THE FISHES OF THE GROUPS ELASMOBRANCHH, HOLOCEPH- 

 ALI, ISOSPONDYLI, AND OSTAROPHYSI OBTAINED BY THE 

 UNITED STATES BUREAU OF FISHERIES STEAMER "ALBA- 

 TROSS" IN 1907 TO 1910, CHIEFLY IN THE PHILIPPINE 

 ISLANDS AND ADJACENT SEAS 



By Henry W. Fowler 



INTRODUCTION 



This is the sixth volume I have prepared dealing with a study of 

 the fishes collected by the United States Bureau of Fisheries steamer 

 Albatross in the Philippines. Since the fifth volume completed the 

 main percoid series, the present work is somewhat of a departure, 

 dealing with primitive fishes and following through the various 

 groups of living forms to the more generalized bony fishes. 



Most of the localities recorded herein relate to the Philippines, but 

 other regions where the Albatross cruised, as the Netherlands Indies, 

 China, Formosa, and parts of Oceania, also are listed. 



As the major part of this report deals with the sharks, rays, and 

 chimaeras, a few items concerning them seem necessary. They form 

 a very natural assemblage of the most truly fishlike vertebrates. 

 Equally remarkable is the nearly complete gradation from primitive 

 sharks to the forms gradually becoming depressed like the angel 

 sharks, saw sharks, sawfishes, guitar rays, and the skates, finally with 

 various extremes in the more or less degenerate sting rays, eagle rays, 

 and the giant devilfishes. Many fossils, some representing orders 

 wholly extinct, have been discovered in various deposits, many in the 

 Tertiary. As represented chiefly by teeth, some of these fossils ap- 

 parently do not differ from fishes of the present time. 



Usually because of their large size, sharks and rays are rare in 

 collections of fishes. It is often difficult, therefore, to examine even 

 comparatively abundant species, except for an occasional immature 

 specimen. Though I have followed Garman largely in the arrange- 

 ment of various groups and many of the species, I have included 

 many that he overlooked or ignored. Not only is his excellent 

 memoir strikingly incomplete in this respect, but a still greater 

 misfortune lies in his neglect to give details about his materials. 



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