8 FISH GALLERY. 



specimens, either too large to exhibit in the Wall-cases, or else 

 constituting series of special interest, such as Deep-sea Fishes, 

 Eggs and Young of Fishes, &c. 



Central Exhibits. 



The Table-cases 21 and 22, containing specimens of the 

 Lancelet and of Lampreys and Hag-fishes, encountered by the 

 visitor on entering from the Bird Gallery, have already been 

 alluded to (pp. 2-6). In the same line is a third Table- 

 case (23) containing a Port Jackson Shark, Cestracion philippi, 

 four feet long, caught in Sydney Harbour in 1906. 



In the middle of this half of the Gallery, surrounded by a 

 mahogany rail, is the cast of a skeleton of the Basking Shark, 

 Selache maxima or Cetorhinus maximus, which was caught off 

 Bergen, in Norway, in May 1901, and measured 28^ feet. The 



^5^ 



Fig. 2. — Basking Shark, Selache maxima. 



principal features of the skeleton of Sharks may be studied by 

 reference to this specimen. The great jaws are connected with 

 the cranium by the upper piece of the hyoid arch called the 

 hyomandibular cartilage — a skull in which the jaws are so sus- 

 pended is called " hyostylic " (compare the " amphistylic " skull 

 of Notidanus (Wall-easel) and the " autostylic " skull of the 

 Holocephali (Wall-case 5), and Dipnoi. The characters of the 

 gill-arches and gill-rays are well shown in this specimen, as also 



