394 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



process which as usual overlaps the maxilla is fused with the small mallet-like lacrymal. 

 The maxilla ends proximally in a small sculptured plate that overlaps the premaxilla, and 

 in a short stout process that articulates on its posterior surface with the vomer. The 

 alveolar branches of the premaxillae are remarkably slender in comparison with the large 

 size of the ascending and articular processes, which are received into the anterior facial fossa 

 described above. 



Passing to the branchial apparatus, we note that the lower segments of the hyoid arch 

 are remarkably large, especially the basi-, cerato- and epi-hyals. Vomerine and upper 

 pharyngeal teeth are numerous but not large, the latter forming two convex clusters of 

 which the second is much larger than the first; the lower pharyngeal teeth are numerous and 

 sharp but not large. 



The adaptive radiation of the antennarild type, as already noted, appears to have led in 

 one direction to the lophiids, in a second to the onchocephalids and in a third, to the cera- 

 tioids. But even within the antennariiform division, as recognized by Tate Regan (1912/, 

 p. 282), there are considerable differences in general habitus. Thus, as noted above, the 

 South Australian Branchionichthys shows primitive conditions of the illicium, which is still 

 a simple dermal ray connected by a web of skin with the primitive second and third rays. 

 In Antennarius lophotes, on the other hand, the illicium has a feather-like, many-branched 

 tip; in certain antennariids the third ray is greatly enlarged and covered with tough skin, 

 the surface studded with denticles, while the illicium itself is very small. A very peculiar 

 side branch of the antennarioids is known only from a single species, Tetrabrachium ocellatum 

 (Giinther, 1880, p. 45, PI. XIX, Fig. C) from the ocean south of New Guinea. Here the 

 small projecting eyes are directed upward and so is the very small transverse mouth. The 

 illicium is vestigial, the second ray is feather-like, the third very small; the spreading pectoral 

 fin is divided into a large lower part and a small upwardly-directed part; the body is much 

 more elongate than in typical antennariids. 



Lophius. — The skull of Lophius (Fig. 267) is much more specialized than that of 

 Antennarius in many details connected with the marked benthonic habitus, but the heritage 

 is evidently antennariid. I thought at first that Lophius stood nearer to the starting-point 

 of the higher pediculates than did Antennarius but, as noted above, further study has con- 

 vinced me that the opposite is the case. 



In the lophiids the fishing habits of the group attain their typical development. The 

 successful fisherman is one who knows how to sit still and wait, while keeping his eye 

 steadily on the bait, and for this congenial task the lophiids are eminently well adapted. 

 In the first place, their enormously wide heads are flattened beneath so that they can rest 

 comfortably on the sand, while the powerful pediculate pectorals and advantageously 

 placed pelvic fins doubtless enable the fish to spring suddenly upward at the critical moment. 

 As in the antennariids, the exhalent current instead of escaping in front of the pectoral 

 girdle in the ordinary way is led around through a special tunnel in the skin, which in the 

 lophiids opens in the lower axil, just behind the "fore-arm" of the pectoral fin. Meanwhile 

 the strong development of the pulsing opercular flap, together with the immense deepening 

 and widening of the mouth and throat, has caused the extension and marked narrowing 

 of the opercular apparatus into a tracker-like interopercular, a slender subopercular with a 

 forked posterior end and a narrow opercular. The branchiostegals, sharing the excessive 

 expansion of the throat, have become very long and slender, while the supracleithrum is 

 pulled out into a narrow rod. 



