350 Mr. A. Alcock on Indian Bathyhial Fishes. 



deep-set eye, which again measures about one eighth the 

 length of tlie head. The nostrils are inconspicuous and are 

 situated one in front of the angle of the eye, the other at the 

 tip of the snout. 



Mouth large, with its cleft obliquely ascending, and with 

 the mandible projecting beyond the thin broad maxilla, which 

 last in length is a little more than lialf that of the head. 

 Villiform teeth in broadish bands in the premaxillai and 

 mandible, and in very narrow bands on the palatines and 

 expanded head of the vomer. 



Muciparous system of mandible and preoperculum highly 

 developed. 



Gill-openings extremely wide, the gill-membranes being 

 entirely separated from each other and from the isthmus ; 

 eight branchiostegal rays ; four gills, with narrow laraint>i 

 and short papilliform gill-rakers; pseudobranchise absent. 



The head is covered with a delicate scaleless skin, which in 

 life, owing to an extraordinary storage in and beneath it of 

 mucus, forms a uniformly thick velvety cap. The nape and 

 body are covered with membranous, deciduous, cycloid scales, 

 of moderate size. No lateral line can be distinguished. 



The fin-rays are all extremely delicate ; the dorsal fin, 

 which begins about a snout-length behind the level of the 

 gill-opening, and the anal, which begins nearly a head-length 

 behind the same level, are confluent with the caudal at its 

 base. The narrow pointed pectorals are a little longer than 

 the rostrorbital portion of the head. There are no traces of 

 ventrals. 



Stomach subsiphonal and without any ctecal sac; no 

 pyloric ca^ca ; a large thin- walled air-bladder. 



Colour uniform dark sepia; fins black. 



An immature specimen, 8 inches long, from Station 128, 

 902 fathoms. 



1 have not attempted to give the radial formula, as no 

 accurate determination could be made without sacrificing the 

 unique specimen. 



llephthocara is to be classed with Bellotia, Giglioli (Zool. 

 Anzeiger, vi. Jahrg., 1883, p, 399), Ahxeterion, Vaillant 

 (Exped. Sci. du ' Travailleur ' et du ' Talisman,' Poiss. 

 p. 282), and Lamjjrogrammvs, mihi, with all of which it 

 agrees in the absence of ventral fins. From Bellotia and 

 Alexeterion it differs, as these differ from one another, in the 

 nature of the integument and in the nature of the dentition ; 

 it is further distinguished from Bellotia by its more nume- 

 rous branchiostegal rays, by its small, almost rudimentary 

 gill-rakers, by the absence of a lateral line, and by the rela- 



