EASTMAN: CATALOG OF FOSSIL FISHES IN CARNEGIE MUSEUM. 355 



This rare form, of which but few specimens have been brought to Hght, is 

 represented in the collections of the Carnegie Museum from Cerin, by a single 

 imperfect individual, which displays the greater part of the disk and a few caudal 

 vertebrae. Both the pectoral and pelvic arches together with the branchial clefts 

 and cartilaginous rays (radialia) of both pairs of fins are well exhibited. The 

 specimen is cataloged as No. 5131. 



Subclass TELEOSTOMI. 

 Order CROSSOPTERYGIA. 



Suborder ACTINISTIA. ' 

 Family CCELACANTHIDJ^:. 



"Body deeply and irregularly fusiform, with cycloidal, deeply overlapping scales, 

 more or less ornamented with ganoine. Branchiostegal apparatus consisting of an 

 operculum on each side and a single pair of large jugular plates. Paired fins 

 obtusely lobate. Two dorsal fins and a single anal; the anterior dorsal without 

 baseosts, obtusely lobate. Axial skeleton extending to the extremity of the caudal 

 fin, usually projecting and terminated bj^ a small supplementary caudal fin. Air- 

 bladder ossified." (A. S. Woodward, I. c, Pt. II, p. 394). 



This family, first recognized by Professor Agassiz in the second volume of his 

 Poissons Fossiles (1844, p. 168), and afterwards greatly restricted by Huxley in 

 two important memoirs of the British Geological Survey (Decades X and XII, 

 1861 and 1866), is at present understood as comprising not more than six clearly 

 defined genera, among which the most satisfactorily known are Coelacanthus 

 proper, Macro-poma, and Undina. The typical genus enjoys a truly remarkable 

 range from the Upper Devonian to the close of the Paleozoic, and if the evidence of 

 one or two doubtful forms be deemed trustworthy, possibly even higher in the 

 stratigraphic column. The remaining genera extend throughout the Mesozoic, and 

 exhibit such constancy of structural characters that the group has been cited as 

 one of the most distinct and sharply demarcated in the animal kingdom. Huxley, 

 for instance, remarks upon its singular compactness and homogeneity in the 

 following paragraph: 



" The Coelacanthini, as thus understood, are no less distinctly separated from 

 other fishes than they are closely united to one another. In the form and arrange- 

 ment of their fins, the structure of the tail and that of the cranium; the form and 

 number of the jugular plates; the dentition; the dorsal interspinous bones; the 

 pelvic bones, the ossified air-bladder; the Coelacanthini differ widely from either 

 the Saurodipterini, the Glyptodipterini, or the Ctenodipterini; but, on the other 



