Notice 0/ a New Ganoid Fish. 
275 
respect almost serpent-like in its general aspect, the ab- 
dominal region of the body being very long. Its bony scales 
are hard and sculptured, and correspond to Polypierus in 
their general arrangement. 
The Head is small and depressed towards the front, which 
is narrow. It becomes broader behind the eyes, where it 
bulges outwards laterally, becoming rather contracted again 
at the back part of the operculum. The upper parts of the 
head are covered by a series of bony plates, somewhat irre- 
gular in shape, which correspond generally to one another 
on the opposite sides of the head, and bear a close resem- 
blance in their arrangement to those of the Genus Polyp- 
terus. Below the range of small spiracular plates, which 
run along the sides and back part of the head, there is a 
somewhat triangularly-shaped operculum, with an irregularly 
oval-shaped preopercUlum in front of it. There are, how 
ever, no small plates below the preoperculum, as in Polyp- 
terus. On each side of the mesian line below, you have a 
large-sized bony branchial or jugular plate, rounded behind 
and pointed in front, as in Polypterus, which covers most of 
the space between the rami of the lower jaw, at least towards 
its anterior extremity. 
A series of small perforations, or openings of mucous 
ducts, ten in number, surround the orbit at some little 
distance, running in an oval form around it ; and beyond 
these are other sixteen openings, running in a curved direc- 
tion from above downwards, along the margins of the 
smaller intermediate range of plates already described ; 
others also open between the operculum and preoperculum. 
The Fins are small. The dorsal finlets are very small, 
and apart from each other, and they begin on the back, 
at a great proportional distance from the snout of the 
fish. To show their difference in this respect from the 
species of Polypteriis, 1 may state, that at the commence- 
ment of the dorsal finlets, the body of the fish measures 
about half an inch in depth, and is nearly 4J inches in 
length, from the same point to the extremity of the snout ; 
so that the distance from the snout to the commencement 
of the dorsal fins is about 9 times the depth of the body. 
VOL. ITI. 2 N 
