1302 Catalogue of Malayan Fishes, [Dec. 



A With globular teeth. 



Ophiurus baccidens, Cantor. 

 Plate V. Fig. 1. (Natural size.) 



Head above and back dull greenish olive ; lighter on the sides, dotted 

 with brown ; throat and abdomen greenish- or bluish white ; fins pale 

 olive-grey or white, dotted with brown ; dorsal edged with black. Iris 

 golden greenish olive ; pupil horizontally lanceolate. 



D 259 to 271, A 167 to 180, P 17, Br. XXXIV. 



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



Total length : 3 feet. 



The general form is thick, heavy ; the head broad, the muzzle short, 

 depressed, pointed ; the body cylindrical ; the tail gradually compressed 

 and tapering to a short point. The length of the head, from the muzzle 

 to the gill-opening, is contained from 8^ to 8f times in the total. The dis- 

 tance from the muzzle to the anterior orbital margin is -J of to 6J times 

 in the length of the head ; the eye, bordering upon the forehead and the 

 lip, occupies the third-eleventh of the length of the head ; the distance 

 between the anterior orbital margins is If, between the posterior ones it 

 is 2 horizontal diameters of the eye. The posterior orbital margin is 

 situated a little in front of the angle of the mouth, the distance between 

 which and the muzzle is contained 3^ times in the length of the head. On 

 each side of the crown of the head, from between the eyes to the muzzle, 

 appears a series of four distant pores ; behind each eye are three such ver- 

 tically placed on each side, on the occiput two, along each side of the upper 

 lip five or six, and beneath each branch of the lower jaw six such pores. 

 The upper lip is fleshy, and lax, and gives the symphysis a more rounded 

 outline than it really has. On each side of the symphysis opens the 

 anterior nasal aperture through a voluminous tube. The posterior 

 apertures perforate the lower surface of the lip ; they are linear, terminat- 

 ing obliquely outwards beneath the anterior orbital margin, and have a 

 valve on the external margin ; their length is ^ of the diameter of the eye. 

 About midway between the anterior and posterior apertures appears a 

 small pointed lobulet, and a smaller one immediately behind the posterior 

 aperture. The middle of the lower surface of the point of the muzzle 

 is occupied by a rounded cluster, (nearly of the size of the eye,) of glo- 

 bular teeth, like minute pearls, of which two or three in the centre are 



