306 usiiKs. 



flattened more or Less, is suspended to the bone (No. 48), which I 

 have just compared to the humerus.* 



This stylet proceeds downwards along the side of the body, behind 

 the pectoral fin, and is prolonged more or less forwards into the flesh, 

 so ;is to be taken for the analogue of the clavicle; but it is directed 

 behind and seems to lie rather a. representative of the coracoid than 



of any other bone, for il is lost as it were in the llesh, having no 



large sternum to rest upon as its support, such as is seen iii the birds 

 and reptiles. Sometimes we find it joined to that on the other side, 

 and even in the genus siganus, 1 ! and that of seserinus it is very strong, 



and reaches the origin of the anal I'm. 



An equally curious arrangement is that of the genus batrachus, in 

 which the superior piece passes beyond the humerus above, and 

 becomes attached to the upper part of the spinous apophysis of the 

 first vertebra. 



In the cyprins, on the contrary, the stylet is degenerated to a thin 

 bone of a single piece, and it is wanted altogether in the eels, the sea 

 wolves, and the silnres. ] 



Bones <>f the Carpus. 



The little Hat bones in fishes, which have been compared to the 

 carpus (No. H4), adhere to the outside border of the fourth and fifth 

 bone:., which I. have just called radius and ulna (Nos. 51, 52) ; they 

 usually form a single row, and never exceed the number of four or 

 five ;§ but sometimes they are so shrunk in the middle that they look 

 like two rows. Their office is to support the rays of the pectoral 

 (No. 65), however numerous the latter may be, but with the excep- 

 tion of the first (No. »)ti), which is articulated immediately to the 

 superior bone of the arm, or the radius.(No. 52). 



ft is then the bones of the carpus, and not those of the arm, or fore 



* I believe that I was the first to speak of this stylet, in my Lecture on Com- 

 parative Anatomy, p. 333. M. Geoffroy (Annates iln Museum, vol. IX. p. .'Jfi4) 

 had compared it to half Hie fourchette of birds, the latter being, as I have, proved it 

 to be, their true clavicle, and my opinion is adopted by the greater number of 

 anatomists. Still it is evidenl that it is altogether inconsistent with the position of 

 iliis piece behind ; indeed M. Geoffroy lias corrected his opinion, and now calls it, in 

 his Philosophic Anatomique, the coracoid bone ; but he has not observed thai it is 

 almost always composed of two pieces. M. Bakker has been equally inattentive to 

 this fait, although he concurs with as in tin name of the bone; M. Van-der-Hceven, 

 on the shoulder bone, is contented with making an extract from M. Geoffroy. 

 | For this interesting observation uc are indebted to M. Geoffroy. 



\ M. Geoffroy supposes that be>di covered the stylet in the first ray of the pectoral 

 in the silures, that very ray which is spinous, and is actually united to the radius by 



a most, singular articulation, described by us elsewhere. There is, however, do 

 difficulty whatever in demonstrating, as we shall do in treating of this genus, that 

 this is nothing more than a ray, and even an articulated ray, and which would 

 appi ar to be spinous only because il ; articulations are soldered together. The little 

 bone, again, which he considers as the analogue of the stylet in silurus electricus, 

 i nothing else than the third bow ol the lore arm, of which we have spoken in the 

 preceding pane 



§ M. Van-der-H'i en, pi 67, according to M. Geoffroy, Annates du Mus. 



VOl. I.V. p. .VIS 368, slates, that the bones of the carpus are wauled in certain 



fishes, or arc confounded in them with those of the rays, l do not think that this 

 occurs in any osseous fish whatever. 



