1 849.] Catalogue of Malayan Fishes. 1 097 



tion. It is of voracious habits, devouring its own kind, as well as 

 other fishes, and Crustacea. The adult had a nodulous enlargement of 

 the size of a coffee seed, on one of the anal interspinal bones, similar to 

 those observed in Platax artkriticus, Cuv. and Val. 

 Trichiurus savala, Cuvier. 

 Trichiurus savala, Cuvier, R. A. II. p. 219. 

 Trichiurus armatus, Gray : Zool. Misc. 9, (Excl. Syn. 



Sawala, Russell.) 

 (Icon.) Trichiurus armatus, Gray : 111. Ind. Zool. II. PI. 93, 



Fig. 1. 

 Trichiurus savala, Cuv. and Val. VIII. p. 251, PI. 224. 

 Trichiurus savala, Cantor : Ann. Nat. Hist. IX. 15. 

 Trichiurus armatus, Richardson, Report, 1845, 268. 

 Puchuk of the Malays. 

 Head above, back and the naked point of the tail pale bluish, all 

 other parts shining silvery ; dorsal and pectoral rays yellowish white, 

 their membrane hyaline. Iris silvery, bluish towards the orbit. 

 D 112 to 120, P 11, Br. VII. 

 Habit. — Sea of Pinang, Malayan Peninsula, Singapore. 



Canton River, Chusan, Pondicherry, Bay of Bengal, Gan- 

 getic estuaries, Malabar, China Seas. 

 Total length : 1 foot 4 inch. 



The length of the head is from 6^ to 1\ in the total. The diameter 

 of the eye is from 8^ to \ of the length of the head, or \ of the verti- 

 cal diameter of the head through the eye itself. The anterior rays of 

 the dorsal fin are proportionally shorter than in T. haumela : the 

 length of the first ray but slightly exceeds the diameter of the eye. 

 The lancet-shaped teeth of the jaws are proportionally smaller than in 

 the preceding species, which it in other respects greatly resembles. 

 Although not very scarce at Pinang and at the Sandheads, it is of far 

 rarer occurrence than T. haumela, which it resembles in voracious 

 habits. As observed by M. M. Cuvier and Valenciennes, neither 

 species is electrical, but both give at certain seasons, like many other 

 fishes, a vivid phosphoric light. 



Gen. Elacate, Cuvier, 1829. 

 Head depressed ; body fusiform ; a number of free spines preceding 

 the dorsal fin, but none the anal ; no keel in front of the caudal fin. 



7 b 2 



