IQOQ.l 
N. Annandale : Report on the Hatoidei. 
II 
There is a cast of a young specimen coloured from life in the Trivandrum Museum. 
It is of a bright salmon-pink body colour with numerous, narrow, irregular black trans- 
verse bars. In older individuals the pink fades to a dull greenish shade, while the black 
bars become fainter and anastomoye into a more or less regular reticulation, at first 
enclosing round white spots and finally becoming almost obliterated, so that only a 
faint marbling persists. In old specimens, however, some dark linear markings usually 
remain on the base of the pectoral fins. In the male figured on plate v, fig. 5, these 
markings took the exact form of a ? symmetrical on the two sides. 
Five specimens have been taken to my knowledge by the “Golden Crown,” four 
of them fully adult. One { 9 ) was captured in October off the Orissa coast, and two 
( o’ , 9 ) in December off the mouth of R. Hughli. The measurements of the former 
and of one of the latter were as follows : — 
9 o* 
Total length 
. . 204-0 
cm. 
20Ô-0 
Breadth across pectoral fins 
• • I 3 i ’0 
> 
134-0 
Mouth to vent 
73-0 
Width of mouth 
25-3 
Distance between eyes 
• • 25 3 
) Ï 
27-8 
Anterior border of pectoral fins 
• • 35‘4 
j } 
45-6 
Anterior border of pelvic fins . . 
22-8 
y y 
13-9 
Anterior border of ist dorsal . , 
• • 32-9 
y y 
24-0 
^Interior border of 2nd dorsal . . 
• • 25-3 
y y 
17-7 
Dength of upper lobe of caudal fins 
• • 44'3 
y y 
30-5 
Day’s figure {Fishes of India, vol. ii, pi. cxciii, fig. 3) is evidently taken from an 
immature specimen. I therefore reproduce a photograph of the male whose measure- 
ments are given above. 
! Genus Rhinobatis, Bloch and Schneider. 
Head produced into a more or less elongated and narrow rostrum without lateral teeth. 
Back bearing tubercles of various kinds in rows, or uniformly covered with granu- 
lar denticles. Teeth lozenge-shaped or almost circular, with a single transverse 
ridge or a central conical projection. Anterior nasal valves not confluent. 
Müller and Henle in separating ‘ ‘ Rhynchobatus ” from the species they included in 
“ Rhinobatus ” relied mainly (see Syst. Beschr. d. Plagiostomen , pp. iii and 113) on 
the shape of the nasal valves, the position of the spiracles relative to the eyes and the 
outline of the anterior part of the body, while Günther (Cat. Fishes, viii, pp. 440 441) 
and Day {Faun. Brit. Ind., Fishes, i, pp. 39, 40, 42) lay great stress on the fact that 
the anterior margin of the pectoral fin is quite free in Rhynchobatis and is joined to the 
snout by a membrane in Rhinobatis. Day also notes that the anterior dorsal fin is 
opposite the pelvic fins in the former genus and far behind them in the latter. 
The differences noted by Müller and Henle undoubtedly exist, but they seem 
hardly to be of generic value, considering the variation that occurs within the limits 
of the genus Rhinobatis {sensu stricto), nor does the difference in the position of the 
