BERYCOIDS. 
67 
increasing in length but shorter than the first soft rays. 
Another peculiarity lies in the fact that the dorsal part 
of the large lateral muscles extends over the occiput 
and the top of the head, and has its anterior starting 
points on the forehead, just above the eyes, while in 
the other, younger genera of the family the posterior 
parts of the head are naked and have their osseous 
covering adorned and strengthened by raised ridges 
and bars, essentially corresponding to those we have 
seen in Polyprion and, to some extent, in Perea , but 
longer, more crowded and sharper. Among the other 
bones of the head, in Beryx too, the preoperculum, 
the interoperculum, the nasal bones, the naked part of 
the frontal bones, the upper part of the maxillaries 
and the branches of the mandible are well furnished 
with serrate teeth at the margin or on the ridges which 
cross their surface. The preorbital, nasal and frontal 
bones (the latter just above the eyes) are furnished with 
spines, which are sometimes branched, and disappear 
or at least diminish with age. 
The genus inhabits the abysses of the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans, forming one of the many traces of the 
partial survival of the Cretaceous Period in the life of 
the present deep-sea fauna". It is taken in Australia 
more often than in any other country, though even 
there only occasionally and by fishermen engaged Avith 
other fish, and the flesh of one species is there prized 
as one of the greatest delicacies 6 . The number of 
existing species, according to Gunther (Cat., 1. c.) is 
5, but our ignorance of the changes in these species 
Avhich are due to age, is a strong ground for doubt as 
to the correctness of all of them. From the Cretaceous 
Period Agassiz (1. c.) cites 5 known species, and since 
his time 3 more have been described". 
BERYX DECADACTYLUS. 
Fig. 18. 
Spinous rays in the dorsal fin only 4, soft rays over 15. Greatest depth of the body from 43 to 45 % of the 
length from the tip of the snout to the end of the middle rays of the caudal fin. Colour of the body on the head 
and the bach down to the lateral line, as to ell as all the fins and the spines of the head, bright red , towards the 
belly shading into light silver with a reddish lustre. Eyes wine-yellow, transparent as glass. 
R. br. 8; D. d — 4 — A. e — - ; P.f 2 + 14; VP — ; 
18—19 27—29 10 
(J. h x+ 17 +x; L. lat. 1 67; L. trJ — + 1. 
Syn. Beryx decadactylus, Cuv., Val., Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. Ill, 
p. 222; Gthr, Cat. Brit. Mus., Fish., vol. I, p. 16; Steind., 
Stzber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, LVI (1867), I, p. 603, tab. I. 
Urocentrus ruber , Dub. et Kor. (per Duben) 6fvers. A^et.-Akad. 
Forh., 1844, p. 111. 
Beryx borealis, Dub. et Kob., Vet. -Akad. Hand]. 1844, p. 35, 
tab. II, fig. 1 et 2; Nilss., Skand. Fn ., Fislc . , p. 37; Coll., 
Vid. Selsk. Christ. Forh. 1874, Tillaegsh., p. 14; Lillj., 
Sv., Norg. Fn., Fisk., vol. I, p. 76; Coll., Vid. Selsk. 
Christ., Forh. 1884, No, 1, tab. I. 
Obs. Amongst the booty taken by the French from Lisbon, 
when Napoleon I caused the treasures of the Portuguese Museum to 
be conveyed to Paris, was a dried specimen of this species, with no 
locality assigned to it, which was described and named by Cuvier. 
a Cf. Smitt, De senaste drens undersokningar om hafsfaunans grans mot djupet, in the Magazine Framtiden , Vol. Ill, (1870), p. 335. 
b Tenison-Woods, Fish. a. Fisher , N. S. Wales , Sydney 1882, p. 51. 
c Pictet: Tr. de Paleont., vol. 2, p. 50. 
d D. 
4 
according 
to 
GOnther. 
16 — 19 
e A. 
4 
according 
to 
Steindachner. 
27—30 
f P. 2 + 15 according to Steind., 1+15 according to Collett. 
9 V. according to Steind. 
9—10 
h C. x+l%+x according to v. Duben et Koren and Lilljeborg. 
i L. lat. 60 — 62 according to Steind., 64 — 65 according to Gthr. 
10—11 
’ L. tr. 34 — 35 according to Gthr, — — according to Steind., 30 — 31 according to Lilljeborg. 
