342 REV. R. T. LOWE ON A NEW GENUS OF LOPHID^E. 



than one quarter of the length of the base of the dorsal fin. The whole fin is smooth 

 and very rude or thick and fleshy ; the rays, though strong, being quite indiscernible 

 to the eye, and not scabrous, as they are in the dorsal fin. 



The pectoral fins are placed low down about the middle of the length of the body, 

 not reckoning the caudal fin ; in other words, beneath the origin of the dorsal fin. They 

 are cheironectiform, with a distinct wrist and elbow, square-shaped, truncate, and 

 slightly crenate at the outer edge, but thick and fleshy ; above smooth and shining only 

 towards their outer margin ; beneath altogether so. The rays are eleven in number, 

 strong, but only to be reckoned by feeling for them. 



The ventral fins are placed close together, very forward, quite under the throat: they 

 are rather small and of a singular narrow elongato-spathulate form, thick, smooth and 

 fleshy, with only four rays, which are quite indiscernible to the eye. 



Caudal fin resembling that of a Batistes, simple, truncate, with a straight edge : the 

 six principal rays are very strong, rough or scabrous, and much branched. The web 

 between the rays is smooth. 



All the fins, except the dorsal and caudal, are thick and fleshy, with the rays strong 

 but indiscernible to the eye, except it be towards the outer edges of the pectoral fins. 



The whole head and body of this fish, with the maxillaries and the rays of the dorsal 

 and caudal fins, are finely hispid or shagreened, and rough or scabrous to the touch, 

 like a rasp. On the top of the head, nape, or back, this roughness or hispidity is shorter, 

 as if close-shaven, and approaches more to granular ; but below the lateral line of pits, 

 and especially on the chin, and towards the caudal fin and on its rays, the skin is almost 

 velvety to the eye. The under surface is more finely shagreened than the upper, and 

 the pectoral fins beneath are, like the ventral and anal fins, wholly smooth. There is 

 also a smooth loose skinny space about the air-holes on the flanks. 



The whole skin is singularly loose and flaccid, pulling up into longitudinal folds or 

 plaits, even on the back, and forming on the flanks great vertical or annular wheals or 

 welts. 



It remains to describe the curious chain-like rows of pits, or oblong, shining, smooth 

 depressions in the skin, by which the head and body are, as it were, mapped out into 

 compartments. 



One set or row of these begins upon the muzzle, on each side the hollow for the ten- 

 tacle near the tip of the upper jaw, and passing above or inside each eye, turns down- 

 wards behind it, following its circumscription ; and then again turning backwards on a 

 level with its lower edge, runs straight along the sides as far as the breathing-holes, 

 over which it turns a little obliquely downwards, continuing thence straight along the 

 tail, but rather below the middle of it, to the caudal fin. This row seems to represent 

 the lateral line. 



Under the lower jaw is a horse-shoe-shaped space, inclosed by similar smooth pits, 

 the two ends of which, connected by a transverse chain of pits, turn off backwards on 



