Indian Deep-sea Fishes. 145 



Benthohatis Moreshyi^ sp. n. 



The disk is oval, its long axis, which is fore and aft, is a 

 little shorter than the tail. The large, flat, semicircular snout 

 occupies a good deal more than a tliird the whole length of 

 the disk. 



The eyes are represented by two small unpigmented spots, 

 each not mucli bigger than the head of a pin, situated one in 

 front of either spiracle ; a slender optic nerve passes to each, 

 and expands into a vesicle so small as to need a lens for its 

 recognition. 



The mouth is small and protractile ; the teeth are small 

 rhomboidal plates, with the posterior angle strongly and 

 acutely produced, and are arranged in mosaic in oblique 

 series. The gill-openings are large and well-spaced. 



The dorsal fins are placed rather close together behind the 

 level of the ventrals, and, like the caudal, are thick and 

 fleshy. The ventrals are of the usual shape ; though they 

 are separate, the skin between them is loose and copious. 

 The whole animal is covered with a perfectly smooth, soft, 

 glandular, purplish-black skin ; scattered on the disk and 

 round the edge of it are some small white pores, not much 

 smaller than the eyes ; in one specimen part of the tips of the 

 second dorsal and caudal fins are white. 



Two males (each about 14 inches long) and a young one, 

 from off the Travancore coast, 430 fath. 



Named in memory of Capt. Moresby, of the Indian Navy, 

 whose surveys (1834:-o8) in the seas where this curious fish 

 is found are known to all readers of Darwin's 'Coral-Reefs.' 



Family RajidaB. 

 Raja, Cuv., Gthr. 

 Raja Powelli, sp. n. 



Near R. Murrayi^ Gthr,, but has a more produced snout 

 and, sex for sex, is much smoother. 



The preoral portion is a little more tlian a third the entire 

 length of the disk, and ends in a projecting snout, the length 

 of which beyond the nostrils is somewhat more than the 

 distance between the outer angles of the latter. 



The antero-lateral margins of the disk, from the snout to 

 the rounded pectoral angles, are broadly sinuous. The width 

 of the interorbital space is hardly more than the length of the 

 orbit. There are several spines on the anterior edge of the 

 orbit and one near its posterior angle, and there are numerous 



