104 
^POLIA ZEYLANICA. 
so-called u Sea Bat,” Platax vespertilio , whose chromatic reactions 
differ materially from those of the adult stage o£ the same species.* 
The vivid colours of Solenostoma, which contrasted strongly with 
the brown seaweed amidst which the specimen was living, belong to 
the category of warning colours, and combine with its other charac¬ 
ters to make the animal look like anything except a fish. Kaup 
pronounced it to be “ one of the strangest forms to be found in the 
whole class of fishes.” Perhaps it resembles a brightly-coloured 
sponge when at rest in its natural surroundings. 
Next to the colour and the form, the most salient characteristic 
of the specimen is afforded by the presence of the numerous dermal 
appendages which I have described. These are not mentioned in 
Dr. Guenther’s Catalogue,! but they are referred to in Kaup’s earlier 
Catalogue,! where a solitary tassel is shown on the lower side of the 
snout in the figure which he gives ; and in the text he states that 
“ some of the specimens have little skinny tags round the mouth 
and rostral tube, as represented in Pallas’s figure.” Pallas’s 
species was S. paradoxum from Amboyna ; Bleeker’s first species was 
S. cyanopterum from Zanzibar and East Indies. The catalogue 
descriptions seem to convey no differences between these species which 
are outside the range of normal variation; on the contrary they agree 
in the striking characters of the ocellation of the first dorsal fin and 
the abbreviation of the caudal peduncle. There is a very distinct 
named species, S. brachyurum, Bleeker, but Dr. Guenther doubts its 
validity. It is for the sake of the local interest that I present the 
first member of the Solenostomidse from Ceylon waters § under the 
name S. laciniatum. 
The first dorsal fin is 5-rayed, and is marked by two long black 
ocelli between the first three rays, as in other species of the genus. In 
the second dorsal I count 21 rays, in the anal 20, and in the ventrals 
7, the three uppermost ventral rays bifurcated. The ventrals are 
concrescent with the body-wall along the whole length of their upper 
border, and they are connected together below by a membrane 
extending for about one-fifth the length of the lowest rays. The 
two fins are thus held together like apposed hands, and the pouch so 
formed contains embryos in all stages of development, both before 
and after hatching. The eggs are supported upon stalked discs, 
which are borne at the ends of a ramifying system of dermal processes 
arising from the inner surface of the pouch. (PI. I., fig. 1.) 
The eyes are surrounded by a circlet of small subulate papillae, 
and a row of spines occurs at the base of the rostrum below and in 
* See Spol. Zeyl., II., 1305, pp. 51-5, and Nature, Vol. 80, 1909, p. 247. 
t A. C. L. G. Gunther. Catalogue of Fishes in Brit. Mus., VIII., 1870, p. 150. 
X J. J. Kaup. Catalogue of Lophobranchiate Fish in Brit. Mus., 1856, p. 2. 
§ S. cyanopterum from Cargados Carajos in 20-30 fathoms, and S. paradoxum 
from the Maldives, Mulaku, 27 fathoms, are recorded by C. Tate Regan in 
Rep. on Marine Fishes collected by Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner in Indian Ocean, 
Trans. Linn. Soc. ZooL XII., 1908, p. 221. 
