558 TELEOSTEl 



cidence of the geographical distribution of this family and the 

 Dipneusti, although, however, the latter are not known to be re- 

 presented in the Malay Archipelago. " Not only," he adds, " are 

 the corresponding species found within the same region, but also 

 in the same river systems ; and although such a connexion may 

 and must be partly due to a similarity of habit, yet the identity 

 of this singular distribution is so striking that it can only be 

 accounted for by assuming that the Osteoglossidae are one of the 

 earliest Teleosteous types which have been contemporaries of and 

 have accompanied the present Dipnoi since or even before the 

 beginning of the Tertiary epoch." 



The Queensland species of Scleropages (S. leichardti) is known 

 to the settlers by the name of Barramunda, which has also been 

 applied to Neoceratodus. Arapaima gigas is one of the largest 

 fresh -water Fishes known, exceeding a length of 15 feet and a 

 weight of 400 pounds. Its flesh is much valued. Sir R. 

 Schomburgh has observed that the mother protects the young, 

 who, for some time after their birth, always swim in front of her. 

 A similar observation has been made in the Gambia on Heterotis 

 niloticus by the late J. S. Budgett, who states that the Fish builds 

 enormous nests in swamps, in about two feet of water : the walls 

 of the nest are made of the stems of the grasses removed by the 

 Fish from the centre ; the floor is the swamp-bottom, and is made 

 perfectly smooth and bare. The nest appears to be used for at 

 most four or five days ; the newly-hatched larvae are provided 

 with long external gill-filaments of a blood-red colour. 1 



Fam. 11. Pantodontidae. The Little West African Fish 

 described by Peters as Pantodon buchholzi is the unique repre- 

 sentative of a family closely related to the Osteoglossidae, but 

 distinguished by the very small, single praemaxillary and the 

 absence -of suboperculum and interoperculum. The pectoral fins 

 are very large and are remarkable for the fleshy process to which 

 the inner ray is adnate ; the ventrals, formed of 7 rays, some of 

 which are simple and prolonged into filaments, are placed more 

 forward than in any other type of this sub-order, the Ctenothris- 

 sidae excepted, viz. immediately behind the pectorals. Teeth in 

 the jaws and on the vomer, palatines, pterygoids, parasphenoid, 



1 On the Anatomy, cf. Agassiz, in Spix, "Pise. Brasil." p. 32 ; Hyrtl, Denkschr. 

 Ak. Wien, viii. 1855, p. 73; Hemprich and Ehrenberg, "Symb. Pliys." Zootom. 

 pis. viii. and ix. ; Bridge, P.Z.S. 1895, p. 302. 



