318 ON FISHES FROM THE PERSIAN GULF, THE SEA OF OMAN, AND KARACHI, COLLECTED BY Mr. F. W. TOWNSEND. (With 3 Plates.) By C. Tate Regan, B.A. (Read before the Bombay Natural History Society on 16th March 1905. J Mr. F. W. Townsond, who has, within the lust tew years, presented to the British Museum several collections of fishes from the Persian Gulf, the Mokran Coast and Karachi, and also some specimens dredged, at considerable depths in the Sea of Oman, has again collected a large series at these localities and also at Muscat. This contains examples of 18 species which are described below as new to science. I have added complete lists of the Fishes of the Persian Gulf and the deep-sea forms from the Sea of Oman which have been received from Mr. Townsend. In the case of those from Muscat, I have given only those species which do not appear in Steindachner's recent list (Denkschr. Ak. Wien., lsxi, 1902, p. 123), whilst a list of those from the Mekran Coast is being published in the Imperial Baluchistan Gazetteer. Willoy (Zool. Results, vi, p. 719, 1902) has noted the vertical position of Amphisile when swimming, and gives a figure representing it with the head upwards. One may feel inclined to suspect the correctness of this figure in view of the following interesting observation of Mr. Townsend on specimens of A. strigata (Gthr.) : — " Some of them were sufficiently alive when dredged to swim in a tub of water, the position they took up being head down, and they swam about in a vertical position using the three fins near the tail to propel themselves, the middle fin seeming to have the most business to do." Mr. Townsend writes that Mr. and Mrs. Whitby Smith have taken great interest in his collecting, and I have named two new species, Percis Smithii and Callionymus margaretce, in their honour. 1. DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW SPECIES. Hemirhamphus sindensis. Depth of body about If times its breadth and 9^ times in the length (without caudal) ; length of head 2;^ times. Diameter of eye I3-times in the postorbital part of head and nearly equal to the interorbital width. Length of lower jaw in front of the termination of the upper jaw a little longer than the rest of head ; upper jaw as long as broad ;
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