1108 . 
Body greatly elongated* exceedingly compressed* ribbon-like* 
trunk shorter than tail* which tapers to slender point. Head small* 
compressed. Snout truncated* Eye nearly median* high* aria.il* Mouth 
cleft nearly or quite vertical* greatly protractile. No teeth. No 
air bladder. Pyloric coeca numerous. Five rows of tubercles on side. 
Lateral line not spiny. Dorsal with 100 to 400 or more rays* front 8 
to 15 rays strong and elongated. Caudal absent, except in young. 
Pectoral rays 11 to 13. Ventral reduced to single elongate ray* dilated 
at end 
Large* singular fishes* little known and usually found washed 
ashore after storms. They apparently dwell in deep water. The extrema 
delicacy of the flesh, as well as the feeble skeleton, account for most 
all of these fishes found greatly damaged or mutilated. From such 
examples many nominal species have been erected. Quite likely all are 
really to be referred to a single species, as here admitted. 
Great changes take place with age* as the young may have the 
front dorsal, ventral and the caudal rays* greatly elongated or fila¬ 
mentous* Thus the caudal is symmetrical in the young* becomes divided 
with growth and as its lower rays may finally break off the upper sec¬ 
tion of tlie fin results eventually in an upturned fan-like fin. 
Smitt says "The King of the Herrings lives in very deep water, 
its species being perhaps identical in all the oceans $ but of its usual 
manner of life we know nothing. Occasionally it appears at the surface, 
and in the imagination of the sailor takes the form of the great Sea- 
serpent. The tales of the great Sea-serpent may probably be explained 
by a variety of different causes - tumbling dolphins, enormous cuttle 
fish* specimens of Selache (basking Shark) floating and resting at the 
surface, or even floating wreckage. But in the esses where the sea-ser¬ 
pent appears with crest erect, the explanation seems to lie in the appear¬ 
ance and death struggles of the King of the Herrings at tho surface of the 
ocean." 
