354 Mr. A, Alcock on Indian Bathyhial Fishes. 



Family Pleuronectidas. 

 Aphoristia, Kcaup. 



12. Aplioristia Wood-Masoni, Alcock. 



Aphoristia Wood-Masoni, Alcock, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. vol. Iviii. 

 pt. ii., 1889, p. 294, pi. xvii. tig. 1 (outline). 



Three fine specimens from Station 132, 475 fathoms. 

 The number of dorsal rajs ranges from 90 to 08, and of 

 anal from 78 to 84. 



Order P H Y S O S T O M I. 

 Family SternoptychidaB. 

 GONOSTOMA, Rafinesque. 



13. Gonostoma elongatum, Gilnther. 



Gonostoma elonqatnm, Gliuther, * Challenger ' Deep-sea Irishes, p. 17^3, 

 pi. xlv. fig. B ; Alcock, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., Aug. 1891, p. 127. 



A fine female specimen, 7f inches long, was taken at 

 Station 127, 1200 fathoms. From it we can confirm the 

 observation that scales are absent in this species. From the 

 fact that this individual was not only alive and active when 

 taken from the trawl, but remained alive for about a quarter 

 of an hour after it was brought on board, I think we may 

 doubt whether it came from any great depth. No display of 

 luminosity was observed, though it was watched for. 



The ovaries in this specimen are long narrow tubes, ex- 

 tending throughout the length of the abdomen, in which the 

 developing ova form a long string thrown into deep close 

 pleats or laminas. In a magnified transverse section of an 

 ovary, stained with carmine, very little stroma is seen except 

 where the ovarian blood-vessels course (longitudinally) along 

 the tube ; no follicular epithelium is visible ; each ovum is 

 bounded by a fine egg-membrane, within which tlie egg- 

 substance forms a thick ring round the large nucleus, the 

 egg-substance being granular and studded with large vesicles 

 which do not take the stain ; the nucleus is very definitely 

 limited, although no membrane can be distinguished, and it 

 stains so deeply that sometimes no further details can be 

 made out, though generally from one to six even more deeply 

 stained nucleoli are seen ; its diameter is about half that of 

 the whole ovum. 



The stomach of Gonostoma elongatum, as investigated 

 microscopically by transverse sections through its wall, has 



