of the Bay of Bengal &c. 393 
length of the head and exceeding the width of the flattened 
interorbital space. Nostrils very large, the anterior separated 
from the posterior by a broad loop of skin. Cleft of mouth 
hardly extending behind the anterior border of the orbit. 
Barbel as long as the eye. A broad band of villiform teeth 
in each jaw and in the upper an outer row of considerably 
enlarged teeth. Gull-lamine broad. Head and body covered 
with spinigerous imbricating scales, those on the body of a 
uniform moderate size, with about fifteen longitudinal parallel 
rows of spinelets, the last in each row projecting far beyond 
the edge of the scale; and towards the distal end of each 
interspace between these rows is a short series of similar 
spinelets only slightly projecting beyond the edge of the scale. 
Kight series of scales between the first dorsal fin and the 
lateral line. Dorsal fins separated by an interval equal to 
the length of the base of the first. Second dorsal spine as 
long as the head, with fifteen equal semirecumbent barbs 
along its front edge. Outer ventral ray produced into a long 
filament. 
Colours in spirit :—Sepia-brown ¥ first dorsal, pectoral, and 
ventral fins black, anal edged with black. 
Twenty-two long vermiform pyloric ceca. A large air- 
bladder. 
One specimen, 8 inches long, the tail a healed “ stump.” 
Hab. Bay of Bengal, south by west of North Sentinel 
Island (Andamans), in 130 to 250 fathoms. 
Macrurus brevirostris, sp. nov. 
Bs 6 Ds toe Ps 19. 2 VL: 
Snout conspicuously short, with a prominent median mar- 
ginal tubercle. The horizontal diameter of the eye is nearly 
one third the length of the head, nearly twice the length of 
the snout without the nasal tubercle, and much in excess of 
the width of the interorbital space. Mouth inferior, its cleft 
just reaching the level of the anterior border of the orbit. 
Barbel slender, not so long as the eye. ‘Teeth in a broad 
villiform band in each jaw, and in the upper two outer rows 
of enlarged teeth, those in the outermost row regular and 
much enlarged, those in the more internal row irrecular and 
less enlarged. Guill-membranes broadly united. Scales small 
on the head, uniformly large on the body. A scale from the 
abdomen has more than twenty approximated rows of close- 
set conical spinelets, of which five arrangements can be easily 
distinguished, according to the point from which the scale is 
