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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



series of more than a dozen kinds of hagfishes and lampreys, a race of fishes 

 standing near the base of the genealogical tree of the back-boned animals. 

 In one instance there is represented a hagfish attached to a trawl line, coiled 

 tightly about it, and secreting a great mass of slime characteristic of these 

 primitive "eels." A number of shark models have been prepared, includ- 

 ing characteristic examples, like the frilled shark of Japan (which, by the 

 way, is the only living type of a family of vertebrates dating from the Coal 

 Age); or the curious long-nosed shark, Scapanorhynchus, long known from 

 the chalk epoch and lately found living in the deep waters off Japan. x\mong 

 lungfishes we have now examples of all surviving forms, including a good 

 model of the South xVmerican Lcpidosircn, which breathes both by lungs and 

 by gills. The particular specimen modeled was collected during the 

 breeding season, when it develops a great number of hairlike processes from 

 its hinder fins. These are blood-red in color and serve, it appears, to aerate 

 the mass of eggs around which the fish coils. 



The rare and curious "ghost fishes" or chimjieroids, important in the 

 history of fishes, are now 

 well represented in the gal- 

 lery. We believe that hith- 

 erto no member of this 

 group has been represented 

 adequately in a museum 

 gallery, if for no other rea- 

 son than that they have 

 rarely been seen in fresh 

 condition by naturalists. 

 Of the ancient group of 

 ganoids an important case 



Tlu' skin of tlii- fish is placed in the piaster jadvct and prcsst-d into placo l).v a fliling 

 of composition 



