692 TELEOSTEI CHAP. 
sucker to boats or to sharks, turtles, cetaceans, and other large 
swift-swimming animals. On the East Coast of Africa they are 
employed by the natives for catching turtles, to the carapace of 
which they stick with extraordinary tenacity, being held by a 
line attached to a metal ring round the caudal peduncle.’ The 
largest Sucking-fish grows to a length of three feet. 
Division VII.—SCLEROPAREI. 
Second suborbital bone more or less produced towards or 
ankylosed with the praeoperculum (“suborbital stay ”).” Ventral 
fins thoracic. 
The “ Cheek-armoured Acanthopterygians,” “ Joues cuirassées ” 
of Cuvier, after the exclusion of the Sticklebacks, form a perfectly 
natural association, evidently derived from the Serranidae, with 
which the more generalised forms have much in common. From 
Fic. 422.—Skull of Ophiodon elongatus. sor, Suborbital stay. 
the Perch-like genus, Sebastes, a continuous series can be traced 
towards the Trigldae, especially through such forms as Apistus, 
Minous, and Choridactylus, in which one or more of the lower 
pectoral rays are detached from the rest of the fin. Through 
the Comephoridae the Scorpaenidae are connected with the 
Cottidae, whilst the latter merge insensibly into the still more 
aberrant Cyclopteridae. These conclusions, which are apparent 
enough from a mere comparison of the external characters, become 
fortified by a study of the skeletons. The passage between the 
various groups here accepted as families is so complete that: no 
1 Cf. Holmwood, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1884, p. 411. 
* This character suffers one exception, to be found in Comephorus, a degraded 
form otherwise closely related to Cottocomephorus, in which the skeleton is typical 
of the present division. 
