PISHES. 273 



The analysis of the same bones when dry, gives the following 

 results. 



Azotic matter and oil 64 85 



Sulphate of soda 18 59 



Chloride of soda 13 62 



Subcarbonate of soda 2 



Phosphate of lime, &c 94 



Total 100 



M. Chevreul is of opinion that the soluble salts are not in their 

 solid state in these cartilages, but in a state of solution in the water, 

 and what is very remarkable still is, that the liquid found in the in- 

 tervertebral cavities of this squalus has only slight traces of the sul- 

 phate of soda, whilst its cartilage consists of so large a quantity of 

 that substance. This liquid, in addition, contains chloride of soda, 

 subcarbonate of soda, and a very small proportion of oil, and the 

 azotic substance of cartilage. 



General Arrangement of the Skeleton in Osseous Fishes* 



In this place we shall consider the skeleton in those species, in 

 which it assumes its most general form, viz., the Osseous Fishes, 

 postponing to another opportunity, the examination of those peculi- 

 arities by which the Chondropterygians are distinguished. 

 f This skeleton consists of the head, the respiratory apparatus, of which, 

 the osseous frame-work is very much developed, of a trunk, which 

 comprehends the body and tail ; and by the limbs, which are the pec- 



* The osteology of fishes has been a long time neglected. There is not a sin- 

 gle skeleton of a fish in the collections of Blasius or Valentin. Cheselden has given a 

 plate of the skeleton of a Ray, but without any description (l). Duhamel has given 

 another, that of the Flounder (3). Bonnaterre has added the skeleton of a Carp (4). 

 The author who gave the greatest number of plates of fishes in the last century, was 

 John Daniel Meyer, who published the figures of twenty-four species (5). The de- 

 scriptions of all these authors, however, are quite vague and unsatisfactory (5). 

 The same character may be given to the sort of ideal form offered by Gouan (6), with a 

 description full of errors both of omission and commission ; and as to what Vicq- 

 d'Azir has stated respecting them in his Memoirs on Fishes, it is hardly complete (7). 

 It was only in 1800 that the subject began to be treated in a true scientific manner 

 by M. Auteriorieth (8). From that era we have had the various Memoirs of M. 

 Geoffroy in the Annales et Memoires du Museum, and in his large Description of 

 Egypt, which have illustrated many parts of this science (9) ; we may add the work 

 of M. Schulze in the German Archives of Physiology by Meckel (10), where several 

 good observations will be found. But the most recent ex profcsso work on this 

 subject is the Memoir of M. Rosenthal, inserted in the Physiological Archives of 

 Reil (l l), and the publication of which was followed, and its character supported, 

 by several fasciculi of plates, in which very accurate figures of the skeletons of a 

 great number of fishes are given (12). Excellent summaries on this branch 

 will be found in the Thesis of M. Van-der Hreven, De Sceleto Piscium, Leyden, 

 1822, in 8vo, and in the Ostengraphia Piscium of M. Bakker, printed the same year 

 at Groningen. M. Meckel has also contributed a very elaborate and well executed 

 summary, enriched with many original observations in his Comparative Anatomy, 

 lib. 2, p. 17 — 381, published in 1824. By and bye we shall refer to works which 

 VOL. II. T 



