CONGEEMUR.ENA PRORIGERA. 307 



Congermursena prorigera. 



Ophlsoma proriijerum Gilb., 1891, T. U. S. Mas., XIV., 350. 



Br. r. 17; D. 227; A. 176; P. 19 ; C. 10; Pores 136. 



Body moderately long, compressed, depth twelve times and length of 

 body cavity two and three fifths times in the total length. Head elongate, 

 four fifteenths of the entire length, five ninths of the distance from the 

 snout to the anal origin, somewhat compressed, narrowed and sharpened 

 in front, longitudinally wrinkled on the thorax. Skull with a low median 

 keel. Snout prominent beyond the lower jaw, one fourth as long as the 

 head, one and two thirds times the length of the eye, angled across the end 

 as if for rooting. Anterior nostril below the angle of the snout near the tip, 

 ■with a short tube ; posterior immediately in front of the eye, with promi- 

 nent margins. Mouth medium, longer than the snout, cleft almost to a 

 vertical from the hind border of the eye. Teeth small, subconical, in bands 

 on jaws and vomer. The transverse group on the head of the vomer is 

 externally exposed and is separated from the band on the shaft by a narrow 

 space. The band on the shaft of the vomer narrows backward and ends 

 below the space between the eye and the posterior nostril ; in front it is 

 hardly separated from the bands on the jaws. Eye large, half as long as 

 the snout, one ninth as long as the liead, not as wide as the interorbital 

 space. Gill apertures one and one half times the width of the eye, sepa- 

 rated by a space of the same width, extending little upward in front of the 

 pectorals. Lateral line distinct, with larger pores along the lower edge and 

 minute ones along the middle, in a low arch above the gill chamber, wider 

 forward, with one hundred and thirtj'-six pores. 



Dorsal and anal continuous with the caudal, moderately deep. Dorsal 

 origin one diameter of the eye farther forward than the gill opening. Anal 

 origin below the fifty-sixth ray of the dorsal. Caudal short ; while the fins 

 are really quite continuous about ten of the rays appear to spring from the 

 end of the column to form the narrow fin. Pectorals well developed, of 

 medium depth, equal in length to the distance from the snout to the poste- 

 rior border of the orbit, broadly i^ounded on the distal end, reaching when 

 applied to the side of the head less than one third of the distance to the 

 end of the snout or less than half of that to the orbit. A thirteen inch 



