:x 



140 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



inserted in the middle of the length of the abdomen, which is slightly longer than the 



head. 



The specimen is stUl colourless, except on the sides of the head and trunk and along 

 the middle of the tail, which parts are covered with a silvery pigment. Abdomen and 

 lower parts of the head black. 



Habitat. — Off Matuku, Fiji Islands, Station 173 ; depth, 315 fathoms. One specimen, 

 5^ inches long. 



I Although the specimen is young, it is so unlike any other of the numerous young 



Macruri collected by the Challenger, that I cannot but consider it to be a very distinct 



! form. It has long passed the larval or Krohnius-sta.ge, and developed specific characters 



1 by which it may be recognised, viz., the long barbel, large scales, smooth dorsal spine, 



villiform dentition, large eye, parabolic snout, and narrow interorbital space. It 



possesses the gill-apparatus characteristic of the true Macruri. The scales of the adult 



. may be supposed to be spiny. 



Macrurus italicus. 



Hymenocephalus italicus, Giglioli (e Issel), Pelagos, p. 228, c. fig. (without description). 



D. 12. P. 16. V. 10. 



Head deeper than broad, with vertical sides and wide muciferous cavities ; snout 

 obtuse, short, slightly projecting beyond the mouth, the cleft of which is oblique, anterior 

 and lateral, and extending to behind the middle of the eye. Teeth in both jaws minute, 

 of equal size, villiform, in narrow bands. Barbel small. Interorbital space as wide as 

 the eye, the diameter of which is one-third of the length of the head, and exceeds the 

 snout in length. Scales extremely thin, deciduous, spiny, of comparatively large size.-" 

 Preeopercular margin not serrated. Anterior dorsal spine smooth, filamentous; the 

 distance between the two dorsal fins is but little more than the length of the base of the 

 former.^ Pectoral fin about half as long as the head. Vent close to the root of the 

 ventral fins which reach it, and the outer ray of which is produced into a filament. A 

 triangular scaleless space between the ventral fins, nearly extending to the vent; a small 

 round naked space, surrounded by spiny scales, in the middle of the prseventral region. 

 Distance between the vent and isthmus three-fourths of the length of the head. Body 



1 No scales whatever are preserved in our specimen on the tail and back, only slight traces of the scale pouches are 

 visible ; on the sides of the abdomen, which are silvery, no scales had yet been developed, whilst the lower side of the 

 abdomen, with the exception of the naked spaces described, is covered with spiny scales, the spines being rather long 

 and irregularly placed as in Macrurus laevis. 



^ In the woodcut given by Giglioli about thrice as long, but this figure evidently cannot claim great exactness in 

 details. 



