BLENNIOIDS. 159 



conical teeth which gradually exchange this form for that of large 

 obtuse tubercles ; these extend backwards, in a double alternate series, 

 along a great part of the alveolar border of the bone, and are termi- 

 nated by two or three smaller teeth in a single row, the last of 

 which again presents the conical form. Each palatine bone, 

 (PI. 61, fig. 2, b b) supports a double row of teeth ; the outer ones 

 being conical and straight, and from four to six in number ; the inner 

 ones, two, three or four in number and tuberculate. I have seen a 

 specimen where the inner row was wanting on one side. The lower 

 surface of the vomer, c, is covered by a double irregularly alternate 

 series of the same kind of large tuberculate crushing teeth as 

 those at the middle of the premandibulars. All the teeth are anchy- 

 losed to more or less developed alveolar eminences, like the anterior 

 teeth of the Lophius. The periphery of the expanded circular base 

 of the large anterior grappling teeth is divided into processes indi- 

 cative of the original ligamentous fasciculi at the base of the pulp 

 by the ossification of which their anchylosis is effected. (1) 



When such anchylosed teeth and the supporting bone are 

 divided by a vertical section, as in PL 60, fig. 2, there may be gene- 

 rally discerned a faint transverse line indicating the original separation 

 between the tooth and the bone, and more clearly defining the dental 

 from the osseous structure than in the anchylosed teeth of other 

 fishes. From the enormous development of the muscles of the jaws, 

 and the strength of the shells of the whelks and other testacea which 

 are cracked and crushed by the teeth, their fracture and displacement 

 must obviously be no infrequent occurrence, and most specimens of 

 the jaws of the wolf-fish exhibit some of the teeth either separated at 

 this line of imperfect anchylosis, or, more rarely, broken off above 

 the base, or, still more rarely, detached by fracture of the supporting 

 osseous alveolar process. 



Cuvier(2) describes the basal portion of the teeth themselves 

 as osseous epiphyses, attached by a kind of suture to the jaw, 

 and forming the medium by which the true teeth are fixed to 



(1) Cuvier has given an accurate view of the plaited structure of the base of one of these teeth 

 in PI. 32, fig. 7, of his Lefons d' Anatomic Comparee, 1805, where it is described as the base 

 of the osseous tubercle which supports the true tooth. 

 (2) lb. torn, iii, p. 113. 



