60 
APLOACTIS MILESII, Richardson. 
Radii.—Br.5; D. 14]14; A.12; C.13; P.11; V. 1|2, spec. 
(Pisces, Pl. I. fig. 1, 2.) 
This fish has the fins of a Synanceia with the lateral eyes and 
head of a Scorpena, but instead of the ridges of the cranium, face 
and gill-covers ending in spinous points, they produce only obtuse 
knobs. Its teeth in character and position resemble those of Pte- 
réis, and its dermal spine-like scales are similar to those of Centri- 
dermichthys (Zool. of Voy. of Sulphur, p. 73). I am not quite sure 
that it corresponds in all its general characters with the Aploactis 
aspera of the ‘Fauna Japonica’ (pl. 22), but it comes sufficiently 
near to be included in the same generic group. 
The form of the fish is rather elongated, the height of the body, 
which is a little less than the length of the head, being nearly one- 
fourth of the total length of the fish, caudal included. The com- 
pression of the head is moderate, its thickness being only one-third 
less than its height, and equal to about half its length. The mouth 
is terminal, cleft only a very short way backwards, but having a mo- 
derately large gape. The intermaxillaries are slightly protractile, 
and their edges and those of the mandible are covered with very 
short and minute, densely crowded teeth. The chevron of the vomer 
is similarly armed, but there are no teeth on the very narrow edges of 
the palaie-bones, and the tongue, which is not in the least free at the 
tip, appears to be quite smooth. The premaxillaries are but slightly 
protractile, the tips of their pedicles when retracted not reaching half- 
way to the eye. The maxillaries have a protuberance in the centre 
of their lower dilated ends, and only their more slender upper halves 
glide under the preorbitar. When the head is viewed in front, two 
short parallel ridges are seen covering the pedicles of the premaxil- 
laries, above which, on the forehead, there is a deep oblong depression 
bounded by an elevated bony ridge, from which a side ridge formed 
by the prefrontals proceeds to each orbit. The margins of the orbits 
themselves are elevated and uneven, and there is a prominent bend 
upwards on the edge of each postfrontal bone; the rest of the top of 
the head is occupied by the front rays of the dorsal fin. The preorbitar 
sends one obtuse ridge forwards over the middle of the maxillary, and 
another and a larger one backwards in the situation of the spine of an 
Apistes ; this one is knobbed at the end and curved upwards. The 
suborbitar chain is elevated and very uneven throughout, particularly 
the ridge which traverses the cheek to the hollow of the preopercu- 
lum. There is a blunt process from the angle of the latter bone, 
representing the spine common in this family, and three smaller 
knobs below it, the edge of the bone being also raised in a slighter 
degree. Two slightly diverging ridges, ending bluntly, cross the 
operculum ; there is a small blunt point on the interoperculum, and 
four obtuse eminences between the eye and shoulder, representing the 
two ridges shown in that part in the Scorpene. The parts between 
the bony eminences on the head are covered with small spines like 
those of the body, and the whole, in the recent state, seems to have 
a. ene 
