62 CLASSIFICATION OF FISHES. 



while in the other the body is naked, and the mouth 

 vertical : these characters, however, are softened down 

 and interchanged in the aberrant examples, so that at 

 these points the two groups may be said to blend into 

 each other in so perfect a manner, that but for our 

 seeing, in Apistes and Synanchia, Pterois and Peloo', 

 what were the true types of each column, we should be 

 in no small danger of confounding one with the other. 



(64.) But that the important question should be 

 determined, whether or not the theory of representation, 

 and all our other propositions, can be demonstrated as 

 clearly in ichthyology as they have been in ornithology, 

 we shall now attempt to proceed a step further. In 

 reference to this and the last tribe of spiniferous fishes, 

 we have gone on to analyse one group after another, 

 (each smaller and more limited than that which pre- 

 ceded it), until, at last, we have come to the genera. 

 Fortunately, however, in this, as in the Ze'idcB, we can 

 advance into the sub-genera ; and, that we may not be 

 supposed to be influenced by a natural prejudice in 

 favour of our own views, we will take one of the genera 

 of ]M. Cuvier, a group which he has himself determined 

 to possess so many characters in common, as to deserve 

 the name of a genus. This group is his Apistes; we 

 shall take it, therefore, as his own, and by the help of 

 his own admirable descriptions, his no less instructive 

 figures, and our own personal knowledge of the species, 

 we shall endeavour to bring this vital question to a final 

 issue, — at least, in this class,. 



{65.) Apistks, then, according to Cuvier, is a group 

 of small-sized fishes, either naked, or with small scales, 

 possessing much diversity in general shape, but all 

 having the head more or less covered with spines, and 

 particularly armed with two, one on the suborbital, and 

 another on the preopercule. The head is not crested, as 

 in the Scorp^Eua; and the pectoral rays, instead of being 

 simple, are always branched. These are very plain and 

 tangible characters ; and we are now to determine, 

 whether, among these fishes confined by our author to 



