640 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vouxxxm. 



whitish forward, dusky behind ventrals; spinous dorsal in young 

 specimens with its outer half or third blackish; in adults (specimen 

 14 inches) the darker color fading and breaking into more or less rec- 

 ognizable black spots, which form indistinct rows, but are not con- 

 fined to the rays as in T. japonicus; soft dorsal with large spots, 

 encroaching on the membrane, and forming, on the posterior half of 

 the fin, 3 rows; membranes of anal blackish, in a broad and long 

 splotch between each two rays, pectorals and ventrals dusky, the 

 upper pectoral rays with the spots forming obscure rows; caudal in 

 young with spots and witle longitudinal band-like splashes of blackish, 

 which break up more or less in old specimens. 



The color alone sufficiently distinguishes this species from /. 

 japonicus. Other more or less important differences are: The absence 

 in the present species of the tongue-like flap on the opercular mem- 

 brane; the deeper notching of the margins of the soft dorsal and anal; 

 the longer spines of the preopercle; and the thickened, "adipose" 

 anal rays. 



Specimens. — Tokyo, 3 specimens, 6 to Sh inches; Onomichi, 1 

 specunen, 4^ inches; Hiroshima, 1 specimen, 7 inches; Nagasaki, 2 

 specimens, 9 inches and one 14 inches; Wakanoura, 4 specimens, 7 

 to 8| inches. 



Here described from measurements made on a specimen 8 inches 

 long from Wakanoura and one 14 inches long from Nagasaki. 



It is common in southern Japan, and southward to India and the 

 Philippines. 



(crocodilus, crocodile.) 



3. PLATYCEPHALUS Bloch. 



Platycephalus Block, Ichth., XII, 1795, p. 90 {spathula=insidiator=indicus). 

 Calliomorns Lacepede, Hist. Poiss., II, 1800, p. 343 {indicus). 

 Neoplatycephalus Castelnau, Proc. Zool. Soc. Victoria, I, 1872, p. 87, (grandis). 



Head broad and extremely depressed, being smooth or scarcely 

 armed; angle of preopercle with 2 spines, subequal, or the lower one 

 longest; lower face of preopercle without spine; vomer with small 

 canine-like teeth, in a crescentic band, which is placed at right angles 

 to the shaft of the bone; palatines with a single most prominent row 

 of canine-like teeth, teeth in jaws in broad villiform bands; no ocular 

 cirri; scales very small, more than 100 in t^q^ical species; lateral line 

 smooth. 



East Indies, Chinese and Japanese seas. Red Sea, Cape of Good 

 Hope, and Australia. Species less numerous than those of Thysa- 

 nophrys; a single one is known from Japan, the center of distribution 

 of the genus being apparently Australia. 



{nXarvg, flat; Ke(j)a\r'}^ head.) 



