2^6 



NA TURE 



\yan. lo, 1884 



the same time causes a record from an automatic tuning- 

 fork interrupter to be imprinted side by side on the photo- 

 graphic plate. In Ur. Stein's second paper, he describes 

 the use of a small Ueprez electromotor to drive a small 

 fan, by which warm, dry air is caused to circulate round 

 a Holtz machine, which by this means is always ready 

 for action. In some historical notes by Herr Holthof, 

 dealing with the early stages of telegraphy, there comes 

 out the interesting point that, so early as 1854, an import- 

 ant improvement had been made in the suggestion of 

 Bourseul for an ele^rtric telephone. An anonymous writer, 

 signing himself " L." in the pages of " Didaskalia,'' gave 

 in that year, under the title of " Elektrische Telephonic," 

 an account of Bourseul's crude notion, and added some- 

 thing not to be found in Bourseul's suggestion, namely, 

 the use of an eleciroma'jnet in the receiver to actuate the 

 disk of thin metil to which the listener was to apply his 

 ear; the description of the instrument — which, it seems, 

 never reached anything beyond an anonymous suggestion 

 — reads like a description of a Bell telephone, of which 

 it is a remarkable foreshadowing. It is remarkable that 

 Reis, who was at that time resident in Frankfort, should, 

 when using an electromagnet in his subsequently invented 

 telephone, have stopped short of the use of a disk in his 

 receiver in place of the bar armature he employed. It is 

 l-iretty clear he did not know of " L.'s" suggestion. The 

 remainder of the papers in the "Year-book" deal chiefly 

 with telegraphic and fire-alarm apparatus. The Frank- 

 fort Society is to be congratulated on the value of the 

 papers communicated to it during its short e.xistence. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



{The EdilorJoes not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[The Editor urgently requests cor> espondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to insure the appearance ez'en 

 of communications containing interesting and no"'el facts.'] 



What are the Saccopharyngoid Fishes ? 



In December of la-t year M. Vaillant c immunicated to the 

 P'rench Acndemy of Sciences a notice of a remarkalile deep sea 

 fish, to whicli he gave the name Etirypharynx pelecanoides. He 

 « as in great doubt as to the rel.itions of this form, but concluded 

 that "of all fishes it i. to Malarostcus niger," placed in the 

 family Scopelida; by zoologists, that he was most inclined to 

 a|iproximale the new type. Five specimens of a nearly related 

 form, to which Mr. J. A. Ryder and myself have given the 

 name Gaslrostomus bairdii, were obtained by the United States 

 Fish Commission steairer Albatross, in the summer and autumu 

 of the present year. The largest of these specimens is nearly 

 two feet long, and an anatomical inve tigalion reveals some very 

 remarkable peculiarities of structure, which have caused Mr. 

 Ryder and myself to differentiate the two forms, Ga-trostomus 

 and Eurypharnyx, in a distinct order of fishes to which we have 

 given the name Lyomcri. 



The Lyoneri are fishes with five branchial arches (none modi- 

 fied as branchiostegal or pharyngeal) far behind the skull ; an 

 imperfectly ossified cranium, deficimt especially in nasal and 

 vomerine element-, articulatuig with the first vertebra by a basi- 

 occipital condyle alone; with only two cephalic arches, both 

 freely movalile, (i) an anterior dentigerous one, the palatine, 

 and (2) the suspensorial, consisting of the hyomandibular and 

 quadrate bones ; without opercular elements ; without maxillary 

 bones, or ditinct posterior bony elements to the mardible, with the 

 .scapular arch imperfect (limited to a single cartilaginous plate) 

 and remote from the skull ; and with separately ossified but im- 

 perfect vertebrae. Whether other than the two genera mentioned, 

 Eurypharynx and Gastrostomus, belong to this order is not en- 

 tirely certain, bul there is little doubt, in the opinion of Mr. Ryder 

 and myself, that the family Saccopharyngida; also belongs to 

 the order, and it is for the purpose r.f caMing attention to tliis 

 doubtful and still little known type, that in behalf of Mr. Ryder 

 and myself I address the present communication. No satisfac- 



tory information has been given as to the Saccopharyngida-, 

 except by Dr. MitchiU in 1824, and bv Dr. Harwood in the 

 Philoiopliical Transactions for 1827. The plate published in 

 the volume cited represents the head of Ophiognathus with the 

 moiitli closed as w ell as open, and the differences in the relation 

 of the poterior angles of the mouth to the axis indicate that 

 Ophiognathus (as well as Saccopharynx) has a movable suspen- 

 sorium, and would therefore exliibit the Lyomerous peculiarity of 

 structure. It appears from Dr. Giinther's "Catalogue of the 

 Fi-hes in the British Museum " (vol. viii. p. 22), that in 1870 

 there were two specimens of a Saccopharyngoid fish— probably 

 the Ophiognathus ampullaceus — in the British collection. (It is 

 possible that the so-called young mentioned in thj Catalogue 

 may be a Eurypharyngoid.) The question whether that species 

 belongs 10 the Lyomeri can therefore be readily settled nega- 

 tively or affirmatively. Assuming that the family Saccopharyngi- 

 da; belongs to the order, the t«'0 families would apparently be 

 distinguishable as follows : — 



The Eurypharyngid;i; are Lyomeri with the branchio-anal 

 portion much shorter than the rostro-branchial ; with the tail 

 very elongated and moderately attenuated backwards ; the head 

 flat above and with a transverse ro tral margin, at the outer 

 angles of which the eyes are exposed ; with the palatine jaws 

 excessively elongated backwards and the upper parallel, and 

 closing against each other as far as the articulation of the two 

 suspens":orial bones ; with minute teeth on both jaws ; the dorsal 

 and anal fins well cleveloped, and continued nearly to the end of 

 the tail, a d w ith minute narrow pectoral fins. 



The Saccopharyngida; appear to be Lyomeri w ith the branchio- 

 anal portion much longer than the rotro-branchial ; the tail 

 excesdvely elongated and attenuated; the cranium unknown ; the 

 eyes antero lateral ; w iih the palatine bones moderatelv extended 

 backwards (in comparison wdih the Eurypharyngidce), and ap- 

 parently not closable agiinst each other ; with enlarged teeth in 

 one or b jth jaws ; with the dorsal and anal fins feebly developed, 

 and with pectorals small but bread. Saccopharynx is considered 

 by Dr. Giluther to con ist of "deep-sea congers," but evidently 

 it is not at all related to the congers or any other allied fishes. 



I can assure English naturalists that no type of fi-hes will 

 more fully reward investigation than the Saccopharyngid^e, and 

 it is to be hoped that some master of applied anatomy, like Profs. 

 Huxley or Lankester, may deem an examination of the specimens 

 in the British Museum worthy of their attention. A few of the 

 many remarkable peculiarities of organisation of the type have 

 been described in an article "On the Anatomy and Relations 

 of the Eurypbaryngidae," by Theodore Gill and John A. Ryder, 

 in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum for 

 1883 (pp. 262-273I, and a full monograph will appear later. 

 May we hope for information respecting Saccopharynx in time 

 to correlate it with that on Gastrostomus? Theo. Gill 



Cosmos Club, Wasbi- gton, December 18, 18S3 



The Mildness of the Season 



As the flowering of plants at this time of the year is perhaps 

 the best indication of the mildness of the season, I send you a 

 list of the plants from which I and a friend gathered one or 

 more flow ers on the 24th and 26:h inst. I have given the list 

 of each day's gathering separately. Those on the 24th were 

 gathered between this city and Hinton Charterhi use, once noted 

 for its Carthusian monastery. Those of the 26th were gathered 

 between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon, a very old town which 

 contains the remains of a Saxon church and one of the finest 

 tithe barns in England. Viator 



Bath, December 27, 1883 

 List of Plants from whicJt Flowers were gathered on December 24 



Draba verna (Spring Whitlow Grass) 



Primula acaulis (Primrose) 



Veronica officinalis (Com. Speedwell) 



Bcllis perennis {Dai^y) 



Centaurea scabiosa (Greater Knapweed) 



Ulcx eiiropieus (Com. Furze) 



Achillea millefolium (Com. Yarrow) 



Crepis virens (Smooth Hawk's Beard) 



Lamium album (White Deadnettle) 



Fragaria v sea (Wood Strawberry) 



Gathered on December 26 



Ranunculus rtpcn. (Creeping Crowfoot) 



Cheiranthus rAw7(Com. Wallflower) 



