LAMPROGRAMMUS. 173 



LAMrUO(;RAMMUS. 

 Lamprogrammus Aleock, 1891, Ann. Mag., VITI., 34. 



Outlines resembling those of other Brotuloids. Head and body greatly 

 compressed, the latter tapering to very slender backward : body cavity less 

 tlian one half of the total length. Skull narrow, deep, convex on the toj) ; 

 snout broad, blunt. Mouth large, somewhat oblique, lower jaw little longer. 

 Teeth in villiform bands on jaws, vomer, and palatines. Nostrils small ; 

 posterior near the front edge of the upper half of the cj'e and anterior 

 directly forward near the end of the snout. No barbels. Four gill.'', a slit 

 behind the fourth ; laminjv; short ; gill rakers well developed ; gill openings 

 wide, membranes not united, free from the isthmus. No pseudobranchia). 

 Bones of the skull thin with prominent ridges separating the wide and deep 

 muciparous channels. Opercular spine weak; a much weaker and blunter 

 one on the lower edge of the preopercle. Vertical fins continuous ; dorsal 

 origin near the head on the nape. Pectorals small, simple. No ventrals. 

 Vent remote from the pectorals. Pjdoric appendages few and short. Head 

 and body covered with small, thin, deciduous scales, those protecting the 

 lateral sj'stem rather smaller. Lateral line wide, covered by the skin and 

 scales, probabl}' luminous. Disks of the lateral sj-stem vertically elongate, 

 each resting on a large scale that is wider than long. 



The figures and description of Lainprogrammiis ni(/er, published by Alcock, 

 and copied by Goode and Bean, give a very imperfect idea of the lateral 

 system as it appears on the species described below. They show the line 

 organs as they would appear on the flanks after the removal of the outer 

 scales and skin, if the intermediate scales and spaces of the series and the 

 longitudinal white line connecting one gland with another w'ere omitted. 

 The arrangement of the svstem on the head is described below and is figured 

 on Plates XXXIV. and LXXXI., fig. 1. Of the three known species of the 

 genus two Avere taken by the " Investigator," one of them in the Andaman 

 Sea the other in the Bay of Bengal ; the third is first made known by the 

 present "Albatross" collection and was taken in the Gulf of Panama. All 

 ■were secured at depths between 400 and 700 fathoms. 



