558 TELEOSTEI1 CHAP, 
cidence of the geographical distribution of this family and the 
Dipneusti, although, however, the latter are not known to be re- 
presented in the Malay Archipelago, “ Not only,” he adds, “are 
the corresponding species found within the same region, but also 
in the same river systems; and although such a connexion may 
and must be partly due to a similarity of habit, yet the identity 
of this singular distribution is so striking that it can only be 
accounted for by assuming that the Osteoglossidae are one of the 
earliest Teleosteous types which have been contemporaries of and 
have accompanied the present Dipnoi since or even before the 
beginning of the Tertiary epoch.” 
The Queensland species of Scleropages (S. leichardti) is known 
to the settlers by the name of Barramunda, which has also been 
applied to Neoceraiodus. Arapaima gigas is one of the largest 
fresh-water Fishes known, exceeding a length of 15 feet and a 
weight of 400 pounds. Its flesh is much valued. Sir R. 
Schomburgh has observed that the mother protects the young, 
who, for some time after their birth, always swim in front of her. 
A similar observation has been made in the Gambia on Heterotis 
niloticus by the late J. S. Budgett, who states that the Fish builds 
enormous nests In swamps, In about two feet of water: the walls 
of the nest are made of the stems of the grasses removed by the 
Fish from the centre ; the floor is the swamp-bottom, and is made 
perfectly smooth and bare. The nest appears to be used for at 
most four or five days; the newly-hatched larvae are provided 
with long external gill-filaments of a blood-red colour.* 
Fam. 11. Pantodontidae—The little West African Fish 
described by Peters as Pantodon buchholzi is the unique repre- 
sentative of a family closely related to the Osteoglossidae, but 
distinguished by the very small, single praemaxillary and the 
absence of suboperculum and interoperculum. The pectoral fins 
are very large and are remarkable for the fleshy process to which 
the inner ray is adnate; the ventrals, formed of 7 rays, some of 
which are simple and prolonged into filaments, are placed more 
forward than in any other type of this sub-order, the Ctenothris- 
sidae excepted, viz. immediately behind the pectorals. Teeth in 
the jaws and on the vomer, palatines, pterygoids, parasphenoid, 
1 On the Anatomy, cf. Agassiz, in Spix, ‘Pisce. Brasil.” p. 32; Hyrtl, Denkschr. 
Ak, Wien, viii. 1855, p. 73; Hemprich and Ehrenberg, ‘‘Symb, Phys.” Zootom. 
pls. viii. and ix. ; Bridge, P.Z.S. 1895, p. 302. 
