300 GOBIES OF THE PHILIPPINES 



a narrower paler band continues back along upper part of side 

 to upper edge of caudal base; on basal part of caudal is a con- 

 spicuous, blackish brown, rounded spot; the other fins are all 

 colorless, the anal with some brown spots along its base. 



Here described from the type, 32 millimeters long, collected 

 by me in Dumaguete River, Dumaguete, Oriental Negros. An- 

 other specimen, 28 millimeters long, collected at the same time 

 and place, has a bluish pearly band around snout on upper lip, 

 back over lower part of eye to base of pectoral, ending in a bluish 

 pearly spot; the caudal is conspicuously crossbarred with six 

 dark brown bands, its tip blackish, and a dark brown spot at its 

 base ; the dorsals are brown, the second dorsal crossbarred with 

 darker spots; the anal is brown with a blackish margin. 



This species is close to Steindachner's Sicydium elegans, from 

 the Tonga Islands. 



Pulchellus, beautiful little. 



Genus 67. SICYOPTERUS Gill 



Sicyoptems GILL, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. (1860) 101; BLEEKER, 

 Arch. Neerl. Sci. Nat. 9 (1874) 313; Revision des Sicydinii, Versl. 

 Akad. Amsterdam II 9 (1876) 272. 



Sicydium GiiNTHER, Cat. Fishes Brit. Mus. 3 (1861) 91 (pro parte) ; 

 GRANT, Proc. Zool. Soc. (1884) 152 (pro parte). 



The teeth in upper jaw of singular shape, small, closely ap- 

 pressed in a single row, movable, attached by ligaments, strongly 

 curved, their tips projecting from the gum, honey colored and 

 tricuspid in Philippine species, bicuspid in a Samoan species. 

 The form and arrangement of the cusps of the teeth are al- 

 together different from the two types of tricuspid teeth de- 

 scribed and figured by Grant in the exceedingly valuable paper 

 cited above. Behind the outer visible row of teeth lie numerous 

 parallel rows of young teeth or buds hidden in the gum, their 

 tips disproportionately large and coarsely trident-shaped, the 

 prongs of uniform size; as the teeth of the first row are worn 

 out or broken they are replaced by the buds next in line; the 

 shape of the teeth, both cusps and basal portion, or root, varies 

 in the different species, each having its characteristic pattern. 



The body low, the dorsal but little elevated, convex or flattened 

 anteriorly, the ventral profile nearly horizontal, thick, rounded, 

 only the posterior part laterally compressed, the caudal peduncle 

 deep, the head usually large, blunt, broader than deep, with a 



