PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 461 



A N'otacanthus, with body sleuder, comparatively elongate, little 

 liiglier over ventrals than over pectorals; witli its lateral line incon- 

 spicuous, nearer to the dorsal than to the ventral outline, not arched 

 anteriorly. Snont produced and compressed. Palatine teeth in a 

 single series. Ventrals joined by a membrane of considerable width 

 between the internal rays. The height of the body is about one-thir- 

 teenth of its length; its thickness, about one-twentietli. Tlie tail does 

 not appear to be in the least truncated, though so described by certain 

 authors, one of whom in his tignre shows a tail carried to an acute 

 point, making the length of the body considerably greater in i)ropor- 

 tion to its height than is indicated in his own description. Color yel- 

 lowish, with silvery reflections; the limb of the operculum, the margin 

 of the orbit, and the mouth darker. 



Radial formula: D. vi-Vii; A. xii-lOO-f; v. ii, iii-O (iy-8 according 

 to Filippi and Verany). 



This form was carefully tlgured and described by Kisso in 1840. He 

 had ai single specimen 148 millimeters long, which he recognized as an 

 inhabitant of abyssal depths {Sejeitr ahymes marini's vasenx). By some 

 error his description and tigure, otherwise perfectlj^ consistent, disa- 

 greed in resx)ect to the number of si)ines in the dorsal fin, the figure 

 showing 7, the description 9. Misled by this, Filippi and Verany 

 redescribed the same fish in ISoO, and to justify their course proposed 

 the theory that Eisso's descriptions and figures were based on different 

 specimens — a theory accepted without criticism by later writers, but 

 which we can not believe a true one. 



Risso was a careful and experienced worker, and it would be unjust 

 to the memory of one of the best Italian ichthyologists to admit that 

 he could be guilty of such an error. Then, too, he states positively 

 that he had only a single specimen. It is much more probable that the 

 German typesetter in the office of Wiegmann's Archiv mistook a "7" 

 for a "9" in Eisso's manuscript. 



Eisso's figure is a good one of a young V. mcditcrraneus and his 

 description agrees with it perfectly with the exception of this one 

 figure in type. 



The specimen described and figured by Giinther under tlie name V. 

 mediterraneus is not a Mediterranean form, but one from the Southern 

 Pacific, and has been referred by us to a new genus and species. 



Moreau is in error in referring the figures of Bloch and Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes to this species. {See discussion under NotacaiitliHs 

 nasus.) 



N. honaimrtii was described under the name 1^. mediterraneus by 

 Filippi and Verany in 1857 from a specimen obtained at ISTice, and pre- 

 served in the Zoological Museum at Turin. Two others from the same 

 locality, referred by Moreau to this species, are in the nuiseum in Paris. 

 The Trarailleur and Talisman obtained four additional individuals, 

 one from the coast of ISoudan, at a depth of 1,232 meters, and another 



