of Mount Lebanon. 245 



racters were continued in the Cretaceous and following periods 

 by the family of the Halecoids. 



Our Lebanon faunas are rich in fishes of this family ; for out 

 of fifty-one species now known, nineteen belong to it. 



Another important type is that of the Teleostean fishes with 

 serrated scales, united by M. Agassiz under the name of Ctenoids. 

 This denomination, which, at the present day, does not corre- 

 spond to an order of sufficient zoological value, may, however, 

 still be advantageously employed, in the general comparison in 

 which we are now engaged, to designate all those fish which 

 more or less approach the Perch-type in this serrated form of 

 scale, in the spinous rays of their fins, in the tendency of the 

 bones of the head to develope points, &c. 



These fishes, less numerous at the Lebanon than the Hale- 

 coids, present, however, as we shall now show, certain very dis- 

 tinct forms ; they have, however, a common uniform physio- 

 gnomy, and resemble each other much more than the recent 

 Ctenoids. Variation set in at a later period, and has gone on 

 constantly augmenting to the present day. 



The types of prickly-finned fishes which we find at Mount 

 Libanus are the following : — 



1 . The group Beryx, the singular history of which has already 

 been made known by M. Agassiz. At the present day they form 

 part of a small cluster of genera [Holocent'rum, Myripristis, 

 Beryx) specially belonging to the Indian seas, allied to the 

 Percoids by their more essential characters, but constituting in 

 that family a tribe characterized by the branchiostegal and 

 ventral rays, which exceed the normal number of seven. This 

 Bery x-^voM^, comprising the recent genus and some extinct 

 ones, is the sole representative of the Percoid family during the 

 Cretaceous period. It then existed as the first expression of that 

 family, now so abundant ; and after having then constituted it 

 entirely, now exists only as an accessory branch of the same. 



3. An interesting and entirely new type, which we have de- 

 signated Pseudoberyx. To the normal characters of Beryx it 

 unites that of having the ventrals abdominal — a circumstance of 

 rare occurrence in true prickly-finned fishes. May we not see 

 in this circumstance an indication of a rule similar to that which 

 we have established in the case of the Halecoids, and infer that 

 the first manifestations of types have in general exhibited the 

 tendency to approach the archetypal forms more than the later 

 generations have done ? 



3. The type of Pycnosterinx, already established by Heckel, 

 which in its characters approaches the family Chromidae, formerly 

 associated partly with the Labroids, partly with the Sciaenoids, 

 but subsequently recognized as distinct, and removed to the group ' 



