144 CYPRINOIDS. 



bones, and are separated by intervals usually greater than their own 

 breadth ; in their mode of development, shedding, reproduction and 

 microscopic structure, they so closely resemble, in both the Glupeoid 

 and Salmonoid families, those of the Pike, (I) as not to require further 

 description in this place. The mutual affinity of the herring 

 and salmon-tribe, is not only manifested in that part of their 

 anatomy which is described in the present work, viz : the very 

 general distribution of the teeth, and especially their location in the 

 superior maxillary bones, but is also illustrated in other parts of their 

 organization, and is regarded by M. Agassiz as of so intimate a 

 nature, that he has combined the Clupeoids and Salmonoids of 

 Cuvier into one natural family under the name of " Halecoids.'\'2) 



CYPRINOIDS. 



58. The family of Cycloid fishes, whose dental system we next 

 proceed to consider, is as remarkable for the paucity of teeth and the 

 edentulous character of the bones of the mouth, as are the Hale- 

 coids, for their general and formidable armature. It is only, in 

 fact, in one small section of the Cyprinoids that any teeth at all 

 are present on what may be considered the true bones of the mouth ; 

 these being restricted in the rest of the carp-family to the bones of 

 the pharynx. 



The exceptional genera with maxillary as well as pharyngeal 

 teeth are AnaUeps, Artedi, Pacilia, Schn., Lebias, Cuv., Fundulus, 

 Lacep., Molinesia, Less., and Cyprinodon, Lacep. ; all of which are 

 grouped together by M. Agassiz under the name of Cyprinodonts. 



In the Anableps, or " four-eyes," the intermaxillary and pre- 

 mandibular bones are furnished with delicate setiform teeth, like 

 those of the Salmonoid genus Citharina ; the pharyngeal teeth are 



(1) Cuvier cites the salmon and the pike together as examples of fishes that have teeth on 

 all the situations of the mouth where teeth can be placed. " II y a des poissons qui ont des 

 dents dans tous les endroits de la bouche ou il pent y en avoir ; tels sont le saumon, le 

 brochet." — Legons (FAnatomie Comparee, Ed. 1835, tom. iv, p. 337- But besides the pharyn- 

 geal, branchial, hyoid, vomerine, palatine, premandibular, intermaxillary and maxillary teeth, 

 (the last are wanting in the Pike), there are examples of fishes, as the great Sudis and 

 Glossodus that have in addition to all these teeth, both pterygoid and sphenoid teeth. 



(2) It is not to be understood that the Pisodus or Phyllodus, the dentigerous plates of 

 which have been described, for the sake of convenience, after those of the Glossodus, &c., belong 

 to the Halecold family, although this is probable as regards the Pisodus. 



