372 Mr. Bennett's Observations on Fishes. ■ 



genus Antennarius of Commerson's manuscripts, (a group sepa- 

 rated from the Lophius, L., chiefly on account of the body being 

 compressed hiterally, instead of being depressed from above down-* 

 wards,) and to a single species of the genus Perca^ La Cep. 



Before, howeverj I proceed to the descriptions, I may be allowed 

 16 offer a few observations on the position assigned by M. Cuviet 

 to the Linnean group, of which the former genus forms a part. 

 In his " Regne Animal distribue d'apres son Organisation," he has 

 plaeed these Cartilaginous Fishes among his Poissons Osseux ; 

 these Fishes, which have no external opercula^ and merely a sim-* 

 pie opening leading to the branchice^ at the t(;rmination of the 

 second section of his Perches^ a family especially remarkable for 

 the great developement of the opercula. To the opercula of the 

 Perches the vis formatrix^ to use an old expression, appears to 

 have been directed with its utmost energy ; not only are they 

 dentate and spinous at their edges, frequently to a very conside- 

 rable degree, but in several of the genera they are even made 

 horrible by the strong processes and projections which occupy the 

 whole of their surface. A more incongruous situation could 

 scarcely have been selected for fishes, in which these appendages 

 to the respiratory organs are entirely concealed, and in which the 

 very opening that leads to them cannot be detected without diffi- 

 culty. 



In thus placing them, M. Cuvier was probably misled by 

 the resemblance borne by the typical Lophii to the Batrachi^ 

 Schn. Their position in his system next to this latter genus, to 

 which in outward form they approach very nearly, appears to 

 authorise this supposition. If this was indeed his inducement^ 

 he also has fallen into the very common error of mistaking a rela- 

 tion of analogy for one of affinity. It is at least more probable 

 that affinity should be indicated by the consistence of the skele- 

 ton, and especially by the respiratory organs, than by the mere 

 depression aud lateral expansion of the head. 



At a subsequent period M. Cuvier seems himself to have been 

 dissatisfied with the situation he had previously assigned to the 

 Lophii.^ for, in a Monograph of the Chironectes, or Antennarii^ 

 published in the third volume of the " Memoires du Museum," 



