470 WILLIAM K. GREGORY 



apaima gigas of Brazil, sometimes weighing 400 pounds, is more 

 or less anguilliform (Appendix I). Osteoglossum also presents 

 some approach toward the gephyrocercy of the tail fin (Ap- 

 pendix II) . More generalized short-bodied genera (Dapedoglossus , 

 Brachy&tus) are known from the Eocene. The peculiar Pantodon- 

 tidse of West Africa, also short-bodied fishes, are essentially 

 Osteoglossid flying-fishes with the pectoral fins greatly enlarged 

 and the ventrals far forward as in the Ctenothrissidae. A still 

 more aberrant member of the Malacopterygii, apparently related 

 to the Osteoglossidae, is the unique Phractolcemus ansorgii, which 

 might almost be placed in a separate suborder coordinate with 

 the Scyphophori. The mouth is edentulous, projectile, proboscidi- 

 form; the supraoccipital is in contact with the frontals; the 

 enormous interoperculars overlap below in the median line. 



The Mormyridae of the fresh waters of Africa north of the 

 tropic of Capricorn have a funnel-like cavity in the pterotic 

 region, closed by a lid-like supratemporal, possibly functioning 

 like a Weberian auditory apparatus since the air bladder com- 

 municates with the ear. Cope founded the order Scyphophori 

 chiefly upon this character, which is largely realized also in the 

 Hyodontidae or Moon-Eyes of North America. Boulenger 

 believes this group to be related to the Albulidae. The brain is 

 comparatively enormous. The Gymnarchidse are eel-like Mor- 

 myrids, and like them have a feebly developed electric organ on 

 either side of the tail. The long dorsal fin enables them to swim 

 backward or forward equally well. The West African and 

 oriental Notopteridse (Feather - backs) , which Boulenger 

 regards as "an eccentric modification of a type very similar to 

 the Hyodontidae," are of a peculiar rhomboidal shape, with 

 very long anal fin (hypocercal type, Appendix II), which 

 characters (here possibly correlated with marsh-living, partly 

 terrestrial habits) are realized to a slight extent in Dorasoma (the 

 Gizzard Shad) and more strongly in Coila among the Herrings. 



"The primitive nature of the Chirocentridse" (Sauro- 



dontidae), says Smith Woodward, 1 "has long been inferred 



from the presence of a rudimentary spiral valve in the intestine 



of the sole surviving species, Chirocentrus dorab. This family 



1 Cat. Foss. Fishes Brit. Mus., Part IV, 1901, p. vii. 



