BY J. DOUGLAS OGILBY. 
321 
of the eye. Nostrils simple, lateral, situated at the opposite ends 
of a shallow fossa. Lower jaw the longer; cleft of mouth wide 
and moderately oblique; the maxilla truncated and expanded 
posteriorly, extending backwards beyond the hinder margin of 
the eye; upper profile of head flat. Preorbital armed with 
three strong spines; preopercle finely denticulated on both limbs, 
and with a strong, acute, elongate, curved spine at the angle; 
three short stout spines on the subopercle; opercle and interopercle 
with prominent ribs, each of which terminates in a free flexible 
point; a spinose ridge runs from the front of the snout to the 
postero-superior angle of the orbit, where it is subdivided, a short 
branch passing downwards along the upper portion of the hinder 
margin of the eye, while the main branch is continued along the 
occiput; beneath the termination of the latter a similar ridge 
commences, and traversing the temporal region ends in a pair of 
strong post- temporal spines; a short spinose ridge on the occiput 
below the middle of the occipital ridge; a short simple ridge passes 
outwards from the centre of the posterior margin of the eye. 
Jaws with a single series of slender cordiform teeth, those in 
front being strongly hooked; two or three smaller teeth between 
each pair of elongate ones; three strong and a few small teeth on 
either side of the head of the vomer; two short parallel patches, 
composed of three series each, of stout recurved teeth behind the 
base of the tongue, the outer row the strongest; all the bones of 
the hyoid arch dentiferous. Dorsal fins separated by a consider- 
able interspace; the spines weak and flexible, the second the 
highest, two-fifths of the length of the head, and two-thirds of the 
anterior and highest rays: the anal commences beneath the third 
dorsal ray, and is similar to but not so high as the soft dorsal 
fin: ventral elongate and pointed, the fourth ray the longest, 
reaching to the vent, its length three-fourths of that of the head: 
pectoral small, about half the length of the ventral, its base 
situated at a considerable distance behind that of the ventral: 
caudal emarginate, small, its length six and a half in the total 
length. Scales of the head simple, circular, non-imbricate, each 
furnished with a central pore; head entirely scaly, with the excep- 
