646 TELEOSTEI CHAP. 
covers and ventral fins are armed. This species, which attains a 
length of 8 inches, is found in estuaries and fresh waters of 
India, Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago ; 
} other species occur in the Malay Archipelago, and 11 in Africa. 
Sub-Order 9. Anacanthini. 
Air-bladder without open duct. Parietal bones separated by 
the supraoccipital; prootic and exoccipital separated by the 
enlarged opisthotic. Pectoral arch suspended from the skull; 
no mesocoracoid arch. Ventral fins below or in front of the 
pectorals, the pelvic bones posterior to the clavicular symphysis 
and only loosely attached to it by ligament. 
Fins without spines; caudal, if present, without expanded 
hypural, perfectly symmetrical, and supported by the neural and 
haemal spines of the posterior vertebrae and by basal bones 
similar to those supporting the dorsal and anal rays. This type 
of caudal fin must be regarded, as I have pointed out,’ as 
secondary, the Gadidae being, no doubt, derived from Fishes like 
the Macruridae, in which the homocercal fin had been lost. The 
scapular foramen or fenestra is nearly always between the 
scapular and coracoid bones, as in the Trachinidae and several 
allied families, not in the coracoid, as in the other Acantho- 
pterygians. The first two vertebrae have no epipleurals. 
Mr. C. Tate Regan,” who has recently given a good definition 
of the Anacanthini, divides them into three families. 
Fic. 396.—Skeleton of caudal fin of Gadus virens. 
* Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (7), x. 1902, p. 295. 2 Ibid. (7), xi. 1903, p. 460. 
