76 A Guide to the Zoological Collections 



Suborder LOPHOBRANCHII [Case 75]. 



The gill-elements are not leaflets but little knobs, and 

 the gill-cover is a simple plate. The integument con- 

 sists of an armour of bony segments. The mouth is 

 situated at the end of a long tube-like snout. There is 

 no pneumatic duct to the air-bladder. 



The Pipe-fishes of Indian seas fall into a single 

 family. 



Family Syngnafhidce [Case 75]. 



This family includes the Pipe-fishes and Sea-horses. 

 These are marine, but generally live near shore, and 

 many of them find their way into brackish and fresh 

 water. Tiiey are all of small size, and are bad swimmers, 

 locomotion being chiefly effected by rapid vibrations of 

 the dorsal fin. In these fishes the male looks after the 

 eggs, which he carries about with him — either in a special 

 brood-pouch, or glued to the abdomen — until after they 

 are hatched. In Case 1 2 a male Hippocampus (Sea-horse) 

 is shown with the brood-pouch full of developing ova. 



Most of the Indian genera, and even one species 

 [Hippocampus guttulatus) are also found in the Atlantic 

 and Mediterranean. 



Suborder Plectognathi [Cases 74-75]. 



In this suborder of Bony-fishes the skin is usually 

 covered either with prickles and spines or with bony 

 plates, though it is sometimes naked. The ventral fins 

 are either absent or are reduced each to a spine, which 

 is sometimes large. A spinous dorsal fin is either 

 present or absent : when present the spines are few, but 

 the first one is often very large. The gills have the 



