!(52 The Philippine Journal of Science ™™ 



interspaces ; ground color of body ivory white to brownish white ; 

 tip of snout and tip of tail white. 



In another specimen, from Puerto Galera, Mmdoro, with 

 a length of 628 millimeters, the depth is but 9 milhmeterB, 

 being thus almost one-seventieth of the total length head 32 

 millimeters long, 19f in total length; head and trunk together 

 290 millimeters; tail, 335; origin of dorsal 14 millimeters behind 

 tip of snout, or much nearer snout than gill opening; diameter 

 of eye 2.5 millimeters; gape, 9; mouth extends about a diameter 

 beyond eye; dorsal ends 37 millimeters before tip of tail; the 



aI1 Tnis specimen has thirty-one narrow chestnut brown rings 

 with very much wider pale or whitish tan interspaces, and one 

 or two large circular or irregular chestnut brown spots on each 

 side, or else an incomplete ring in each interspace. This is the 

 variety fasciata Gunther or oculata Bleeker. 



A third specimen, from Iba, Zambales, measures 545 milli- 

 meters in length and has twenty-eight rings, with occasionally 

 a circular spot between them. 



Height 52 to 70 in total length, head, 18 to 21; eye 10 to 14 

 in head; pectoral fin is reduced to a minute vestigial flap; 

 dorsal fin begins much nearer tip of snout than gill opening; 

 the whole fish is pale, whitish to brown, with from twenty-six 

 to thirty-tnree black or brown rings which include the fins, tip 

 of snout and of tail being white or light colored; the interspaces 

 may vary greatly in width and may be spotted or blotched in 

 various ways, as in the variety described above, or in the variety 

 elaps Fowler, where the broad interspaces contain one to five 

 brown spots or blotches. In the variety semicincta Bleeker 

 some or most of the dark rings fail to meet around belly. 



This striking-looking eel reaches a length of nearly 1 meter 

 and is particularly snaky looking as it creeps around the crevices 

 of coral reefs. It bears a remarkable resemblance to Leiuranus 

 semicinctus, the two species often living in the same hole. 



This species occurs from the Red Sea and Zanzibar north 

 to the Riu Kiu Islands, throughout the Indo-Australian Archi- 

 pelago, and in the western Pacific to Tahiti and New Zealand. 

 Genus LEITJRANTJS Bleeker 

 Leiuranus Bleeker, Verh. Bat. Gen. 25 (1852) Muraena 36. 

 Small, elongate, scaleless, cylindrical eels, with small pectorals 

 and no caudal, the vertical fins low and not confluent; head 

 small, the long, pointed, projecting snout flattened on lower side, 



