175 



Differs from Bathytroctes in that the teeth of the premaxillge aud mandibles 

 are in several series. 



Head naked. Body rather elongate, compressed, covered with scales of 

 moderate size. Eye rather small. Mouth wide ; the maxilla extending beyond 

 the vertical through the middle of the orbit. Fine teeth in premaxillte, maxillje, 

 mandible, palatines, and vomer, those in the premaxilte and mandible pluriserial ; 

 no teeth on the tongue. 



Gill-openings wide ; gill-covers complete ; seven branchiostegals ; four gills, 

 with narrow laminae; gill-rakers long. Pseudobranchia3 present. The dorsal 

 arises in the posterior half of the body and the anal is entirely behind it. No 

 adipose dorsal fin. Caudal forked. Pyloric caeca in moderate number. Ovaries 

 with an oviduct. 



140. Narcetes ermielas, Alcock. 



Narcetes erimelas, Alcock, Ann. Mug. Nat. Hiat., Oct. 1890, p. 305 : Illustrations of the Zoology of the 

 Investigator, Fishes, pl. IV. no. 1. 



B. 7. D. 15-16. A. 12. C. circ. 35. P. 10-11. V. 9. L. lat. 68. 



Head broad, pyramidal, its length 3- to 3^^ in the total without the caudal ; 



body elongate, its greatest height, just behind the gill-opening, about 5^ in the 

 same standard. 



Head-bones sculptured, specially the operculum and preoperculum, both of 

 which have their border augmented by a semimembranous striated fringe. 



Snout nearly as broad as long, depressed, rounded from side to side, its 

 dorsal and ventral profiles meeting at an acute angle ; its length is a httle 



over g that of the head, and more than half as long again as the eye. Nostrils 



very large. 



Bye rather small, its major diameter Sg in the head-length, and not quite 

 equal to the width of the deeply concave interorbital space. 



Mouth wide, oblique ; the maxilla reaches well behind the vertical through 

 the posterior border of the orbit. The premaxilla is a short strong bone ; tha 

 maxilla is composed of thre^ longitudinal plates, of which the innermost (up})er- 

 most) is movable ; the mandible is very strong and broad, and its under surface 

 is excavated for a wide mucous channel which opens by six large circular pores 

 on each side. 



Teeth small, even, uniform, acute ; those in the jaws standing, uncovered 

 by the lips, outside the mouth ; those in the premaxillse and mandible reciu'ved, 

 ([uadriserial anteriorly and triserial laterally in the premaxillte, biserial in the 

 mandible ; those in the maxillee uniserial, procurrent or procurved ; those in the 



