of the Bay of Bengal. 205 
extreme posterior limit, but no air-bladder and no pyloric 
appendages. 
There are fourteen abdominal and twenty-four caudal 
vertebras. 
Colours in life : — Blotchy violet-black to black ; gill- mem- 
branes and opercles black ; oral cavity, but not the peri- 
toneum, darkly pigmented. 
The enormous gape, the loosely articulated jaw-bones, and 
the structure of the abdomen and stomach would permit the 
deglutition of a relatively immense object. 
When brought on board the fish was a good deal ruptured, 
its belly was distended and pendent, and several ounces of 
grumous chyme escaped from a tear in the tail. 
Hab . Vide Station 102. 
Total length 6^- inches. One specimen. 
Uranoscopus, C. & V. 
7. Uranoscopus eras sleeps , sp. n. 
Diagnosed at once by the extraordinary size of the head. 
B. 6. D. 4/ t V A. 13. C. 15. P. 18. V. 1/5. 
Length of the head 2f in the total including the caudal, 
its maximum breadth in repose (that is, when the opercles 
are not extended and expanded for defence) is § the length, 
its maximum height (and that of the body) is about § the 
length ; bones of the head massive and rugose ; the preorbital 
much sculptured, with a coarse procurrent spine at its antero- 
inferior angle ; the anterior border of the preoperculum raised 
and inflated, especially in its middle, with numerous strong 
ridges radiating from it across the bone upwards, backwards, 
ancl downwards, the last ending in four or five procurved 
spines, and a similar spine on the suboperculum ; clavicular 
spine small, grooved, its length equals the diameter of the 
orbit; points of pubic bones projecting forwards as acute 
spines on each side of the clavicular symphysis. Diameter of 
the eye not quite one seventh the length of the head ; supra- 
orbital margin broad, massive, longitudinally grooved. Lips 
fringed with papillae ; no prelingual filament ; curved, acute 
(caniniform) teeth, in two rows in the upper, one in the lower 
jaw and palatines, a second incomplete row at the mandibular 
symphysis, a patch of small teeth on the vomer. No scales 
on the throat or anterior part of belly. 
Stomach an enormous sac, which in the specimen dissected 
