13 



CHAP. II. 



ON THE SlACROLEPTESj OR TYPICAL TRIBE OF THE ORDER OF 

 SPINE- RAYED FISHES. 



(10.) We commence with the typical group. When it 

 is considered that this vast order includes more than all 

 the other divisions of the class put together^ it becomes 

 obvious that our space will only permit a very partial 

 illustration of their relations, in addition to the ample 

 details which will be found in our general arrange- 

 ment of the class in another portion of the volume; 

 and, indeed, we shall be obliged, in some instances, to 

 give no more than analogical tables of several important 

 groups. The labour bestowed, however, upon the 

 natural arrangement of the whole, will, we hope, com- 

 pensate for this necessary brevity. We have found 

 this tribe, in fact, the most difficult to analyse, next to 

 the SqualidcB, of any in the entire class. Cuvier has 

 confessed this, and no better authority can be quoted 

 in support of our own opinion than that of so eminent 

 an ichthyologist. It is almost needless to say, that for 

 many years the natural arrangement of these groups 

 have engaged much of our attention, because that will 

 be apparent in the numerous genera and sub-genera now 

 first characterised, no less than in the analogical tables 

 which are so thickly scattered throughout this volume. 

 It is in these comparisons that, as we have been assured, 

 so many of our readers, ignorant of systematic zoology, 

 feel interested ; nor can we feel any surprise that 

 general views are more interesting to such persons than 

 those dry technicalities with which the naturalist is 



