374 EDWARD PHELPS ALLIS, JR. 
that they must be palatopremaxillaries, the so-called premaxil- 
laries of certain descriptions being maxillary breathing-valve 
bones. 
Because of these differing opinions regarding these bones of 
the Apodes, I have reexamined my old material of Conger, and 
I find that the anterior portion of the maxillary bone of that 
fish has the relations to the lips and labial folds either of the 
maxillary bone of Polypterus or of the inner row of teeth on the 
so-called maxillary chain of canal bones of Lepidosteus, while 
the posterior portion of the bone apparently has the position 
of that ligament of Amia that I consider to apparently represent 
the posterior upper labial cartilage of the Selachii. This maxil- 
lary bone has, however, fused with some element of the palato- 
quadrate, that element being either a dermopalatine or a 
dermopalato-ectopterygoid, and bearing, along its ventrolateral 
edge, a row of small teeth that lie immediately internal to the 
maxillary teeth and are separated from them by a slight sulcus. 
This sulcus is continued forward between two groups of teeth 
on the ventral surface of the anterior end of the neurocranium, 
one of those groups evidently being vomerine teeth and the 
other premaxillary ones. The latter teeth are implanted upon 
a bone that encloses the two anterior organs of the ethmoidal 
laterosensory canal, and the bone so formed has fused with the 
vomer and with the anterior end of the neurocranium. There 
is in this fish, as in Polypterus and Polyodon, no trace of a 
maxillary breathing-valve. 
The conditions in the Teleostei thus vary greatly and need 
special investigation that my material does not at present permit 
me to undertake. They are accordingly here left out of further 
consideration. 
FOSSIL FISHES 
Of these fishes I have only considered certain of the earliest 
known Chondrostei and Crossopterygii, the Chondrostei being 
the order to which the Holostei, Teleostei, and the recent 
Polyodon all belong. 
A premaxillary is said by Smith Woodward (’95) to be found 
in all of the Palaeoniscidae, the earliest known family of the 
