70 



Family Tanio'idei. Riband-fishes. 



293. The skeleton of the Scabbard-fish (Lepidopm argyreus). 



The superoccipital is smooth and convex posteriorly ; the spine begins to be developed at 

 its upper and anterior part. The paroccipitals are of great length. Each premaxillary has 

 a row of about twenty compressed lancet-shaped teeth, and there is the same number in the 

 premandibular part of the lower jaw : both are implanted in sockets. Behind the fore-part 

 of the premaxillary row of teeth there are two or three teeth much longer than the rest, 

 compressed, recurved, pointed, and slightly barbed. The anterior suborbital bone is of con- 

 siderable size. The number of abdominal vertebrae is forty-two. The pleurapophyses are 

 moderately long and slender, and articulate with the middle of the sides of the centrum ; the 

 parapophyses do not begin to be developed until the thirty-ninth vertebra. The interneural 

 and dermoneural spines are continued from the superoccipital to the end of the tail, and 

 support a continuous dorsal fin. Interhaemal and dermohaemal spines support a similarly 

 continuous anal fin throughout the region of the tail : fifty-one caudal vertebrae are preserved 

 in this skeleton. 



Purchased. 



Family Fistularida. 



2!)4. The cranium of the FisMaria tabaccaria. It is peculiar amongst fishes for the 

 convex articular surface presented by the basioccipital for junction with the 

 atlas. Hunterian. 



295. The cranium and some of the anterior vertebrae of the trunk, including the first 

 four modified and elongated vertebrae, of the Tobacco-pipe fish (Fistularia 

 tabaccaria) . Hunterian . 



296. The four anterior trunk-vertebras of the Fistularia tabaccaria. They are re- 



markably elongated, the bodies are immoveably joined together by deeply in- 

 dented sutures, and the spines and parapophyses overlap each other and form 

 three continuous ridges, constituting a firm inflexible support to the similarly 

 modified and elongated vertebrae of the skull. Hunterian. 



Family Gobiida. 



297. The skeleton of the Sucking-fish (Echencis Bemora}. 



The skull is remarkable for the breadth and flatness of its upper surface, which supports 

 the sucking apparatus. The basioccipital offers a small concave surface to the body of the 



