BONES OF LOPHIUS PISCATORIUS — MORROW. aoe 
The Ventral aspect of the vertebral column: The Axis has no 
parapophyses, but at its anterior inferior edge a rounded ridge 
for its articulation with the basi-occipital, and from the posterior 
edge of this ridge there is an upward curve, which causes 
the posterior to be in vertical height to its anterior edge 
as three to five; the curve mentioned is continued in the 
axis and third centrum, making the vertical height of the 
three named less than that of the remaining centra, and not aftect- 
ing the dorsal line. 
The centra, from the axis to the fourteenth, eradually increase, 
and from the fourteenth to the eighteenth, decrease in vertical 
height ; the remainder are nearly of the same height. It may be 
observed that while in most of the centra the conical cavities 
are of greater transverse breadth than vertical height, the reverse 
is the case in some of the posterior centra, with the exception of 
that between the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth centra. 
Between the basi-occipital and the anterior face of the atlas, 
the usual conical cavities exist, but the atlas taken by itself is 
neither amphiccelous nor proccelous, the conical cavity is found in 
its anterior face, extending deeply into the centrum, and the poste- 
rior faucet has transversely a small anterior curve, but vertically 
at its central line it has a straight surface, inclining anteriorly, 
which causes a slight difference in the length of this centrum, 
between its upper and lower surfaces, the latter or inferior as- 
pect being the shortest. The axis, which is very short, and the 
remaining centra, are amphiccelous. 
The parapophyses of the axis and third centrum are very 
minute, if even they can be said to exist; they begin to appear 
on the fourth, and continue to and upon the *ninth centrum. 
The hzemal arches are completed upon the tenth and eleventh 
centra py the coalescence of the hemapophyses. The hemal 
spines appear on the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centra, 
and following the general line of the vertetral column, each lies 
in the anterior space between its posterior heemapophyses. The 
spine of the * fifteenth centrum at its posterior extremity has a 
* This is variable, as smaller and likely younger specimens show. In one the hema- 
pophyses do not coalesce until the fifteenth centrum; in another upon the eleventh, and in both 
of the above the parapophyses continue to and apon the tenth centrum, and also these two speci- 
ee ces the curved hemal spine upon the fourteenth centrum, these fish had only ten rays in 
the anal fin, 
