1849.] Catalogue of Malayan Fishes, 1323 



eye to the muzzle, and that to the angle of the lips are nearly equal. 

 The anterior nasal apertures are very minute, with a slightly raised 

 margin, but not tubular, and situated on each side of the muzzle ; the 

 posterior ones open on the crown of the head ; although small, they are 

 conspicuously larger than the anterior ; they are pyriform with the apex 

 close to the centre of the supraorbital margin, and they are directed 

 obliquely inwards, so that the distance between their fundus, which is a 

 little beyond the anterior orbital margin, is less than that between the 

 apex of both. The narrow lips are membranous, the upper one slightly, 

 the lower very reflex ; their commissure is situated considerably less 

 than half the distance between the muzzle and the gill-opening. The 

 teeth are villiform, somewhat varying in length ; under a lens they 

 appear conical, slightly recurvous, with a blunt apex. Those of the 

 upper jaw form a narrow band, tapering towards the angle of the mouth ; 

 at the symphysis the band of each limb forms a short linear process, 

 separated by a linear naked interval. The palatal band resembles the 

 maxillary, but both branches coalesce on the vomer at an acute 

 angle, and internally and externally the band is enclosed by a papillary 

 fold of the membrane lining the palate, which gives the band the ap- 

 pearance of being broader than it really is. On each side of the 

 pharynx, between the root of the posterior free gillarch and the fourth 

 appears a small rounded tubercle, studded with minute card-like teeth. 

 Immediately behind the middle of the fourth, posterior arch, appears 

 a short linear group of similar teeth. The teeth of the lower jaw re- 

 semble the rest ; the bands of both branches taper towards the angle 

 of the mouth ; on the symphysis they either coalesce or are separated 

 by a linear interval. Also this band is internally lined by a papillular 

 duplicature of the membrane of that part of the mouth. The fleshy 

 moveable tongue is elongated, tapering into a narrow flattened and 

 rounded apex. The upper surface is papillular, like the roof of the 

 mouth ; the anterior half is flattened and thin, the posterior is thick, 

 hollowed into a longitudinal channel between the two rounded 

 margins, which Lacepede from the MS. of Commerson describes as 

 two tubercles at the base of the tongue. 



Between the root of the upper extremity of the hyoid bone and the 

 anterior gillarch, but nearer the former, appears a small blind fossa, ap- 

 parently without sac, like that oiSymbranchus, The oblique gill-openings 



