304 A. Alcock — Supplementary List of Indian Fishes. [No. 3, 



blue, fading to lavender near the middle of tlie body, where, however, 

 every alternate scale has a large indigo blotch : edges of dorsal caudal 

 and anal fins, ventral spine and filament of outer ventral ray, light blue, 

 the interradial membranes of all these fins with numerous light blue 

 spots : head and body with numerous narrow light blue stripes not 

 involving the fins, namely one from the nape, in the middle line, to the 

 snout and chin, one from the angle of the mouth to the isthmus, one 

 from the temple in front of the eye to the interoperculum, one (the 

 plainest of all) from the occiput to the preopercular angle and thence 

 to the ventral spine, five or six (all more or less faint) in concentric 

 series across the body, and three straight across the caudal peduncle. 



Length about 7^ inches. 



Palk Straits. 



Family Ophidiidse. 



4. f Neohythites (Monomitopus) conjugator, n. sp. 

 B. 8. D. circ. 90. A. circ. 72. P. circ. 28. V. 2 (fused 



to form a single filament). L. lat. 100-110. L. tr. ■ . 



Length of head just under length of distance between gill-opening 

 and vent, and about 4f in the total ; greatest height of body one-sixth 

 total. Snout hardly overhanging the upper jaw, very nearly as long 

 as the eye — which is two-ninths the length of the head — and equal to 

 the width of the flattened interocular space. Mouth wide, the maxilla 

 half as long as the head : villiform teeth in the jaws vomer and pala- 

 tines, the outer row in the premaxilla slightly but very distinctly en- 

 larged : mucous membrane of mouth and gill-chamber black. Oper- 

 culum with a strong spine above : angle of preoperculum excised, the 

 angles of the excision strongly spiniform. 



Gill-openings wide, gill-membranes free, four gills, about 12 gill- 

 rakers on the outer side of the first arch are elongate, pseudobranchiae 

 reduced to two small filaments. 



The whole body and head, including parts of the gill-membranes, 

 covered with small adherent scales which also cover the basal half of the 

 dorsal and anal fins. Lateral line very distinct anteriorly, becoming 

 indistinct in the posterior fourth of the body. 



The dorsal fin begins about an eye-length behind the gill-opening : 

 it and the anal are confluent with the caudal. The pectoral fin broad, 

 short, pointed, about half the length of the head, springing from a 

 fleshy scaly base. The ventrals arise at the pectoral symphysis : each 

 consists of two rays intimately fused throughout. 



t 111. Zool. Investigator, Fishes pi. xvii. fig. 4 {in pre^paration) . 



