﻿524 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 102 



shades off into a very pale area, which extends over the caudal; this 

 pale area bright golden in life ; pale area extends anteriorly farther 

 along base of anal, and a little way along base of dorsal ; on smaller 

 specimens the dark pigment extends farther posteriorly until there 

 may even be a little on the base of the middle caudal rays, but always 

 the fish is lighter posteriorly than anteriorly ; no spots or markings on 

 the head or body, except for an indistinct light band from the eye down 

 across the upper lip and an indistinct dark streak directly behind the 

 orbit; a continuous dusky band along basal portion of dorsal back 

 to where light area of body begins, covering basal two-thirds of 

 spinous doi'sal, where it contains, over the first three spines, a horizon- 

 tal, elongate, black streak ; anteriorly'' the distal part of spinous dorsal 

 clear except for margin ; posteriorly this dark margin becomes wider 

 until it melts into lower dusky band ; soft dorsal with a dusky marginal 

 band, but remainder of fin clear except for basal pigment anteriorly 

 and a little pigment along each ray ; in smaller specimens the dusky 

 basal band extends to end of soft dorsal ; anal fin with a fine clear band 

 mesially, on anterior rays, which broadens posteriorly to cover base 

 and more than half of fin; rest of fin, including whole distal edge, 

 dusljy except for fleshy pads on tips of rays, which are lighter ; caudal 

 entirely pale ; pectoral rays dark, especially lower ones, but membranes 

 clear and light; pelvics dusky, but lighter than body next to them; 

 eyes almost black, as are the nasal cirri. Female : Same as male ex- 

 cept light posterior part of body continued to part of caudal peduncle, 

 more of anal dusky, and there is some pigment on the distal two- 

 thirds of middle of caudal. 



ReTTMrhs. — Wliile the description of hicolor by Day is brief and the 

 fin counts contain either none of the spines, or not all of them, 

 there is no question but that he was dealing with this well-marked 

 species, as is true of the specimens described by Johnstone as S. 

 furcatus and Hora and Mukerji as S. hurmanicits. 



The series of specimens described as S. melanosoma from Christmas 

 Island might be considered as being subspecifically distinct from the 

 above, for all these specimens have 18 soft rays in the anal (all the 

 New Hebrides specimens have 19 or 20 soft anal rays), the upper 

 and lower caudal rays either do not project, or project less than one- 

 fourth the length of middle caudal rays, and the color is a uniform 

 rich brown, scarcely lighter below than above. However, of the three 

 specimens from Ponape one had 18 soft anal rays and the other two 

 had 19, and there is no clearly distinguished color break posteriorly. 

 One has the caudal rays extended by the length of the middle caudal 

 rays, the other two by less than one-third the length of the middle 

 caudal rays. There is no dependable evidence in this gi^oup of sub- 

 speciation. 



