176 R. E. Lloyd : New species of Eagle-Rays. [Vol. II, 



long cephalic flippers or horns one on either side of the head. They 

 may be briefly defined thus — 



(i) Dicerohatis (Blainville) has an inferior mouth, teeth in 

 both jaws, and a smooth skin. 



(2) Ceratohatis (Boulenger) like Dicerohatis , but teeth restric- 



ted to the upper jaw. 



(3) Ceratoptera (Miiller and Henle) has an anterior mouth, 



teeth in the lower jaw only, and numerous denticles 

 on the skin. 



Our specimen from Puri evidently belongs to the last of these 

 {Ceratoptera), although the genus has not been hitherto recorded from 

 the Bay of Bengal,^ and is known from only a very few specimens. 



Two species have been recognised : Ceratoptera vampyrus 

 (Dumeril), found in American seas, bears 100 series of teeth on the 

 lower jaw (this is the Mantabirostrisoi American writers, the much- 

 dreaded devil fish of the Panama pearl fisheries) ; the other, 

 C. ehrenbergii , bears 200 series of teeth, seven in each series, and 

 is found in the Red Sea. 



In a footnote to page 498 of his Catalogue of Fishes, vol. viii, 

 Giinther writes: ''On an unpublished ^ plate of the SymbolcB Physicce 

 this species " (C. ehrenbergii) " is named Cephalopfera stelligera ; the 

 horns are horizontally bent inwards." Reference to this plate 

 shows that our specimen from Puri bears a considerable resem- 

 blance to the species from the Red Sea ; even the denticles of the 

 skin, which are clearly depicted, show a marked similarity in the 

 two cases. In the SymbolcE Physicce each denticle is shown as a 

 stellate (usually six-rayed) base bearing a bluntly pointed tubercle 

 which in some cases shows slight irregularity. It is possible that 

 the horns may have been bent inwards during life but our photo- 

 graphs (plate iv) show what seemed to be the natural position of 

 these appendages. 



Ceratoptera orissa, sp. nov. 



The specimen from Puri, for which the name Ceratoptera 

 orissa is proposed, is differentiated from the others by the follow- 

 ing features: — 



(i) The dentition of the lower jaw is in 370 series, each con- 

 sisting of 14 teeth. In their peculiar columnar form 

 and in the regularity of their arrangement, the teeth 

 show a close similarity to those depicted in the 

 SymholcB Physicce. Each tooth is separated by a 

 well-marked interspace from its neighbours (text- 

 fig. I). 



1 Day, relying on a woodcut published by Sir Walter Elliot, has provisionally 

 included Ceratoptera among the fishes of India. A comparison of this woodcut 

 with the figure in the Symbolcs Fhysiccs and with our specimen from Puri shows, 

 however, that this woodcut cannot be regarded as a representation of Ceratoptera, 



2 Published subsequently in Symholce Fhysiccs, Berlin, 1899. 



