BASSOGIGAS STEJ.LIFEKOIDES. IGl 



Bones of the skull thin and fragile, deeply excavated for the nuici parous 

 canals. Snout shorter than the orbit, depressed, broadly rounded at the 

 end, prominent on the top forward of the nostrils. Mouth wide ; lower 

 jaw little if any longer than the upper ; maxillary broadened and trun- 

 cate at the end, reaching backward of the middle of the eye. Teeth 

 small, in villiform bands on jaws and palatines and in a prominent V-shaped 

 group on the vomer. Chin with a slight knob below the symphisis. Eye 

 moderately large ; orbit one fourth as long as the head, longer than the 

 snout, in length equal to the width of the interorbital space. Preorbitals 

 and suborbitals widely expanded ; channels of the lateral system on the 

 head wide and deep. Operculum with a medium sized spine on its hinder 

 angle and another, of less prominence, directed downward from the lower 

 corner. Gills four ; lamellaj short ; gill rakers comparatively few and 

 short ; gill openings wide ; membranes hardly united, free from the 

 isthmus. No pseudobranchiae. 



Vertical fins continuous ; dorsal origin above the axil of the pectoral ; 

 caudal elongate, slender, pointed ; pectorals somewhat broad ; ventrals close 

 together, each of a simple, slender, filamentary ray three fourths as long 

 as the head. 



Light olivaceous brown, probably yellowish in life, with scattered com- 

 paratively large puncticulations of black ; inside of mouth whitish to yel- 

 lowish ; abdominal cavity lined with black ; dorsal and anal with blackish 

 margins ; caudal blackish. 



Named in honor of Professor D. S. Jordan, in token of a hearty appre- 

 ciation of his work in North American Ichthyology. 



Bassogigas stelliferoides. 



Neohythites steUiferoides Gilb., 1890, P. U. S. :\rus., 112. 



Bassogigas stelliferoides .Jord. & Everm., 1898, Bull. 47, U. S. Mus., 2516. 



Plate LXXX. fig. 1, Lat. Si/st. 



Br. r. 8 ; D. 96 ; A. 81-83 ; V. 1, bifid ; P. 27-29 ; C. 8 ; LI. 104, ca. ; 

 Ltr. 40, ca. 



Head and body compressed, length and taper moderate ; head four 



and three fourtlis times in the total length ; depth four fifths of the 



n 



