342 BONES OF LOPHIUS PISCATORIUS — MORROW. 



11. The alisphenoids of the Lophius are largely supplemented 

 with fibro-cartilage, in their attachment to the adjacent bones, 

 and they are comparatively flat on their upper surfaces. 



12. The mastoids, which are deep, short bones, together with 

 the prefrontals, form the seat of the hyomandibulars ; upon each 

 there is a spine, and the points projecting from the outline of the 

 skull are quite short. 



13. In the Lophius I cannot find the squamosal. 



14. The orbitosphenoids are extremely small and delicate 

 membrane bones which lie beneath the posterior extremities of 

 the f rontals, immediately in front of the post-f rontals ; in their 

 structure they are very beautiful. 



16. The vomer has, in the one exhibited, at present only two 

 teeth, one in each extremity or arm, but it may have had at one 

 time three on each arm, most probably only two at the same 

 time ; the large skeleton before you has, as you will observe, 

 two teeth on each arm. On its upper side, curved backward 

 from the teeth, the vomer has a projecting bony plate forming 

 a groove for the reception of the prefrontals, and its posterior 

 extremity, as already stated, is inserted in the cavity of the pre- 

 sphenoid. 



17. The inter or premaxillaries are armed on their anterior 

 edges, to their extremities with a row of teeth ; those near the 

 median line being five or six long teeth of a character similar to 

 those on the dentary, the remainder are small but gradually in- 

 crease in size toward the extremity of the bone. On their pos- 

 terior edges there is a row or rows of teeth extending about half 

 the length of the bones, and speaking generally, decreasing in 

 size from their superior extremities. These bones are from the 

 enormous size of the gape, long and somewhat thin plates ; from 

 their superior extremities gradually narrowing for about half 

 their length, their breadth then increases and they terminate in- 

 feriorly in a somewhat (posteriorly) scymeter shaped edge. The 

 processes for their attachment to the maxiilaries and nasal bones 

 are flat, and in a line following the general line of the top of the 

 skull, but their extremities are oblique, receding from the central 

 line. 



