OSTARIOPHYSI 



573 



from the Upper Cretaceous of Westphalia and Mount Lebanon, 

 has also been included in this family, but the precise shape and 

 character of the scales have not yet been ascertained. 



Fam. 21. Oromeriidae. — Margin of the upper jaw formed by 

 the praemaxillaries and the maxillaries. Supraoecipital large 

 and widely separating the very small parietals ; opercular bones 

 well developed ; symplectic absent. Basis cranii simple. Mouth 

 small and toothless, inferior ; gill -opening narrow. Three 

 branchiostegal rays. Body naked. Praecaudal vertebrae with 

 parapophyses ; ribs and epipleurals slender. No postclavicle. 

 Pectoral fin inserted low down, folding like the ventrals. 



A single genus, Cromeria, recently discovered in the White 

 Nile. In its elongate, naked body and the posterior position of 

 the dorsal fin, it resembles the Galaxiidae, to which it was at first 

 referred. But this allocation has proved to be incorrect, now that 

 the osteological structure of the minute Fish (only about 30 

 mm. long) has been worked out by Swinnerton.^ The vertebrae 

 number 42 to 45 (28-30 + 14-15). A long, slender air- 

 bladder is present. 



Sub-Order 2. Ostariophysi". 



Air-bladder, if well developed, communicating with the digestive 

 tract by a duct. Pectoral arch suspended from the skull ; meso- 

 coracoid arch present. Fins without spines, or dorsal and pectoral 

 with a single spine formed by the co-ossification of the segments of 

 an articulated ray. The anterior four vertebrae strongly modified, 

 often co-ossified and bearing a chain of small bones (so-called 

 Weberian ossicles) connecting 'the air-bladder with the ear. 



This is one of the most natural groups of the Class Pisces, 

 although its members are so diversified in outward appearance 

 as to have been widely separated in the systems of older authors. 

 It is to Sagemehl ^ that is due the credit of having first grouped, 

 under the above name, the Characines, the Carps, the Cat-Fishes, 

 and the G-ymnotids, the relations of which had been realised, 

 to a certain extent, by Cope. But it was not until the homology 

 throughout the group of the ossicula auditus, first described by 

 E. H. Weber in 1820, had been demonstrated by Sagemehl that 

 the justification for the course here followed appeared in its full 

 ' Zool. Jahri. Anat. xviii. 1903, p. 58. ^ Morphol. Jahrb. x. 1885, p. 22. 



