[Annals N. Y. Acad. Sci., Vol. XVII, No. 3, Part II, pp. 437- 

 508, PH. XXIX-XXX. 



THE ORDERS OF TELEOSTOMOUS FISHES. 



A PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF THE BROADER FEATURES OF THEIR 

 EVOLUTION AND TAXONOMY. 



By William K. Gregory. 



In the course of their teaching work at Columbia Professors 

 Osborn and Dean have realized the need of students for a brief 

 general review of the evolution of the Vertebrata, in so far as this 

 may be inferred from the hard parts of existing and fossil forms. 

 The preparation of such a work was undertaken in 1902 by Pro- 

 fessor Osborn with the assistance of Dr. J. H. McGregor, and in 

 1904 the present writer was commissioned to work up the material 

 for the section on the Ganoids and Bony Fishes. The following 

 preliminary review of these forms is published with the hope of 

 eliciting the suggestions and criticisms of ichthyologists. It is 

 largely based upon the well-known writings of Smith Woodward, 

 Boulenger, Gill, Jordan and Evermann, and Jordan, to whom 

 most of the statements of fact should be credited, and it is also 

 intended in the main to reflect the views of those authorities. 

 But many other sources are drawn upon; the method of present- 

 ation is not the conventional one, and the classification adopted 

 (after considerable reflection) is believed to reconcile the marked 

 differences in method in the American and English systems. The 

 writer is under obligations to Dr. O. P. Hay for certain valuable 

 suggestions and criticisms and to Professors Henry Fairfield 

 Osborn and Bashford Dean, his esteemed preceptors, for the 

 general methods of analysis. 



The student seeking a general knowledge of the teeming hosts 

 and almost endless structural modifications of the teleostomous 

 fishes is at present confronted by two very distinct systems of 

 classification: the American system, as exemplified in the latest 

 classification adopted by President Jordan, 1 and the new 



l A Guide to tlie Study of Fishes, 2 vols., 4to, New York. 1905. 



437 



