SCOMBEROIDS. 123 



the interior of the mouth ; the third on each side is a Uttle longer 

 than the rest. There is a row of very small conical teeth, on the 

 outer margin of each palatine bone ; but the vomer is edentulous. 



In the king-fishes, (Cybium), and the temnodonts, the maxillary 

 teeth are relatively larger than in the bonitos, and are lancet-shaped, 

 with very sharp points and edges. There are twenty-five of these 

 teeth on each intermaxillary bone, and twenty on each premandibular 

 bone. In the Cybium Commersonii the jaw-teeth present the form of 

 an isosceles triangle, with trenchant margins. A crescentic plate on 

 the anterior part of the vomer, a band on each palatine and nearly 

 the whole of the oral surface of the pterygoid bones are roughened 

 with close-set microscopic villiform teeth. The dentition of the 

 Scomberoids of the genus Thyrsites is distinguished from that of 

 the king-fishes chiefly by the increased length of a few of the anterior 

 intermaxillary teeth, and by the development of the palatal teeth 

 into small pointed laniaries. In the genera Gempylus, Lepidopus, and 

 Trichiurus or hair-tail, the elongated anterior intermaxillary teeth 

 present a small retroverted point or barb at the posterior margin near 

 the apex. 



In the scabbard -fish there is a row of twenty to twenty- two 

 compressed sharp-pointed teeth on each intermaxillary bone, and 

 just behind the anterior part of each row are two or three teeth 

 four times as large and long as the others, slightly bent inwards ; 

 six of these, Mr, Yarrell observes, is the correct number, but two or 

 three are generally observed to be broken. The under jaw has also 

 one entire row of teeth, with two longer ones. The vomer is eden- 

 tulous, but the long external edge of each palatine bone has one row 

 of very minute teeth ; the pharyngeal bones and branchial arches 

 are also furnished with teeth that are exceedingly minute. (I) 



In the genus Lactarius the jaws and palatine bones are beset 

 with villiform teeth ; besides which there are at the fore part of each 

 of the intermaxillaries two or four long, curved and sharp-pointed 

 teeth, and in the premandibulars a row of fine, acute, recurved and 

 closely packed teeth. There is a small chevron-shaped group of 



(1) British Fishes, i, p. 179 



