158 DEEP SEA FISHES. 



together, little behind the humeral symphysis, with a single ray. The dis- 

 tance from snout to vent is more than one third of the total length. Scales 

 very small, deciduous, entirely covering body and head. Pyloric casca eight 

 or nine. Lateral line distinct on the anterior half of the length. The pre- 

 opercular spines, or angles, are less prominent and ^yeaker in the young. 

 Posterior nostril close to the eye ; anterior on a slightly tumid prominence at 

 each side of the snout halfway from the posterior to the end and about the 

 same distance from the lip. 



Described specimen eight and three fourths inches in length. 



Dark brown ; gill membranes, linings of mouth, branchial chamber and 

 belly, and fins black. 



Monomeropus malispinosus sp. n. 



Plate XL. fig. 2. 



Br. r. 8; D. 99; A. 82; V. 1; P. 26; C. 8; LI. ca. 110. 



Body narrow, tapering regularly, nape high ; depth equal length of head 

 or two elevenths of the total length. Head moderately compressed, prom- 

 inently convex from month to interocular space, and rather less so to and 

 on the occiput, about five and one half times in the total. Snout short, four 

 fifths as long as the eye, rounded, blunt, high in the internarial region, 

 covered by scales. Mouth large, cleft descending backward in a wide 

 curve to a vertical from the hind border of the eye ; maxillary reaching two 

 thirds of a diameter of the eye farther back, much widened at the posterior 

 extremity, wholly separated from the mouth cleft by the intermaxillaries ; 

 intermaxillary not extending farther backward than the hinder edge of the 

 eye. Teeth small, closely set in wide villiform bands on intermaxillaries, 

 mandibles, and palatines, in bunches on the basibranchials, and in a short, 

 crescent-shaped band on the vomer. Eye nearly one fourth as long as the 

 head, one and one fourth times in the snout, Avhich in turn is three fifths of 

 the interorbital space. A slender spine on the opercle above the base of the 

 pectoral. Two short, compressed, rather blunt preopercular spines. Skin 

 of head thin, covered with small scales, plainly showing the large mucous 

 chambers in the skull beneath it. Pseudobrauchiaj very small. Gill 



