M 



THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[EIGHTH SERIES.] 

 ^0. 62. FEBRUARY 1913. 



XIV. — The Osteology and Classification of tlte Teleostean 

 Fishes of the Order Sderoparei. By G. Tate Regan, M.A. 



(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 



The Sderoparei or Ijoricati may be defined as acanthopteroua 

 phy.soclists with anterior pelvic fins, each of a spine and five 

 or fewer soft rays, and with the second suborbital typically 

 produced across the cheek, forming a " stay " for tlie prse- 

 operculuin. The group is a natural one, and so large and 

 varied that it may be accorded ordinal rank, whilst recog- 

 nizing that the most generalized family, the Scorpjenida), is 

 not very remote from generalized Percoids, such as the 

 SerranidaB. 



Jungersen has recently expressed the opinion that both 

 the Thoracostei (Gastrosteidte) and Hypostomides (Pegasida^) 

 should be added to the Sderoparei. The osteological re- 

 searches on which this opinion is based have not yet been 

 published, and it is not my intention in any way to anticipate 

 them ; in the case of the Gastrosteidae it has long been 

 recognized that the suborbitals have the Scorpjenoid arrange- 

 ment, and they have been separated from the Sderoparei 

 mainly because the pelvic bones are not attached to the 

 cleithra j as a result of recent studies of the order Perco- 

 morphi, I conclude that this character has not the importance 

 which has been attributed to it, and I readily accept the 



Ann. d: Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 8. Vol. xi. 12 



