MOY © 1901 
THE ANNALS 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
(SEVENTH SERIES. ] 
No. 46. OCTOBER 1901. 
XXXVI.—WNotes on the Classification of Teleostean Fishes.— 
I. On the Trachinide and thetr Allies. By G. A. Bou- 
LENGER, I.R.58. 
In his remarks on the Trachinoid Fishes, in 1861 %*, 
Dr. Giinther explained that this family had been established 
by him “fer those Acanthopterygian Fishes which have the 
spinous portion of their dorsal fin much less developed and 
shorter than the soft, the anal fin similarly developed to the 
soft dorsal, and the ventrals composed of one spine and five 
rays. ‘Their gill-openings are wide and the caudal portion 
of their vertebral column is formed by many more vertebra 
than the abdominal” f. “Such,” he added, “ are the posi- 
tive characters by which they may be easily distinguished 
from the Scienide, Carangide, Blenniide, Gobiide, ‘lricho- 
notide, &e.; whilst the negative character, that of the absence 
of an infraorbital bone joined to the preoperculum, distin- 
guishes them from the Cottide. Other negative characters, 
as, for instance, the absence of finlets behind the dorsal and 
anal, the entire absence or the small number of pyloric ap- 
pendages, separate them from some of the Scomberoid genera, 
* Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (8) vii. 1861, p. 85. 
+ This latter character is incorrect so far as Uranoscopus and Chen- 
twchthys (Champsocephalus) are concerned. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 7. Vol. viii. 19 
