THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 

 No. 53. MAY 1872. 



XXXV. — On Oneirodes Escliriclitii, Liitken, a new Lophioid 

 Fish from Oreenland. By Dr. Chr. LiJTKEN*. 



[Plate IX.] 



Some years ago Dr. Giintherf described and figured, under 

 the name of Melanocetus Johnsoniij a remarkable Lophioid 

 fish 3*8 inches in length, which JVlr. J. Y. Johnson had ob- 

 tained at JMadeira. This diflfered from all previously known 

 (or properly systematized) Batrachioid fishes, with the excep- 

 tion of Geratias HolholliXy in wanting the ventral fins, and 

 from the rare and large Greenland Lophioid just mentioned, 

 amongst other things, by its perfectly smooth and naked skin. 

 It may be regarded as a great rarity ; for neither ]\Ir. Johnson 

 nor ]VIr. Lowe, both of whom have occupied themselves so 

 much and with such great results about the marine animal- 

 life of ]\Iadeira, had heard it spoken of previously, and, be- 

 sides, the fish was quite unknown on the spot. Dr. Giinther 

 til inks that it is a deep-sea fish ; and this may certainly be 

 accepted with perfect justice with regard to this as with 

 regard to so so many others which are of rare occurrence 

 in literature and collections, because it is only accidentally 

 or under very peculiar circumstances that they are drawn 

 from their usual habitation in the nearly inaccessible depths 

 of the sea. In the specimen described by Giinther, apparently 

 the only one of which any thing is at present known, the 

 belly was very strongly distended, like a great pendent sac, 



• Translated by W. S. Dallas, F.L.S., from a separate copy of the paper 

 in the ' Oversigt over det Kongl. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Forhandl.' 1871, 

 pp. 56-74, communicated by the author. 



t Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1804, nl. 25. 



X Described by Kroyer in the ' Naturhistorisk Tidsskrift,' ser. 2. vol. i. 

 pp. 639-G49, and figured in the 'Voyage en Scandinavie, en Laponie &c. 

 Zoologie, Poissons,' pi. 0. 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Fo/. ix. 23 



