are but little concealed by the 

 opercular bones, and the whole gill-cover is clothed by n continuation of the thick 

 scaleless skin that covers the head ; gill-rakers numerous, close-set, broadly 

 lanceolate, acute ; pseudobranchise large and coarse. 



Body covered with thick deciduous cycloid scales ; a scale from the abdomen 

 is nearly 5 5 millim. in the horizontal and 5 millim. in the vertical diametei-. 

 The dorsal and anal fins, which are similar in form, equal in extent, and opposite, 

 lie well within the posterior third of the body (measured without the caudal) ; 

 the caudal is deeply forked, with many rudimentary rays at its base. The ventrals 

 arise almost in the middle of the body, nearer to the anal than to the pectorals. 



