Description of a Fish resembling the Stylephorus, 85 



They were of a fleshy consistence, and contained about thirty 

 slender rays. 



The distance from the mouth to the vent was fourteen 

 inches. All the rest of the length, amounting to fifty-eight 

 inches, tapered away gradually from an inch in depth almost 

 to a point. 



The stomach was ample and capacious ; the intestine di- 

 rect and short ; the liver distinct and well-formed. 



Filiform processes, or excrescences, about an inch in length, 

 depended on each side of the whitish stripe all the way from 

 the head down the back to the taU. The space between them 

 is nearly an inch, so that they probably amounted to fifty 

 pairs. These cirrhi, or threads, have no expansion or enlarge- 

 ment at their extremities. 



The points of resemblance between this animal and the Sty- 

 lephorus described by Shaw, may be easily gathered even from 

 his bad description and worse figure. They are both furnished 

 with the same curiously organized mouth, the same fins and 

 elongated caudal process. The lateral line described above 

 corresponds with the " double fibre" of Shaw, and they are 

 both scaleless. In the Stylephorus the dorsal is described as 

 not being continuous. He says, however, " I am not without 

 my doubts whether it might not in the living animal have 

 run quite to the tail, and whether the specimen might not have 

 received injury in that part." 



The colour of Shaw's fish is described as silvery, but those 

 who are acquainted with the fugacious nature of metallic co- 

 lours in this class of animals, are aware that nothing positive 

 can be deduced from this accidental circumstance. The fact 

 of their being captured in different latitudes, and the differ- 

 ence in their she, is of little importance. 



The eyes of the Stylephorus are described as being large 

 and pedunculated ; in the animal noticed above, they are small 

 and sessile. Shaw examines carefully to find marks of a re- 

 ticulated structure, but without success. The circumstance of 



