Fishes taken at Madeira. 285 



Fam. Alepocephalidae, Val. 



Alepocephalus rostratus, Risso, Hist. Nat. iii. p. 449, f. 27; 

 C. & V. xix. p. 465, pi. 554. 



D. 16-18. P. 10-11. V. 9. A. 19-22. 

 C. viii. or ix. 10 + H. viii. or ix. M.B. 6-7. 



Compressed, elongate, the outlines of the back and belly 

 nearly parallel for a considerable space and hardly beginning to 

 approximate before the posterior portions of the dorsal and anal 

 fins. The belly is ecarinate. The body is covered with large 

 cycloid scales inserted in a very delicate brown skin. The 

 scales are easily displaced, and the skin upon them has a 

 purplish -blue or violet colour. The largest scales measure 

 eight-tenths of an inch by five-tenths. All the fins are bluish 

 black. 



The head is compressed, unarmed, flat above, and covered with 

 a soft, muciferous, scaleless skin, of a dark-indigo colour. A 

 clear, colourless, gelatinous matter, containing dark spots, lies 

 under this skin upon the bones. A strip of smooth scaleless 

 skin advances upon the body from the head as far as the com- 

 mencement of the lateral line. The large, nearly round eyes 

 are lateral, but placed high up, a diameter apart. Each is con- 

 tained nearly five times in the head, and is at the distance of a 

 diameter from the snout, and two-thirds of a diameter from the 

 nearest part of the jaw. The pupil reflects a pale-indigo colour. 

 Below the eye the skin is marked with a few radiating ridges. 

 In front of each eye is a pair of nostrils, the hinder one being 

 larger. On stripping away the skin from the opercular pieces, 

 two oblique ridges are seen on the opercle, which project at the 

 margin as flexible spines ; on the preopercle there is a vertical 

 ridge. The snout is broad, rounded, and projecting, with a 

 depression in the profile between its tip and the eyes. The 

 gill-openings are lai'ge. The throat and mouth are nearly black 

 within ; tongue thick and smooth ; the chin is without append- 

 ages, but has a large bony boss. The gape is wide, but the cleft 

 does not reach beyond the vertical of the anterior margin of 

 the eye. 



The jaws are of equal length ; the upper border of the mouth 

 is formed partly of the premaxillary and partly of the maxillary; 

 but the former alone carries the uniserial teeth, which are very 

 small, conical, acute, and slightly curved. The teeth of the 

 lower jaw are similar, but in front a few are rather larger. 

 There is also a row of similarly shaped teeth on the palatine 

 bones, but the vomer is unarmed. The branchiostegal rays in 



