136 CLUPEOIDS. 



form the greater part of the superior margin of the mouth, and toge- 

 ther with the small intermaxillaries, and the slender premandibulars, 

 are armed with small, but very sharp-pointed teeth : the vomer and 

 the long palatines support similar, but smaller teeth, arranged in a 

 single series : the pterygoid, hyoid, branchial and pharyngeal teeth 

 are villiform. 



The Sudis gigas, the largest not only of the Clupeoid family but 

 of all fresh-water fishes, is not less remarkable for the number of the 

 teeth, than for the number of bones over which they are distributed, 

 the dental system is represented in figs. 4. 5 & 6, PL 48. Not only do 

 the intermaxillary (a) the superior maxillary bones (&), the premandibu- 

 lars (f), the palatine (c), the vomerine (e), the lingual (fig. 6), the bran- 

 chial and pharyngeal bones support teeth, as in many Clupeoid and Sal- 

 monoid fishes, but the internal pterygoid bones {d d) and the basisphe- 

 noid (/) have their under surfaces beset with innumerable denticles. 



The maxillary teeth are implanted in a continuous alveolar groove 

 of the bones which circumscribe the aperture of the mouth, and are 

 attached to the groove by a ligamentous union. These teeth are 

 conical, much compressed, with an obtuse apex, near to which the 

 pulp-cavity extends. The other dentigerous bones are beset with 

 numerous, close-set, minute, short, cylindrical teeth, with convex, 

 graniform summits. The surface of the tongue is formed by the hard 

 granulated dentigerous surface of the median ossicles of the os hyoides, 

 which are broad and flat ; the anterior of these ossicles is much 

 elongated ; in a Sudis gigas, seven feet in length, it measures six 

 inches in length and two inches in breadth. (1) 



In the genus Erythrinus, the intermaxillary, maxillary and pre- 

 mandibular bones are formidably armed with conical sharp-pointed 

 teeth, alternately large and small ; the palatine, pterygoid, hyoid, 

 and pharyngeal bones are beset with minute villiform teeth. The 

 rapacity of these clupeoid fishes corresponds with the power of their 

 maxillary weapons. In the stomach of a specimen of the Erythrinus 

 macrodon, brought from Brasil in spirits, and dissected byM. Agassiz, 

 he found another species of the same genus, more than a third part of 

 the length of the fish by which it had been swallowed. (2) 



(1) It is used as a rasp for culinary purposes by the Indians of the Brazils. 



(2) Spix, Pisces Brasilienses, p. 41. 



