66 



SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 



fam berycidj:. 



Form of the boch/ ohloiuj or deep, and compressed. Ei/es large. Most of the external hones of the head armed, 

 at least during youth, Kith spines or teeth. Scales large nith numerous dentations in the margin, and not ex- 

 tending over the dorsal or anal fin. Simple, pointed cardiform teeth on the jaus and, usually, on the palate. 

 Ventral fins thoracic, with 1 spinous ray and (! or more soft rays. Branchiostegal rays S. Branched rays in the 

 caudal fin l.'j at least. Most, if not all. of the rudimentary rays at the upper and lower margins of this fin, 



are spinous. 



The Berycidre occupy a peculiar position in the 

 system. Cuvikr formed them into a distinct group 

 within the family oi t\\Q Percidm. In 1837 Bonaparte" 

 formed this group into a subfamily, Holocenfrini, and 

 in 1839 Lowe' changed it into a distinct family, Be- 

 rycidce. Among these fishes we find the Perciform type 

 exhibited in its oldest known forms, as deep-sea fishes 

 with the integument well developed but Avith a com- 

 paratively weak dental ecjuipment of the jaws. In this 

 form they lived as early as the Cretaceous Period. "It 

 is a fact well Avorth our careful attention," says Agassiz", 

 "that these genera are the oldest representatives not 

 only of the Percidce, but also of the whole order of 

 Ctenoides. They are, so to speak, the synthetic ex- 

 pression of the whole order at the beginning of its 

 development, and as it appeared before it began to pass 

 through all those changes of form Avhich belong to later 

 times when life appeared in new shapes." One of these 

 traces of earlier times is the large number of rays 

 in the ventral fins, which has generally been reduced 

 in other cases in proportion as the Teleosteous type 



became marked by the changes of form appearing dur- 

 ing the course of its development. Other peculiarities 

 of similar significance appear, however, in special forms 

 of the Berycidce. One of them we find in the connec- 

 tion, pointed out b}' Cuvier'^ in the genus Myripristis 

 betAveen the air-bladder and the hearing-organ in the 

 skull, and also the contraction of the air-bladder into 

 an anterior and posterior part, points which are now 

 most general and most strongly developed in the Silu- 

 ridcE, Cyprinidce and Characinidce, all three of which 

 are to be reckoned among the less advanced develop- 

 mental stages of the Teleosteous type. Another of these 

 peculiarities is the preservation of the pneumatic duct, 

 a Physostomous character observed b}^ Kner" in the 

 genus Holocentrum of this family. 



The family includes about 60 species distributed 

 among 5 or 6 genera, and principally belonging to the 

 tropic seas. As in the preceding family, red is the 

 predominant colour of the body. To the Scandinavian 

 Fauna we can only assign one species of the 



Genus BERYX. 



Only one dorsal fin, u-ith the .spinous- rayed part shorter than the soft-rayedf Cardiform teeth on the jau-s. the 



vomer and the palatine hones. 



This genus, which lias given its name to the family, 

 is the oldest belonging to it and therefore presumably 

 shows us the nearest approach to the original type. The 

 body is fairly liigli, strongly compressed laterally, and 



thickest at the head, with fairly lobate pectoral fins and 

 both dorsal and anal fins displaying a striking likeness 

 of structure to the respective flaps of the caudal fin, 

 lieing anteriorly supported by spinous rays gradually 



" A new Systematic Arrangement of Vcrlcbrated AnimaU, Trfins. Lin. Soc, vol. XVIII, p. 207, — printed iu 1840. 

 * Sjippl. Syn. Fish. Mad., Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. Ill, p. 1, — published in 1849. 

 ' Rech. Poiss. Foss., tome IV, p. 115. 

 <* Cuv., Vai,., Hist. Nat. Poiss., vol. Ill, p. 108. 

 « Stzber. Aknd. Wiss. Wion, .XLIX (1864), I, p. 457. 



•' In other cases — in the younger typos of tlie family — the spinous-rayed part of the dersal is generally distinct as an anterior 

 lin, and is longer than the sofl-rayed part, which is of about the same degree of development as the ana! fin. 



