304 Mr. A. Alcock on the Bathybial Fishes 
profile forming a continuous curve synchronous with an arc 
of a circle of 56° ; its length is 3f in the total measured 
without the caudal, and just over the greatest height of the 
body. Snout with the tip formed by a prominent knob at 
the symphysis of the lower jaw ; its length, including the 
mandibular element, is less than its breadth and about § the 
major diameter of the eye. Nostrils large, situated high up, 
above the anterior angle of the orbit. Eye very large ; its 
major diameter, which is obliquely ascendant from before 
backwards, is a little more than ^ the length of the head ; 
interorbital space gently concave, ^ that diameter of the eye. 
Mouth-cleft wide, approaching the transverse; premaxilla 
short and slender ; the broad maxilla, composed of three 
longitudinal plates, of w 7 hich the innermost (uppermost) is 
movable, reaches just behind the level of the mid-orbit, and 
includes the mandible in repose, except anteriorly, where the 
latter strongly projects. Small, even, acute, uniserial teeth, 
recurved in the premaxillge, mandible, palatines, and vomer, 
procurrent or procurved in the maxillse. Tongue large. A 
row of pores along the limb of the mandible. 
Gill-openings very wide, the membranes entirely separate ; 
fourth gill-cleft occluded ; gill-rakers long and close-set on 
the first three arches, longest on the first. Pseudobranchise 
large and coarse. Scales large, deciduous, except on the 
lateral line, where they are adherent and also perforated or 
bifid. There are pittings in the skin, which look like scale- 
folds, on the opercles. 
The dorsal fin begins just behind the origin of the ventrals, 
which are situated in the vertical through the middle of the 
body measured without the caudal. The anal begins in the 
vertical through the third dorsal ray. Both these fins have 
fleshy succulent bases, and the rays increasing in length 
regularly and steeply to the fourth, and then decreasing as 
regularly but more gradually to the last. Caudal symmetri- 
cally forked. Pectorals long and narrow ; their longest rays 
equal the length of the head behind the anterior nostril, and 
in repose almost touch the bases of the ventrals. Ventrals 
broad, reaching slightly beyond the vent. 
Stomach large ; intestine coiled in a spiral ; five or six 
large pyloric caeca. 
Colours in the fresh state : — Head uniform deep black, 
body pinkish brown, fins transparent grey ; oro-pharyngo- 
branchial membrane and entire peritoneum black. 
A heavy female specimen, 10^ inches long, with gravid 
ovaries, the mature ova measuring £ of an inch in diameter. 
Station 105, 740 fathoms. 
