PankEn.—On a Specimen of the Great Ribbon Fish. 298 
The jaws have essentially the same characters as in other species, being 
extremely protrusible, and there are as usual six branchiostegal rays. The 
whole form of the head, including the mouth, in the figure of R. glesne, is 
probably incorrect, as it differs entirely from the most authentic figures. 
The specimen from which fig. 5 was taken had evidently had the jaws com- 
pletely destroyed, and the artist has made the hinder boundary of the pre- 
opercular take the form of a mouth with a very remarkable grin. 
Regalecus gladius (and by implication R. telum) is said by Günther to 
possess small teeth: Yarrell makes the same statement of R. glesne. 
My specimen like all the remaining species of the genus is quite eden- 
tulous.* 
In the Nelson specimen Mr. Travers states that “ from the lower lip 
depended a large number of rigid slender barbules, about sixteen inches 
long and of a brilliant red colour.” No such structures appear to have been 
met with by any other observer. Is it possible that this part of the descrip- 
tion was ‘compiled from information given” to the writer, as he himself 
says is the case with some portions of his account ? 
None of the species of Hegalecus possess scales, except on the lateral line; 
but the skin in R. banksii and R. pacificus is studded with numerous bony 
tubercles. In most of the other species it is raised into soft warts. Pro- 
bably in all, also, the skin is covered externally with a delicate silvery 
coating, removed by the slightest friction. In R. gladius and R. telum the 
body is marked with greyish spots of somewhat less diameter than the eye. 
In R. banksii and R. pacificus there are instead irregular blackish wavy lines, 
more or less vertical in position, on the anterior part of the body. In both 
these species, as well as in R. glesne and R. grillii, the tubercles into which 
the skin is raised are arranged in four (three or four, R. glesne) longitudinal 
bands; or more correctly (in R. banksii and R. pacificus at any rate) the 
sides of the body are raised into four longitudinal ridges, cut off obliquely 
in front by the lateral line, and having the tubercles on them larger than in 
the intervening depressed bands. 
Von Haast's description of R. pacificus as resembling frosted silver 
seems to me more applicable to the present specimen than any of the terms 
used in describing other examples. The dark irregular bands had the same 
general disposition as in Hancock’s and von Haast’s specimens. When I 
first saw the fish, within twenty-four hours of its capture, they were very 
* There is a strange discrepancy between Mr. Travers's account of the Nelson speci- 
men, and the systematic description of R. gladius, copied in the “Catalogue of N.Z. 
Fishes” as applying to that specimen. R. gladius as the description sets forth, possesses 
teeth, whereas Mr. Travers distinctly states - in his gi "sal jaws appeared to 
be entirely destitute of teeth. 
