SCYLLIUM AFRICANUM.— Auct. 
Pisces. — Plate XXY. Fig. 1. (Female.) 
S. superne purpureo-griseum, nigro-purpureo tinctum et fasciis nigro brunneis longitudinalibus septem 
variegatum, quarum tribus e nasi apice incepientibus ; cirris brevibus, ante marginem labii superioris 
desinentibus. 
Squalus Africanus, Lin., 1494. 20. 
Squalus Vittatus, Shaw, Nat. Misc. PI. 346. 
Squale Galonne, Lreeep. 1. 254. 
Scyllium Africanum, Cuv. Reg. Animal, 2. 386. 
Colour. — The upper and lateral parts of the head, the back, and the sides, 
lavender-purple, tinted with a colour intermediate between blackish purple 
and brownish purple red. The back and sides are, in addition to the tints 
just specified, further variegated with seven longitudinal blackish brown 
stripes generally single, but sometimes, as in the specimen represented, 
double ; three of the stripes originate at the apex of the snout, one at 
each eye, and one immediately behiud the last branchial opening. The fins 
are of the same colour as the back, the tint towards their base a little darker. 
The under parts are pale brownish purple red, slightly clouded, especially 
towards the throat and base of pectoral fins, with vermilion red. Eyes light 
reddish orange, with a bronze lustre. 
Form. — Head and anterior portion of body robust, posterior portion 
slender ; the back anteriorly broad and slightly convex, posteriorly com- 
pressed and subcarinated. Eyes directly over the angles of the mouth ; the 
temporal spiracle is rather large, almost circular, and situated a little behind 
and below the posterior junction of the eyelids. Snout rather narrow, and 
its apex rounded. Nostrils large, and immediately in front of the upper lip ; 
the external half of each oblique, the internal half transverse, and the one 
portion is divided from the other by the cirrus, which originates from 
the anterior edge of the nostrils, extends across the opening, and terminates 
considerably anterior to the edge of the upper lip. Besides the regular 
cirrus, there is at its base externally a sort of rudimentary one, consisting of a 
slightly triangular elongation of a portion of the anterior edge of each nostril. 
