48 SHOULDER-GIRDLE AND BREAST-BONE. 



" endostosis," - derived when commencing from the inside of the ectosteal plate, and inde- 

 pendent when it does not take its cue from that deposit. The semi-clefts between the 

 posterior part of the brachials, as seen in AmUyopus, are not present here, the larger posterior 

 band of cartilage being as continuous as that in front. The form of the brachials (b. 1 4) is 

 much the same as in the large tropical type, the upper being sub-triangular, the lowest having 

 an elegant fringed process of outer bone, which fills an emargination in the lower edge of the 

 brachial plate ; a triangular membranous space intervenes between this part and the notched top 

 of the coracoid. 



Example 3. Gobius niger, Linn. 



This larger native species of Goby differs but little from the small kind in its Shoulder- 

 plates ; but the ossification is more intense. I am able to show its epicoracoids in situ (fig. 6 

 B. e. cr.), and to assert that, although they are but little fused together on their inner face, yet 

 they are not so free of each other as in G. minutus ; they are also thicker. 



Fam. 

 Example 1. Blennius pholis, Linn. 



The Woodcut, fig. 6 C, shows the left Shoulder-plates of the Smooth Shanny (adult), as 

 magnified ten diameters. Dr. Giinther (' Catal. of Acanth. Fish, in Brit. Mus./ vol. iii, p. 213) 

 failed to find the so-called " radius" and " ulna" in S. gattorwgine, Will. ; but this part, the 

 coraco-scapular plate, is not at all deficient in these Fishes ; it is, however, narrow, and very closely 

 adherent to the posterior crest of the clavicle. The synchondrosis between the scapula (sc.) and 

 the prae-coracoid (p. cr.) is very narrow, very much unlike what is seen in the Goby, and the 

 whole plate is much more intensely ossified. The scapula (sc.) is very narrow above, and 

 forked ; it sends backwards a pedicle for the upper brachial (b. 1), is then very narrow, but soon 

 expands to receive the next brachial and part of the lowest but one. The coracoid (p. cr., cr.) is 

 of the same size as the scapula, the pra3-coracoid forming most of it, which has the glenoidal region 

 for the lowest, and half of the next brachial. The true coracoid (cr.) is very small, and projects 

 but little forwards ; a long distance intervenes before we come to the small oval epi-coracoid 

 (e. cr.) ; its position on the inside the base of the clavicle is indicated by dotted lines. The post- 

 clavicular splint (p. cl.) is twice as strong as in the Cottoid and Gobioid Fishes. The 

 brachials are very large, and much unlike what we see, as a rule, in Fishes with large pectoral 

 fins. The 1st (b. 1) is fan-shaped, so is the next, but bent in a sigmoid manner; the two lower 

 rays are hourglass-shaped in outline ; they all have a narrow cartilaginous proximal end, and 

 distally they are soft to a great extent. They are entirely separated from each other, are more 

 typical in shape than in the next instance, and also than in the Triglce, Cotti, and Gobii ; alto- 

 gether they form a connecting link, morphologically, between the lower and higher types of the 

 Acanthopteri. 



