PHILIPPINE MACROUROID FISHES—GILBERT AND HUBBS. 387 
teeth; the premaxillary band as usual consists of two portions—an 
outer one, with rather small teeth, which become decidedly smaller 
posteriorly ; and an inner, shagreen-like portion, which extends along 
the entire inner length of the band, becoming widest below the front 
half of the eye, where its width is 0.03 of the length to the anus; the 
band narrows abruptly on its posterior third. No trace can be de- 
tected of a mandibular barbel. The pseudobranchiae, which form a 
series one-fourth as long as the orbit, are located beside the usual 
conic pit. The slit behind the fourth gill-arch is only half as long as 
the orbit. Branchiostegals, 7; gill-rakers, 54+20 (left) or 5+21 
(right), denticulate on their inner margins; the longest gill-raker is 
half as long as the orbit. The branchial aperture is continued for- 
ward ventrally to a vertical crossing the orbit before the pupil. The 
scapular foramen lies wholly within the hypercoracoid, but is in con- 
tact with the suture between that bone and the hypocoracoid. 
The scales are in eight series from the origin of the second dorsal 
to but not including the lateral line series; the scales are thin and 
cycloid; they are in two series on the mandible. The shoulder 
girdle is covered by a naked membrane beneath the opercles. 
Fin-rays—first dorsal, II, 8; ventrals, 10; pectorals, 17 and 18. 
The first dorsal spine is slender and concealed; neither the second 
dorsal spine nor any of the pectoral rays are strengthened or pro- 
duced. The outer ventral ray probably failed to reach the anus. 
The base of the ventral is but little anterior to the origin of the 
dorsal and the insertion of the pectoral. 
Pyloric caeca, thirty-five, shorter than the orbit. 
The color in alcohol is light brown, becoming blackish on the 
belly and on the jaws and the gular and branchiostegal mem- 
branes. The ventral fins are blackish; all the other fins are dusky. 
The lining of the buccal cavity is blackish; that of the branchial 
and abdominal cavities wholly black; the walls of the stomach are 
black, but the intestines and the pyloric caeca are pale. 
The relationships of this species are indicated in the preceding 
key. It is apparently related, though not very closely, to the 
two Japanese species of this subgenus—B. nipponicus and B. gar- 
retti. It differs from the Atlantic B. melanobranchus in the more 
numerous ventral rays, smaller eye, and other characters. It is 
closely related also to B. furvescens, but differs from that species 
in numerous details: the ventral rays are more numerous (10, in- 
stead of 8 or 9); 8 instead of 7 series of scales separate the front 
of the second dorsal] from the lateral line; the color is much lighter. 
especially on the fins; the walls of the intestines are not pigmented; 
the body is less strongly compressed, the width of the pectoral bases 
being contained less than, instead of more than, twice in the depth; 
