190 Dr. A. Giiuther on the Immature State 



tions are Terehratulina caput -serpentis, wliicli ranges, as already 

 noticed, from the Arctic to the Mediterranean Seas and to the 

 seas of North America, and is very closely represented in the 

 North Asiatic provinces by T. Japunica and ahyssicola. Another 

 exception to the local distribution of species is presented in Wald- 

 heimia picta, which is found both at Java and at the Friendly 

 Islands. A third exception is one of similar character : Tere- 

 hratella sanguinea inhabits both the Philippine and Sandwich 

 Islands. And a fourth exception occurs in Terehratula uva, 

 collected originally at Guatemala, but of which small specimens, 

 in the British Museum and in Mr. Cuming^s collections, have 

 been received from the Falkland Islands. 



8. Lastly, the Australo-Zealandic province may be noticed 

 as being the most prolific of forms and brilliancy of colour ; but 

 all the subgenera of this province, with the exception of Magas, 

 have species, though not the same, in other provinces. 



XXI. — On the Immature State of the Sea-devil (Lophius piscato- 

 rius). By Dr. Albert GOnther. 



[Plate X. figs. C-E.] 



Small specimens of the European species of the Fishing-Frog 

 or Sea-devil are extremely scarce in collections, and scarcely any 

 attention has been paid to tlie remarkable changes in the form 

 of the body and fins to which this fish is subject with age. 

 Valenciennes is the only author who enters upon the subject at 

 all : he says (Cuv. & Val. Hist. Nat. Poiss. xii. p. 375), '' The 

 specimen examined is 2 inches long ; the disk of its head is only 

 one-third of the total length ; and the pectoral fins, which are 

 as long as the head, appear to be more elongate than in old 

 individuals. The same is the case with the tail, measured 

 from the gill-opening. It appears to have a greater number of 

 tentacles on the skin, especially on the pectorals; the margin 

 of the pectorals appears to be finely ciliated. D. 11." The 

 difi"erences from old individuals, as we find them stated here 

 by Valenciennes, agi*ee in the chief points with our observations ; 

 but it is evident that Valenciennes took his notes from a muti- 

 lated specimen, in which the delicate appendages of the fins had 

 been lost or shrivelled up, either previously to or during its 

 preservation in spirits. 



The two specimens observed by Diiben and Keren on the 

 western coast of Norway were much more perfect ; they were 

 94 mm. and 78 mm. long, and exhibited such remarkable dif- 

 ferences from the specimens commonly observed, that those 

 naturalists were induced to describe them as a new form, under 



