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tempted to approximate the animal here under consideration; they 
alone present the simple arrangements of the suspensorium indicated 
above.« But the accomplished French naturalist had also just before 
postulated that »we may say that the fish presents relations with the 
Anacanthini, with certain Physostomi, such as the Scopelidae and Sto- 
miatidae, and also with the Apodes. 
As to the upper arcade of the mouth, we have no hesitation in 
homologizing its constituents with the palatine bones and denying the 
existence of maxillary (intermaxillary or supramaxillary) bones. Those 
elements are connected with the cranium in a manner which reminds 
one of their development in the embryo of a normal teleost fish. 
As to the affinities of the Eurypharyngids, in our opinion, there 
are few fishes more removed from them than the Anacanthines, and 
the Scopelids and Stomiatids (including Malacosteus) are also extre- 
mely divergent. It is true that the latter exhibit an analogous exten- 
sion of the oral fissure, but the little value of that character is evident 
from the gradation of the wide-mouthed forms of their series into those 
having normally cleft ones. Furthermore, the extension of the peri- 
stomal elements has been attained by entirely different methods in the 
two types. In the Scopelids and Stomiatids, the upper jaw consists of 
the hypertrophied intermaxillaries or supramaxillaries, and the pala- 
tines are conversely reduced, while in the Eurypharyngids the upper 
arcade of the mouth is constituted by the liberated and excessively elon- 
gated palatine bones and the maxillaries are entirely wanting. 
On the whole, the Lyomeri appear to be most nearly related to the 
Apodes. In that series we find a gradation from those forms exhibit- 
ing nearly the typical Teleostean type of structure to those in which 
the palatine bones alone form the superior arch of the mouth and 
other elements are atrophied or entirely absent. The true (not Giin- 
therian) Muraenids exhibit the greatest degree of degradation of the 
cephalic arches. But it is by no means certain yet that the Eury- 
pharyngids are derived from the same immediate stock as the Murae- 
nids. On the contrary, the evidence thus far furnished by our ana- 
tomical investigations lead us to believe that they are the offshoots of 
a primitive phylum cognate with the specialized Apodes, but far back 
in the phyletic history of those diversiform fishes. The common 
characters are rather the results of teleological modification resulting 
from analogous conditions, or rather conditions entailing analogous 
structures, than of common origin. 
In fine, the present Lyomerous type appears to be the result of 
intense specialization superadded on a primitive or embryonic general 
structure. 
