200 MALACOPTERYGII, 



ORDER II. MALACOPTERYGII. 



{^Soft-filmed Fishes.) 



The skeleton in the members of this Order is, 

 like that in the preceding, formed of bone. Their 

 fins are, however, supported by flexible, jointed, 

 and branched rays. " This," says Mr. Swainson, 

 "is the chief typical character, and the excep- 

 tions are very few. In some, as in the Siluridce, 

 the first rays of the dorsal and pectoral fins are 

 represented by bony spines, the sides of which 

 are crenated, or toothed, like a saw. In the Flat- 

 fishes {Pleuronectidcs) the rays are semi-spinous ; 

 and even among the most typical Families, the 

 first two or three dorsal rays are rigid : yet all 

 these deviations take not from the fact, that the 

 whole of these fishes are known by the absence of 

 spiny rays, placed after the first or second ^ in any 

 of their fins."* 



In addition to this character it may be observed 

 that, with few exceptions, the gill-openings are 

 unconfined, and the gills have the structure com- 

 mon to the AcANTHOPTERYGii, of fringes resem- 

 bling the teeth of a comb. 



The Soft- finned Fishes are, in general, inferior 

 to the Spinous-finned in the degree of develop- 

 ment of those essential characteristics which dis- 

 tinguish a fish from other vertebrate animals 

 they are a step lower in the scale of organic per- 



* Monocardian Animals, i. 226. 



