20 



cross without forming a network or cbiasma; the arterial bulb of the heart is simple, and pro- 

 vided with two valves at its origin; the air bladder is simply what its name denotes, never 

 becoming cellulnr or lung-like; opercles or gill-covers are always jjresent, and the body is 

 usually covered with scales, though in some cases scaleless, or with prickles or bony plates in 

 lieu of scales. This subclass comprises all those vertebrates usually called fishes, except the 

 somewhat miscellaneous group Ganoidei, of which the sturgeons are the only representatives 

 upon the coast of California; the Elasmobrcmchii, comprising the sharks and rays, wliich are 

 not generally used for food; the Marsipobranchii or lampreys and hags, the former often eaten; 

 and the Leptocardii or laucelets, the lowest of vertebrates, if indeed they are entitled to that 

 name at all. 



The Teleostei, according to Professor Gill's classification, are divided into the orders Tehocephali 

 or ordinary fishes; Nematognathi or Silurians, comprising the catfishes and numerous other tbrms, 

 chiefly fresh-water, all characterized by the presence of from four to eight long barbels around 

 the mouth, the longest a continuation of the incomplete maxillary, and with numerous other 

 characters which render them a compact group; Apodes or eel-like fishes, having no ventrals, 

 the scapular arch or shoulder-girdle free from the skull, instead of attached to it as in the other 

 orders, and an elongated, snake-like body; Pediculati, including a few strange forms in which 

 the pectoral fins are carried by elongated bones, which foreshadow those of the forelimbs of 

 higher vertebrates, and which have small gill openings behind the pectorals; Plectognathi, bal- 

 loon fishes, etc., which have the intermaxillary and maxillary bones firmly united; and Lopho- 

 branchii, i:)ipe fishes, which have their gills in snuiU tufts instead of in long comb-like series, as 

 is tlie case in all the preceding orders, and the mouth small and toothless, placed at the end of 

 a long snout. Besides these are the two small orders Sci/phophori and Opinthomi, neither repre- 

 resented on this coast. As all the indigenous Teleontei of California, ordinarily used as articles 

 of food, belong to the first of these orders, Teleocephali, it may be as well to dismiss the others 

 with a few words so as to avoid future reference to them. 



Although the order Nematognathi has numerous representatives in North America (Jordan, 

 catalogue of fresh-water fishes, pages 414-416, enumerates 28), and may be said to have its 

 headquarters in South America, not a single species is indigenous in the streams of the Pacific 

 Coast; and the order Apodes is not represented in the neighborhood of San Francisco. Here, 

 then, we have two remarkable features of our fish fauna, no catfishes and no eels in our rivers, 

 for though several kinds of fishes, both fresh-water and marine, are often called eels, they are 

 only elongated Teleocephali or else lampreys. The Pediculati are represented in Lower Cali- 

 fornia, but not in Upper California. Only a single Plectognath fish is ever brought to our mar- 

 kets, although another species occurs in the southern part of California, and the order has 

 several representatives farther south. This solitary Plectognath is the wide-spread Orthagoriscus 

 mola or sun-fish, if, as seems probable, it is really identical with that Atlantic species. I have 

 not yet had the good fortune to meet with a fresh example, but a small specimen is in the 

 Museum of the California Academy of Sciences, and a larger, about three feet long, in the 

 collections at Woodward's Gardens. In the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 

 of 1867, page 141, Mr. R. E. C. Stearns mentions the occurrence in the market of a specimen, 

 5 feet 8i inches in extreme length, and 7 feet 6 inches in width from tip of dorsal to tip of axal. 

 The small specimen, on which Dr. Ayers founded his Orthagoriscus analis, was taken in Santa 

 Barbara Channel. 



The Lophobranchii are represented in our bay by two species of pipe-fishes, Syngnathus dimi 

 diatiis and Syngnathus griseolineatus, both occasionally brought to market, but both too small to 

 be used as food, and in the more southern part of our coast by Hippocampus ingens, the great 

 Californian sea-horse, of which our museum possesses a single sj^ecinien. 



The Teleocephali include the greater part of the orders Malacopleri, Anacanthini. and Acan- 

 thopteri of older naturalises, but as Professor Jordan well remarks, "however different the 

 extremes of each (as Percoids and Ci/prinoids) jnay be, the intervening forms are too closely 

 related to render it possible to characterize them as distinct orders." 



The suborders now recognized in this large order are the Heterosomata or flat-fishes, the Ana- 

 canthini, the Acanthopteri, the Percesoces, the Hemibranchii, the Hynentognathi, the Haplomi, 

 the Isospondyli, the Eventognathi or carp tribe, and the Gymnonoti. Of the last tribe, the elec- 

 tric eels, we have no examples; the Hemibranchii or half-gilled fishes, chiefly consisting of the 

 small tribe of sticklebacks, too small for use as food, and of the Fistularians, need not here be 

 considered; and the Synentognathi or gar-pikes, and the Haplomi do not occur in our markets. 

 Representatives of the other suborders, which, after all the other classes, orders, and suborders 

 are taken away, still include far the greater proportion of the families, genera, and species of 

 gill-breathing vertebrates, are numerous here as in most other parts of the world. A noticeable 

 feature of the California fish fauna is the almost total absence of ^cawfAojo^erow.s or spiny-finned 

 fishes from the fresh-waters, which are stocked almost wholly by the Saimonidoe (a family of 

 Isosp)ondyli) , and by the Evejitognathi or throat-jawed fishes. 



ORDER TELEOCEPHALI. 



Bony fishes with terminal mouths, the maxillaries and iutermaxillaries distinct, and well 

 developed pectinated (or comb-like) gills; gill openings in front of pectorals and comparatively 

 wide; and a sub-operculum (this bone is absent in the order Nematognathi). Scales usually 

 present, and generally cycloid or ctenoid. 



