696 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
latter being occupied by a thin fleshy lamina; no functional filaments on fourth arch, a short adherent 
crescentric lamina sometimes present, seeming to represent the obsolete gill, its margins with divisions 
faintly indicated; disk compaiatively narrow, with rounded outlines; lateral process projecting but 
little, armed with a short strong spinous point directed forward and a shorter one turned backward; 
dorsal surface of disk, and entire tail, covered with large and small tubercular plates, arranged much 
as in M. mitrigera, but less numerous and much less prominent; lower surface of disk almost naked, 
containing only a few scattered rudimentary plates, without definite arrangement, except for the usual 
presence of one in middle of breast; a single series of 4 or 5 small plates crosses eye above pupil. 
When bent outward and forward, the pectorals extend well beyond tip of subopereular spine; 
ventrals widening toward tip, their inner (posterior) rays the longer, not reaching margin of disk when 
extended; caudal half length of head. 
Color, upper parts covered with a fine reticulum of dark lines over a grayish or light brownish 
ground; 2 or 3 irregular dark blotches on margin of disk, a pair on nape, an irregular lengthwise 
blotch above and behind gill-opening, an irregular bar below dorsal, one on middle of caudal 
peduncle, and a narrow one at base of caudal; a transverse dark bar crosses caudal behind its middle, 
and an intramarginal bar crosses pectoral. Specimens taken from the white coral sand in the vicinity 
of Laysan Island are nearly uniform white in color, the smallest individual, 30 mm. long, having 
middle of disk marked by numerous small bright white spots, on a dusky ground; faint traces of the 
reticulum can be distinguished on the palest specimens. 
In the cotypes, the dorsal rays vary from 5 to 6, the pectorals from 12 to 13. The anal rays seem 
to be invariably 4. 
Malthopsis jordani is closely related to M. mitrigera and to M. lutea Alcock (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 
(6), VIII, 1891, 26, pi. 8, figs. 2, 2a) , all of them with comparatively narrow triangular disk and narrow 
interorbital space, the body covered with coarse tubercular plates. The species described by Garman 
from the Mexican and Central American province have wider disks, with the lateral spine directed 
backward, or obsolete, the interorbital space wider and more depressed, and the investment of- body 
largely in form of prickles. 
The species was taken at the following stations: Nos. 3853, off the south coast of Molokai, 115 to 
134 fathoms; 3859, Pailolo Channel, 138 to 140 fathoms; 3938, vicinity of Laysan, 148 to 163 fathoms; 
3965, vicinity of Laysan, 116 to 147 fathoms; 4079, off the north coast of Maui, 143 to 178 fathoms; 
4101, Pailolo Channel, 122 to 143 fathoms; 4102, Pailolo Channel, 122 to 132 fathoms. 
Halieutsea retifera, new species. Plate 101. 
Type, 101 mm. long, from station 4076, off the north coast of Maui, depth 57 to 68 fathoms; type, 
No. 51597, U. S. Nat. Mus. 
Length of disk (excluding pectoral base) 70 hundredths of total length to base of caudal; width of 
disk 81; length of caudal peduncle, from vent, 34; greatest width of caudal peduncle 16; diameter of 
orbit 12; least interorbital width 7.5; width of mouth, measured between tips of maxillaries 33; length 
of caudal 29; longest pectoral ray 25; longest ventral ray 18. D. 5; A. 4; P. 14; V. i, 5. 
Disk subcircular, broader than long, its width equal to distance from tip of snout to end of 
declined dorsal rays; head and snout not protruding at all beyond the regularly curved contour, and 
the carpus not exserted; snout and orbital rims a little elevated; eyes directed laterally; interorbital 
space concave, bounded laterally by orbital rims, anteriorly by a transverse ridge which separates it 
from the nasal fossae and the tentacular cavity; anterior nostril small, with a short tube; posterior a 
large circular opening without tube or reflexed rims; lure trilobate, with a superior medial and a pair 
of hemispherical lateral lobes, the latter fringed below and separated medially by a deep cleft; teeth 
minute, in rather wide bands in both jaws, nearly reaching corners of mouth; vomer and palatine 
bones without teeth; tongue very little developed, without free tip, and toothless, broad patches of the 
low'er pharyngeals seeming to occupy its posterior portion; gill-openings small pores, wholly on upper 
surface of disk, well in advance of its posterior margin; gills 2%, the anterior arch with filaments, the 
posterior with a well-developed series of filaments, but without a slit; branchiostegal rays 6; no 
pseudobranchiae. 
Upper surfaces thickly beset by minute spines, the basal portion of which presents usually a 
triradiate arrangement of ridges; a few somewhat larger, but similar, spines scattered without definite 
arrangement among the smaller ones; lateral margins of disk depressed to a sharp edge, and occupied 
by a firmly united series of plates, each of which bears a marginal cluster of spines corresponding to 
