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Show 1890.] DEEP-SEA FISH F R O M T H E CAPE. 245 about ten weeks ago was washed up on the shore of Kalk Bay (which is situated in False Bay). Unfortunately it was much injured and broken by people before it was put into spirits. Mr. Percy Nightingale, who was on a visit to the Bay, obtained possession of it and very kindly brought it to me. I am unable to identify it by any books. It is unknown at the South-African Museum, and, so far as I have been able to ascertain, no one has seen an example of it before at the Cape. The fishermen at Kalk Bay do not recognize it. If new to Dr. Giinther, and he wishes to see it, I would gladly send it to him to be at his disposal." The sketch which accompanied this letter was sufficiently exact to enable me to recognize in the specimen a fish allied to Lophotes, in spite of the extraordinary forward prolongation of the parietal crest, which renders the appearance of the head still more bizarre than in the typical species of the genus. But as it seemed desirable to ascertain also other points of its organization which could not be shown in the sketch, and also to give a detailed description and figure of so extraordinary a fish, I sent a request to Mr. Fisk to let me have the specimen for the British Museum, with which he most kindly complied in due course. In the typical Lophotes the crest is elevated above the head, and not pushed forwards beyond the snout; it is also covered with soft integuments and a muscular layer. In the new species the crest is covered with a thin film of epidermis, leaving the sculpture of the bone exposed. This is merely a difference of form, and cannot, by itself, constitute a generic distinction, reminding us of similar modifications of the cranial excrescences in Chameleons. In the typical Lophotes a minute aud rudimentary ventral fin, consisting of several rays1, but evidently functionless, is present; in the new species this rudimentary organ has entirely disappeared-a difference which, in my opinion, is equally unfit for generic distinction. On the other hand, it is very unfortunate that the caudal extremity has been mutilated (apparently during life) in the Cape specimen, so that we cannot be certain whether it possessed a separate small anal and caudal fin like the type, or whether the caudal extremity was tapering and without those appendages-a structure well compatible with the greatly elongate form of the fish. The few specimens of Lophotes which have fallen into the hands of naturalists were obtained in the Mediterranean, off Madeira, and in the Japanese Sea; and referred to three species-Lophotes cepedianus, Lophotes capellei (Schleg.), and Lophotes cristatus, the latter having been described in the Proceedings of this Society by Mr. Johnson (1863) ; possibly all three are of the same species. A very small fish believed to be the young of Lophotes is described and figured in the Report on the Pelagic Fishes of the ' Challenger' Expedition. The fishes of this genus have been long regarded as bathybial forms, although, probably, not extending to the great depths inhabited 1 In the specimens in the British Museum it is much smaller than it is represented in Cuvier and Valenciennes's figure. |
