PARENTAL CARE AMONG FRESH-WATER FISHES. 477 



like, and at last all disappear and the skin resumes its normal aspect 

 for the time beijig. The adhesion of the eggs to the skin is analogous 

 to the mode of oviposition of the celebrated Surinam toad, but in that 

 animal attachment of the eggs is made to the back. 



Nothing is known of the subsequent behavior of the mother or chil- 

 dren, and of course not of the embryology. 



THE SCYPHOPHORES. 



In Africa, but in tropical and subtropical Africa alone, are found 

 numerous species which have a peculiar physiognomy by Avhich they 

 can be at once recognized and which have anatomical characters that 

 contrast with those of all other fishes. The most important of their 

 characters are shared in common with the normal Malacopterygians, 

 and therefore they may be placed in the same order; but the distinc- 

 tive characters are sufficiently important to have led some ichthyolo- 

 gists to differentiate them as a suborder, which has been named Scy- 

 phophori, or, in English, Scyphophores. 



The Scyphophores are JNIalacopterygians with a deep cavitj^ on 

 each side of the cranium between the squamosal, epiotic, and exoc- 

 cipital bones, which is covered in a lidlike way by a thin scalelike 

 supratemporal bone ; without an opisthotic and without a symplectic, 

 and with the premaxillaries united. The brain is remarkabh' devel- 

 oped. Furthermore, the opercular and other bones are concealed by 

 the skin, the branchial apertures are narrow and lateral (being in 

 front of or aboA'e the level of the pectoral fins), and the jaws are not 

 protractile. These characteristics impart the physiognomy distinc- 

 tive of all the group. The species of the group are very unequally 

 divided by structural characters, a single species being contrasted 

 with all the others. The single species is the type of the family of 

 Gymnarchids, while all the rest belong to the family of ]\Iormyrids. 



The brain of the Scyphophores is extraordinariW developed and 

 superficially very unlike that of any other fish. Some of the older 

 anatomists thought the cerebrum was like a mammal's. Allien 

 divested of its most salient peculiarities, however, it has •'■ very 

 nearly the same structure as in ordinary Teleostean fishes." The 

 chief distinction is the development of " an immensely developed 

 tuberosity of a rounded shape immediately above the medulla ob- 

 longata and behind the cerebellum," which "appears as a new develop- 

 ment superadded to the usual elements of the Teleostean brain," 

 and which was designated in 1882 by Sanders as the " tnhercu'lnm 

 imparP Another peculiarity is the development of " a fungoid 

 growth taking place from the region in front of the cerebellum: 

 we may then imagine this growth to burst through the tecta lohi 



