Subclass Dipneusti, or Lung-fishes 6 i i 



developed bony plates made of ossified skin and not corre- 

 sponding with the membrane-bones of higher fishes. The fish- 

 like membrane-bones, opercles, branchiostegals, etc., are not 

 yet dift'erentiated. The teeth have the form of grinding-plates 

 on the pterygoid areas of the palate, being distinctly shark-like 

 in structure. The paired fins are developed as archipterygia, 

 often without rays, and the pelvic arch consists of a single 

 cartilage, the two sides symmetrical and connected in front. 

 There is but one external gill-opening leading to the gill-arches, 

 which, as in ordinary fishes, are fringe-like, attached at one 

 end. In the young, as with the embryo shark, there is a bushy 

 external gill, which looks not unlike the archipterygium pec- 

 toral fin itself, although its rays are of dift'erent texture. In 

 early forms, as in the Ganoids, the scales were bony and enam- 

 eled, but in some recent forms deep sunken in the skin. The 

 claspers have disappeared, the nostrils, as in the frog, open 

 into the pharynx, the heart is three-chambered, the arterial 

 bulb with many valves, and the cellular structure of the skin 

 and of other tissues is essentially as in the Amphibian. 



The developed lung, fitted for breathing air, which seems 

 the most important of all these characters, can, of course, be 

 traced only in the recent forms, although its existence in all 

 others can be safely predicated. Besides the development 

 of the lung we may notice the gradual forward movement 

 of the shoulder-girdle, which in most of the Teleostomous 

 fishes is attached to the head. In bony fishes generally 

 there is no distinct neck, as the pogt-temporal, the highest 

 bone of the shoulder-girdle, is articulated directly with the 

 skull. In some specialized forms { Batistes, Tctraodon) it is 

 even immovably fused with it. In a few groups (Apodes, 

 Opisthomi, Heteromi, etc.) this connection ancestrally possessed 

 is lost through atrophy and the slipping baclavard of the 

 shoulder-girdle leaves again a distinct neck. In the Amphib- 

 ians and ah higher vertebrates the shoulder-girdle is dis- 

 tinct from the skull, and the possession of a flexible neck is 

 an important feature of their structure. In all these higher 

 forms the posterior limbs remain abdominal, as in the sharks 

 and the primitive and soft -rayed fishes generally. In these 

 the pelvis or pelvic elements are attached toward the middle 



