CHAPTER XXVIII 

 SUBORDER JUGULARES 



I HE Jugular-fishes. In all the families of spiny-rayed 

 fishes, as ranged in order in the present work, from 

 the Berycid(E to the Soleidce, the ventrals are 

 thoracic in position, the pelvis, if present, being joined to the 

 shoulder-girdle behind the symphysis of the clavicles so that 

 the ventral fin falls below or behind the pectoral fin. To this 

 arrangement the families of Bembradidce and Pinguipedida offer 

 perhaps the only exceptions. 



In all the families which precede the Berycida in the linear 

 series adopted in this work, the ventral fins when present are 

 abdominal, the pelvis lying behind the clavicles and free from 

 them as in the sharks, the reptiles, and all higher vertebrates. 



In all the families remaining for discussion, the ventrals 

 are brought still farther forward to a point distinctly before 

 the pectorals. This position is called jugular (Lat. jugulum, 

 throat) . 



The fishes with jugular ventrals we here divide into six 

 groups, orders, and suborders : Jugulares, Haplodoci, Xenopterygii, 

 Anacanthini, Opisthomi, and Pediculati. The last two groups, and 

 perhaps the Anacanthini also, may well be considered as dis- 

 tinct orders, being more aberrant than the others. 



For the most primitive and at the same time most obscurely 

 defined of these groups we may retain the term applied by 

 Linnaeus to all of them, the name Jugulares. This group in- 

 cludes those jugular-fishes in which the position of the gills, the 

 structure of the skull, and the form of the tail are essentially 

 as in ordinary fishes. It is an extremely diversified and perhaps 

 unnatural group, some of its members resembling Opisthogna- 

 thida and Malacanthida, others suggesting the mailed -cheek 



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