PLATE 67. 



NARCACIONTIDAE. 



Shoulder girdle to snout. 



Fig. 1-2. Narcacion marmoratus. M. C. Z. 42 (Page 305). Fig. 3-4. Narke japonica. 

 M. C. Z. 1114 (Page 314). 



1, 3. Ventral view. 



2, 4. Dorsal view. 



The Torpedoes form the most distinct group of the Platosomia. Aside from the electric apparatus 

 their skeletons would serve to place the family at a distance from the other families. The .shoulder 

 girdle, the antorbital and its function in the forward part of the disk, the peculiar rostral cartilages, the 

 spiracular cartilages and their supplementals, and the slender branchial rays with their rounded plate- 

 like extremities are very different from the same parts in the framework of the nearest allies. The in- 

 complete copula, CO, cp, and the arrangement of the joints of the propterygial basalia of the pectoral fins 

 also illustrate this; and at the same time the genera of the Narcaciontidae differ widely from one another: 

 — compare the elongate skull, long rostral cartilages, the anteriorly much dissected antorbitals, the wide 

 postbranchial stays, pbs, the arrangement of the propterygial joints of the pectoral basalia, and the 

 regularly articulated branchihyals of Narcacion marmoratus with the short skull, short rostral cartilage, 

 the slightly dissected antorbitals, the narrow extent of the postbranchial stays, the labial cartilages, and 

 the consolidated branchihyals of Narke japonica. 



