THE SHOULDER-GIRDLE IN FISHES. 49 



Example 2. Anarrhichas lupus, Linn. 



Morphologically the Wolf-fish is below the true Blennies ; it is more aberrant from the 

 typical Fish, and the Shoulder-girdle is in a much more arrested condition. The post-temporal 

 is not forked; the supra-clavicle is more than twice its length ; this latter bone is thick above 

 and in front ; for the greater part it is thin and extremely fibrous, and of great breadth. The 

 clavicle is a thick style above ; then the thick front part sends back a triangular plate like the 

 supra-clavicle, but with its thin fibrous margin looking upwards instead of downwards. In front 

 it is thick on the inside ; outwards it is knife-like. At the middle, behind, there is a small 

 plate for attachment to the Shoulder-girdle ; below that, and further inwards, there is a small 

 inter-clavicniar process. Below, it is rounded, and on the inside there is a scooped part, half an 

 inch high and a quarter of an inch broad, for the epicoracoid cartilage, which evidently exists in 

 the fresh state. The post-clavicle is either very small or absent. Nearly half of the scapula its 

 upper part is ossified ; it is fenestrate ; its cartilaginous part ends below in two free points. 

 At some great distance from this part is the coracoid ; its prsecoracoid part is broad, and the 

 proper coracoid very short. The brachial plate is in the same morphological condition as that of 

 Gobitis minutus and G. niger, being unsegmented, save by the double ectosteal plates and their 

 vertical fenestrse. There are four bone-plates, the upper the smallest, the lowest but one the 

 largest ; across this region the width, in an average specimen, is one inch five lines ; the whole 

 length (height) is two and a half inches, the greatest thickness two lines. 



Fam. 

 Example. Lophius piscatorius, Linn. 



This is a very low type of Fish a long way below the typical Acanthopteri. Professor 

 Owen (' Catal. Hunt. Mus.,' vol. i, p. 73, No. 309) says that the scapula and supra-scapula 

 (supra-clavicle and post-temporal) are confluent. This is a mistake ; the latter is quite distinct 

 from the former, is not bifurcate, and fits, by a squamous suture, to the occipital region. The very 

 small scapula and coracoid (the former a fenestrate bone) have, indeed, coalesced with the clavicle 

 (see' Owen's Lectures/ vol. ii, p. 121, fig. 40, 52, 54, 55). This is a Siluroid character. I have 

 also described a similar state of things in Gasterosteus. The post-clavicle (op. cit., fig. 40, 58) is 

 very slender ; there are two very long brachials, the lower much the largest (op. cit., fig. 40, 56). 

 Here is another generalised character, reminding the observer of the Crossopterygidae a 

 sub-order of the Ganoids (see Huxley's ' Mem.,' p. 23) ; and the Woodcut (fig. 1 C) already 

 described. 



i 



I now come to the Shoulder-bones of the typical Fish, namely, the higher genera of the 

 Acanthopteri and the Pharyngognathi : all these, as a rule, conform to one pattern of growth, 

 and may all be illustrated by the structures to be found in one of the least typical genera, 

 for example, Channa. I shall afterwards give an illustration or two of gentle deviations from 

 this typically ichthyic condition, and then return, by as short a route as possible, back to the 

 Ganoid border. 

 7 



