"It was the most delicate adult fish I ever handled; within twenty-four hours after its capture the skin of the belly and the intestines fell off when it was lifted, and it felt in the hand quite soft and boneless." A related species (_S. heathi_) has been lately taken by Dr. Charles H. Gilbert at Monterey in California. The family of _Acrotidæ_ contains a single species of large size. _Acrotus willoughbyi_, allied to _Icosteus_, but without ventral fins and with the vertebræ very numerous. The type, five and one-quarter feet long, was thrown by a storm on the coast of Washington, near the Quinnault agency. The family of _Zaproridæ_ contains also a single large species, _Zaprora silenus_, without ventrals, but scaly and firm in substance. One specimen 2½ feet long was taken at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and a smaller one at Victoria. =The Pomfrets: Bramidæ.=—The _Bramidæ_ are broad-bodied fishes of the open seas, covered with firm adherent scales. The flesh is firm and the skeleton heavy, the hypercoracoid especially much dilated. Of the various species the pomfret, or black bream (_Brama raii_), is the best known and most widely diffused. It reaches a length of two to four feet and is sooty black in color. It is not rare in Europe and has been occasionally taken at Grand Bank off Newfoundland, at the Bermudas, off the coast of Washington, on Santa Catalina Island, and in Japan. It is an excellent food-fish, but is seldom seen unless driven ashore by storms. _Steinegeria rubescens_ of the Gulf of Mexico is a little-known deep-sea fish allied to _Brama_, but placed by Jordan and Evermann in a distinct family, _Steinegeriidæ_. Closely related to the _Bramidæ_ is the small family of _Pteraclidæ_, silvery fishes with large firm scales, living near the surface in the ocean currents. In these fishes the ventral fins are placed well forward, fairly to be called jugular, and the rays of the dorsal and anal, all inarticulate or spine-like, are excessively prolonged. The species, none of them well known, are referred to four genera— _Pteraclis_, _Bentenia_, _Centropholis_, and _Velifer_. They are occasionally taken in ocean currents, chiefly about Japan and Madeira. Fossil forms more or less remotely allied to the _Bramidæ_ are recorded from the Eocene and Miocene. Among these are _Acanthonemus_, and perhaps _Pseudovomer_.