23,2 H err e: Philippine Eels 213 



teeth is difficult to make out, the inner row being apparently 

 continuous with those of the intermaxillary plate. This may 

 be the young of G. monochrous, but Bleeker's description fails to 

 show its identity, and I cannot place it under the Murmia 

 boschi of Weber and Beaufort. 

 Gymnothorax meleagris (Shaw). 



Murxna meleagris Shaw, Nat. Misc. (1809) pi. 220; Richardson, 



Voyage Erebus and Terror, Fishes (1844-48) 93; Gunther, Fische 



d. Siidsee 3 (1910) 410; Weber and Beaufort, Fishes Indo-Austr. 



Arch. 3 (1916) 367. 



Gymnothorax duivenbodei Bleeker, Atlas Ichth. Murjen. 4 (1864) 89 



pi. 25, fig. 1. 

 Gymnothorax buroensis Bleeker, Atlas Ichth. Murjen. 4 (1864) 90, 



pi. 46, fig. 1. 

 Gymnothorax meleagris Jordan and Evermann, Bull. U. S. Fish 



Comm. 23 (1903) (1905) 94. 

 Gymnothorax meleagris and buroensis Jordan and Seale, Bull. U. S. 

 Bur. Fisheries 25 (1905) (1906) 197, 199. 



Greatest depth 1.56 in head, 3.2 in trunk, which is about 

 twice (2.05) as long as head; interorbital space one-sixth the 

 length of head, which is three times as long as its greatest 

 breadth; the large round eye 1.5 in the narrow, rather blunt 

 snout, and 7.8 in head; origin of dorsal eleven-thirteenths the 

 length of head from tip of snout; gill openings smaller than 

 eye ; cleft of mouth horizontal, closing completely, reaching more 

 than an eye diameter beyond eye, 21 in head; teeth of upper 

 jaw in two series, the outer one of fifteen or twenty small, de- 

 pressible, compressed sharp teeth which are directed backwards ; 

 inner row has six or eight long, sharp, depressible canines ; there 

 are indications of a third row of canines on one side ; outer row 

 of teeth continued on intermaxillary plate, those at tip of jaw 

 smallest ; a group of depressible canines in the middle line, the 

 second and third of the median series the longest teeth of mouth ; 

 each mandible with about twenty-five or thirty small, sharp, 

 compressed, subequal teeth, their points directed backward; a 

 group of larger canines near tip of lower jaw; all teeth de- 

 pressible; teeth on vomer small, pointed, a single series of six 

 anteriorly, merging into an irregular double row of about nine 

 more posteriorly. 



Color in alcohol purplish brown apparently overlying a gray 

 ground color, with spots of dark or blackish brown becoming 

 fused and definitely arranged in crossbands toward and upon 

 tail, the lighter color showing as irregular whitish flecks or spots 



