244 THE DACTYLOPTEROIDEA GILL. 



soft ray« in the veiitrals, a characteristic very rare among the acau- 

 thopterygiaus. Tiie pectorals have no free rays, but they are deeply 

 divided into two parts, an anterior of moderate length and with few 

 rays, and a posterior almost as long as the body and whose rays are 

 doubled, so that they are carried to the number of nearly thirty. When 

 this part spreads out, it becomes as wide as long, and it is by means of 

 the extensive surface it presents that the fish can raise itself into the 

 air and sustain itself therein for some moments."* Such are essentially 

 the words of Cuvier and Valenciennes respecting the Dactylopterids, 

 published sixty years ago. Instead of improving upon this knowledge 

 and obtaining truer conceptions of the forms in question, subsequent natu- 

 ralists have fallen back, and it would appear from the comparatively re- 

 cent literature that the Dactylopterids were considered to be very 

 closely related to the Triglids and the Peristediids. Indeed, they had 

 been universally associated with one or both of those types in the same 

 family until 1885. In that year I separated them as a distinct family, 

 being convinced that the characters which appeared on the surface must 

 be the exj)ressions of fundamental structural peculiarities. I was not 

 prepared, however, to find the differences between the Dactylopterids 

 and the fishes with which they had been associated so great as they ap- 

 peared on a critical examination of the osteology. The words of Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes were thus found to be applicable with even greater 

 force than they had anticipated. The Dactylopterids not only represent 

 a peculiar family, but, so different from all others are they, they must be 

 regarded as representatives of a distinct superfamily having a number of 

 remarkable peculiarities. This superfamily may be defined as follows: 



DACTYLOPTE KOIDE A. 



Craniomous fishes with the postemi)orals suturally connected with 

 the posterior bones of the cranium and with the upper surface form- 

 ing a large portion of the roof of the cranium; infraorbital chain well 

 developed but leaving a wide interval between the posterior bones 

 and the preoperculum ; the anterior or preorbital bone elongated and 

 extending backwards to and uniting with the fourth; the second and 

 third bones shoved out of the orbital margin by the junction of the first 

 and fourth ; the second depressed below the fourth, and the third much 

 reduced and manifested as a special bone (pontinal) bridging the inter- 

 val between the second suborbital and the antero-inferior angle of the 

 preoperculum ; intermaxillines with well-developed ascending pedicles 



so divisent profoud(^mcnt en deux parties, uue aiit6rieure, de longueur mediocre et de 

 peu de rayons, et une postdrieuro, presque aussi longue que le corps, et dont les ra- 

 yons sedddoubleot; co qui en porfce le nombre i\ pros de trente. Lorsquo cettepartie 

 s'^tcnd, elle devient aussi large quo longue, et c'est au moyen do la grande surface 

 qu'elle pr(5sonte que le poigson pout s'^lever dans Pair et s'y soutenir quelques instaus," 

 * See p. 3 a. 



