CHAPTER XXVIII 
SUBORDER JUGULARES 
bea ew WHE Jugular-fishes.—In all the families of spiny-rayed 
¢ a ii fishes, as ranged in order in the present work, from 
Wears) the Berycide to the Soleide, the ventrals are 
thoracic in position, the pelvis, if present, being joined to the 
shoulder-girdle behind the symphysis of the clavicles so that 
the ventral fin falls below or behind the pectoral fin. To this 
arrangement the families of Bembradide and Pinguipedide offer 
perhaps the only exceptions. 
In all the families which precede the Berycide in the linear 
series adopted in this work, the ventral fins when present are 
abdominal, the pelvis lying behind the clavicles and free from 
them as in the sharks, the reptiles, and all higher vertebrates. 
In all the families remaining for discussion, the ventrals 
are brought still farther forward to a point distinctly before 
the pectorals. This position is called jugular (Lat. jugulum, 
throat). 
The fishes with jugular ventrals we here divide into six 
groups, orders, and suborders: Jugulares, Haplodoci, Xenopterygit, 
Anacanthini, Opisthomt, and Pediculatt. The last two groups, and 
perhaps the Axacanthini also, may well be considered as dis- 
tinct orders, being more aberrant than the others. 
For the most primitive and at the same time most obscurely 
defined of these groups we may retain the term applied by 
Linnzeus to all of them, the name /ugulares. This group in- 
cludes those jugular-fishes in which the position of the gills, the 
structure of the skull, and the form of the tail are essentially 
as in ordinary fishes. It is an extremely diversified and perhaps 
unnatural group, some of its members resembling Opisthogna- 
thide and Malacanthide, others suggesting the mailed-cheek 
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