44 



Fossil Fishes. 



Soricidens and Capitodus are founded upon detached teeth from 

 various European Tertiaries. And teeth of the living Chrysophrys 

 are exhibited from the Miocene of Malta, the Crag of Suffolk, and 

 from probably equivalent deposits in the Canary Islands. 



Table-case, 

 No. 56. 



Wall-case. 

 No. 18. 

 Table-case, 

 No. 56. 



Fig. 79. — Sparnodus ovalis, Upper Eocene, Monte Bolca. 



The Squamipinnes are short, deep-bodied fishes, characterized, as 

 their name denotes, by the extension of the scales over more or less 

 of the dorsal and anal fins. The living forms (" Coral-fishes") are 

 mostly brightly coloured fishes which abound in the neighbourhood 

 of coral-reefs. Platycormus, from the Upper Cretaceous of West- 

 phalia, seems to be their earliest known representative ; and there 

 are re mains of Scatophagies, and the living genera Fphippium, Poma- 

 canthns, Holacanthus, in the Eocene of Monte Bolca. Pygceus, from 

 the same formation, is also placed in this family. 



The Percidm, or Perch family, may perhaps be regarded as the 

 highest — the most specialized — of Teleostean fishes ; they are well 

 represented both in the freshwater and marine Tertiary formations. 

 The extinct genus Smerdis, with large deeply-forked tail (Fig. 80), 



Fig. 80.— Smerdis minutus, Eocene, Aix in Provence, France. 



occurs in the Miocene of Ulm, AViirternberg, and Puy-de-D6me, 

 France ; in the Upper Eocene of Monte Bolca and Aix in 

 Provence. Lates, Cyclopoma, and species of the living marine genera, 

 Dales, Serranus, Apogon, Therapon, and Pristipoma, are also found 



