58 w— Description of a New Genus of Fishes. 
piercing carting, while many of the bones are entirely want- 
ing, or their places merely indicated. We commence with 
the bones of the head. 
The principal frontals present no trace of ossification, 
unless it may be a minute space, near the middle portion of 
their external border, over the orbit of the eye. Through 
any part of the upper surface of the head, with a small excep- 
tion, which will presently be mentioned, a needle passes as 
readily as through the skin on any other part of the fish. 
Along the middle of this upper surface runs a slight longitu- 
dinal ridge, extending almost to the posterior border of the 
head ; it is probably scarcely visible during life. This line, I 
suppose, indicates the division of the frontals. From its 
extremity four similar lines diverge, two passing outward and 
backward, and two others outward and forward, to the middle 
of the orbit of the eye. At the point from which these lines 
diverge, is the exception which has been already noted. <A 
small space there, irregularly circular in form, about a tenth 
of an inch in diameter, is somewhat ossified, though still im- 
perfectly. What this little space of bone represents, it is not 
easy to determine. From its position it might be the interpa- 
rietal, but the raised lines appear to denote divisions of the 
bones of the head, and as five of these lines meet at this 
point, it is not impossible that we may have here parts of the 
frontals, the parietals, and the occipital. Posterior to the 
line which extends to the middle of the orbit of the eye, we 
may have the parietals, the posterior frontal, and the mastoid- 
ean. The last two are somewhat hardened, the mastoidean 
appearing, in fact, more completely ossified than any other 
bone of the skull. 
From this notice of the upper surface of the head, we turn 
to what is a little less obscure. The upper jaw seems at first 
view to be formed of a single Straight and slender bone, but 
this is not the case. On closer examination we find both 
maxillary and intermaxillary. The pedicel of the intermax- . 
Mary may exist, but if so it is entirely concealed. The body 
