392 Mr. A. Alcock on the Bathyhial Fishes 



Snout not quite so long as the eye, with a median and two 

 lateral, rough, marginal knobs ; overhanging the mouth. 



Diameter of the eye 3| in the head-length, and exceeding 

 the width of the flat interorbital space. Nostrils, especially 

 the posterior, very large, joined by a broad loop of skin which 

 gives the anterior a subtubular appearance. Mouth inferior, 

 small, its cleft hardly passing behind the level of the anterior 

 border of the orbit. Barbel barely half as long as the eye. 

 Teeth in villiform bands in the jaws, only the outer row in 

 the premaxillge enlarged. Gill-membranes rather broadly 

 united. Scales uniform, moderate-sized on the body, smaller 

 on the head, very small on the snout. A scale from the abdo- 

 men has nine parallel longitudinal rows of long accumbent 

 spinelets, the last in each row projecting beyond the edge of 

 the scale ; there are about eight spinelets in the middle row, 

 and two in the outermost. To the naked eye, and even with 

 the hand-lens, these rows of spinelets appear like unbroken 

 keels. The scales along the edge of the snout and the supra- 

 orbital ridge are thorny. The lateral line runs six rows of 

 scales distant from the base of the first dorsal fin. Second 

 dorsal spine somewhat prolonged, its front edge with about 

 eighteen equal semirecumbent barbs. The second dorsal tin 

 arises less than a head-length behind the first ; its anterior 

 rays inconspicuous. Pectoral pointed, as long as the head 

 behind the middle of the eye. Ventrals with the outer ray 

 produced into a filament longer than the fin itself. 



Colours in life : — " Body dull grey ; abdomen slate- 

 coloured ; sides of head and lower jaw silvery ; operculum 

 violet-black ; first dorsal black, with w^hite root and tip " 

 {Dr. G. M. Giles). 



A cluster of about twelve long filiform appendages round 

 the pylorus. A large thin-walled air-bladder. 



Several specimens with gravid ovaries. 



Greatest length 8 inches. 



Hab. Andaman Sea, all along the Andaman chain, in 265 

 to 490 fathoms ; Bay of Bengal, from 193 to 405 fatiioms. 



The commonest apparently of the Indian Macrurids. 



Many specimens carry parasitic Copepods. 



Macrurus semiquincunciatus, sp. nov. 



B. 7. D. 12. P. 21. V. 11. (A.?) 



Head squarish. Snout barely longer than the eye and not 

 greatly overhanging the mouth ; a single median marginal 

 tubercle. Diameter of the eye rather over one fourth the 



