ANGLER FISHES GILL. 



567 



PART I. 



Order Pediculati. 



The Pediciilates are teleost fishes, offshoots from the Acanthopteryg- 

 ians, or spine-finned fishes, and have a closed air bladder, if any, 

 the scapular arch connected with the sides of the skull, the mesoco- 

 racoid bone absent, the actinosts in reduced number (2 or 3) and in 

 typical form elongated to form false arms, or pseudobrachia, and the 



Fig. 2. — Shoulder yirdle of the Angler, showing the pseudobrachium oi- false arm with 

 its two actinosts (a), the hypercoracoid (7ir), hypocoracoid (ho), and postscapula (ps), 

 as well as proscapula or ccenosteon (c). After Mettenheimer. 



ventrals advanced forward; the ventrals, when present, are indeed 

 jugular; the skull is depressed and without a myodome or cavity 

 for the insertion of the ocular muscles, the parietals are separate and 

 throAvn to the sides by the intervention and contact of the supraoc- 

 cipital and frontals, and the suborbital chain of bones is absent. The 

 vertebral centra are well developed and separate, but there are neither 

 ribs nor epipleurals. The branchial apertures are much reduced and 

 manifest as foramina in or about the axils of the pectorals, generally 

 the upper axils, sometimes the lower. 

 88292— SM 1908 37 



