]\lv. A. Alcock on Indian Bdthrjhial Fishes. 357 



Alepocephalus, liisso. 

 18. Alepocephalus Blanfordii, sp. n. 



B. 6. D. 16. A. 17. P. 11. V. 6-7. L. lat. circa 70. 

 Pyloric ca^ca 12. 



Lenatli of liead one third, height of body two elevenths, of 

 the total without the caudaL 



Tlie lengtli of the obtusely-pointed depressed snout is barely 

 greater than the diameter of the huge orbit, or two sevenths 

 of the length of the head. 



The eyes are hardly half a diameter apart, with the large 

 nostrils placed close together in front of their angle. 



The mouth-cleft is almost horizontal, and the upper jaw, 

 which reaches just beyond and rests upon the anterior border 

 of the orbit, completely encloses the mandible on all sides ; a 

 row of fine teeth in each jaw and on each prominent palatine. 

 Gill-openings very wide, the gill-membranes entirely 

 separate and not overlapping ; the branchiostegal rays are 

 but little concealed by the opercular bones, and the whole 

 gill-cover is clotlied by a continuation of the thick scaleless 

 skin that covers the head ; gill-rakers numeroii!^, close-set, 

 broadly lanceolate, acute ; pseudobranchia3 large and coarse. 



Body covered with thick deciduous cycloid scales; a scale 

 i'rom the abdomen is nearly b'b millim. in the horizontal and 

 .5 millim. in the vertical diameter. The dorsal and anal fins, 

 which are similar in form, equal in extent, and opposite, lie 

 well within the posterior third of the body (measured without 

 the caudal) ; the caudal is deeply forked, with many rudi- 

 mentary rays at its base. The ventrals arise almost in the 

 middle of the body, nearer to the anal than to the pectorals. 



Stomach siphonal ; a row of fourteen very large and long 

 pyloric ca^ca embraces its pyloric moiety ; the intestine, which 

 when unravelled is about twice the entire length of the fish, 

 is arranged as in Alepocephalus hicolor (Ann. & Mag. Nat. 

 Hist., Aug. 1891, p. 134), but the wall of the coiled up 

 small intestine is much thicker, and the straight hinder gut 

 is held by a stout mesentery. 



Colour : head and fins black ; body lavender-grey. 

 A fine male, a little over 14 inches long, from Station 128, 

 902 fathoms. 



The straight large gut in this species, as in Alepocephalus 

 hicolor J is remarkable for the great thickness of its wall and 

 for its contracted lumen ; only in the present case, although 

 the circular muscular coat is conspicuously thick, it is not 



