54 DEEP SEA FISHES. 



.species of Sebastes ; compared with Sebastes diploproa the depth is greater, 

 and is maintained farther backward under the soft dorsal, thus giving 

 the back a higher and longer arch and making the caudal iwrtion appear 

 shorter. Body much compressed, depth about one third of the total 

 length, and greatest width about two fifths of the depth ; caudal peduncle 

 small, its greatest depth less than one fourth of that of the body ; lower 

 outline of the body much less arched than the upper. Head short, hardly 

 one third of the entire length, two thirds as wide as deep ; crown broad, 

 convex transversely, descending rapidly in a nearly straight line from the 

 nape to the intermaxillary prominence on the snout ; sides nearly vertical. 

 Excepting those of the preopercle the spines of the head are rather small 

 and feeble ; there is a short spine at each side of the nape above the occi- 

 put, another above each preopercle, and two smaller ones above each 

 suprascapular ; the spines above the eye or on the internarial area are 

 hardly perceptible ; at the anterior extremity of the suborbital ridge there 

 is a short antrorse spine, backward from this one there are two rather close 

 together directed down and back, below the orbit there is another, and 

 above the end of the maxillary there are two more ; there are five short 

 preopercular spines, the third or middle one of which is the largest ; and 

 there are two opercular spines, the upper of which is the longer and more 

 slender, the lower the stronger, both of them at the ends of a couple 

 of ridges across the operculum. The excavations in the skull for the ves- 

 sels of the lateral system are broad and shallow. There is a concave, dish- 

 like depression above the eyes on the middle of the crown behind which 

 the parietal region is higher and quite flat. Snout large, twice as wide as 

 the eye, nearly as long as broad, blunt, most prominent in the symphyseal 

 angle of the lower jaws. Nostrils superior, nearly midway from eye to end 

 of snout ; anterior smaller and provided with a short tube and flap. Mouth 

 very large, cleft rising forward a little above the horizontal; maxillary 

 more than half as long as the head, reaching backward of the orbit, with 

 a longitudinal keel along its middle, subtruncate and as wide as the eye 

 at the end. Teeth in villiform bands on jaws, vomer, and palatines, Plate 

 IX., fig. 2. Eye small, hardly one sixth as long as the head, nearly two 

 fifths as wide as the interorbital space. Gill covers with thin margins 

 and weak spines. Gills four; lamello9 short; rakers three plus eleven 

 (with several rudiments), slender, blade-like, acuminate, striate on the 

 sides, denticulate on the inner edges, not as long as the eye. Pseudo- 



