370 



ANATOMY or VERTEBRATES. 



249 



Jaws and teeth iMijUohdcs). 



between the villiform and raduliform types. Setiform teeth 

 are common in the Fishes thence called Clifetodonts;' in the 



genus Citharina they bifurcate at 

 their free extremities ; in the genus 

 Platax they end there in three di- 

 verging points, and the cone here 

 merges into the long and slender 

 cylinder, fig. 253. 



Sometimes the cone is compressed 

 into a trenchant blade : and this may 

 be pointed and recurved, as in the 

 Murana ; or barbed, as in Tricldurus, 

 and some other Scomberoids ; or it 

 may be bent upon itself, like a tenterhook, as in the fishes thence 

 called Goniodouts.^ In the Bonito may be perceived a progressive 



thickening of the base of 

 2»'^ the conical teeth : and this 



beinor combined in other 

 predatory fishes with in- 

 creased size and recurved 

 direction, they then resem- 

 ble the laniary or canine 

 teeth of carnivorous quad- 

 rupeds, as we see in the 

 large teeth of the Pike, in 

 the Lophius, fig. 260, and 

 in certain sharks, fig. 263. 

 The anterior diverging 

 ,j,jj ^ grajipling teeth of the wolf- 



fish form stronger cones ; 

 blunting, flattening, and expansion of the 

 apex, observable in different fishes, the 

 cone gradually changes to the thick and 

 short cylinder, such as is seen in the back 

 teeth of the wolf-fish, and in similar grind- 

 ing and crushing teeth in other genera, 

 whether feeders on sea-weeds or on crusta- 

 ceous and testaceous animals. The grind- 

 ing surface of these short cylindrical teeth 

 may be convex, as in the Sheep's-head 

 fish {Sarffus); or flattened, as in the 

 pharyngeal teeth of the A\'rasse {TMbnis, fig. 25-4). Sometimes 

 tlie hemispheric teeth arc so numerous, and spread over so broad a 



' Xahri, a bristle ; uSois, a tooth. = Voivta. nii niiglc ; nSovs, n tooth. 



and by 



Tcctli (.f Lopkl.i.<ln 



